What Community Sounds Like

A night of “magic dust” dedicated to the songs and soul of Dave Moore

Dave Moore on stage at the Englert Theatre before the Dec. 11 performance of “Magic Dust: The Songs of Dave Moore.” Photo by Sandra Louise Dyas.

By Michael Judge
Iowa City, Iowa

My mother loaded up a 26-foot U-Haul and moved her five children from California to Iowa in the summer of 1977. Bob Dylan’s album “Desire” had just been released, and I can’t help thinking of her singing “One More Cup of Coffee (Before I Go)” as she left the mayhem of the Bay Area with its wild-eyed radicals and reactionaries—think Clint Eastwood’s “Dirty Harry,” the assassination of Harvey Milk, and Jim Jones’s People’s Temple—for the dark, rich soil of her native Iowa.

I turned 11 that summer, but for years—pretty much up to the age of 30—I told people I was from California and dreamed of one day returning to the Golden State and my long, blonde-haired, skateboarding roots. Now, as any loyal TFP reader knows, I’m proud to be a fifth-generation Iowan, though I still occasionally ride a longboard back downtown to get my car the morning after a late-night visit to my local haunts—The Black Angel, George’s, and the Foxhead.

Not always, but often, I run into Dave Moore at George’s or the Foxhead sometime after the kids are put to bed but long before last call. Dave—along with Greg Brown, Bo Ramsey, and David Zollo—is something of an Iowa legend: a magical singer-songwriter, guitar picker, blues harpist, and accordion-squeezer extraordinaire I’m proud to call friend, for nearly two decades now. Known for sleeping little, Dave’s usually flying solo. He orders a coffee, pulls up a chair, and says, “Hey, Judge. How you doing this evening?” He assures me he reads all my “stuff” and became a paid subscriber to TFP a while back, but still offers to buy me a drink now and then.

Born in 1951 just up the river in Cedar Rapids, he’s a tall, dark, and handsome 74—a cross between Johnny Cash and Johnny Appleseed. He’s lanky and sometimes cranky (who isn’t these days), with deep lines in his face and kind eyes that light up when he tells a story—which is always. As the Brooklyn-born singer-songwriter Kris Delmhorst said of him recently, “He’s still a hottie.”

More importantly, he’s still got that “Magic Dust” he sings about in one of the most loved and covered tunes in the Dave Moore songbook:

We need some magic dust and the magic hand
Wanderlust and the willow branch
We need some magic dust to take the rust out of love

No wonder then that acclaimed singer-songwriter Jeffrey Foucault, whose music The New York Times calls “contemporary and timeless,” named his recent star-studded tribute to Dave “Magic Dust: The Songs of Dave Moore.” As Foucault—who was inspired to become a roots musician after hearing Dave play when he was just a youngster—wrote about his mentor, friend, and longtime collaborator:

“Dave Moore represents a rich seam in the unique tapestry of roots music coming out of Iowa in the 20th century. A celebrated rack-harp and button accordion player, as a youngster Dave absorbed the blues recordings of Sonny Boy Williamson and Little Walter, learned to play country-blues guitar, and then disappeared on a series of extended pilgrimages to Texas and south of the border to study Tejano and Conjunto accordion with legends Fred Zimmerle and Santiago Jimenez Sr.

“Eventually, Dave brought what he’d learned back north, mixing it with country and blues, folk and gospel, ragtime and Tin Pan Alley, releasing three seminal albums on Red House Records, playing regularly with Greg Brown, and influencing a generation of Midwestern songwriters that includes myself, Pieta Brown, Erik Koskinen, The Pines, and others.”

Dave Moore and friends at the Englert Theatre during the Dec. 11 performance of “Magic Dust: The Songs of Dave Moore.” Photo by Sandra Louise Dyas.

Thanks to Jeffrey’s vision, tireless work, and talents as a bandleader, the historic Englert Theatre hosted Magic Dust on Dec. 11, featuring Greg Brown, Iris DeMent, Bo Ramsey, Dustin Busch, Kevin Gordon, Pieta Brown, Joe and Vicki Price, Kris Delmhorst, Erik Koskinen, David Huckfelt, David Zollo, and Phil Heywood singing their favorite Dave Moore songs. They were backed by Dave himself and joined by Jeffrey and his band, featuring Eric Heywood (Pretenders), John Convertino (Calexico), and Jeremy Moses Curtis (Booker T.).

It was a truly unforgettable evening, with magic dust sprinkled generously over every performance. Jeffrey’s band was tight as hell—full of soul, celebration, and sweet sadness—and his eloquence and depth of musical knowledge as master of ceremonies were unequaled. I’m no music critic, but I like to say there are two kinds of blues: a good man feeling bad, and a bad man feeling good. We had both that night—and more than one good woman feeling good, bad, and brokenhearted.

I know it’s a cliché, but there wasn’t a dry eye in the house when Iris DeMent opened her soul and let cry Dave’s elegiac “All the Time in the World,” a song that holds a special place in my heart, my wife’s heart, and our shared heart.

So hey little girl
I know I don’t talk much to you
Under the stars by the river
Looking up like I do for you
But tonight I need to talk
I’m gonna take a little walk
Like we’ve got all the time in the world
And we’ve got all the time in the world

Like I said, I’m no music critic, so I guess I’ll just say the evening reminded me of Emily Dickinson’s answer when she was asked to define poetry: “If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off,” she wrote, “I know that is poetry.”

Iris DeMent sings “All the Time in the World” during the Dec. 11 performance of “Magic Dust: The Songs of Dave Moore.” Photo by Sandra Louise Dyas.

It’s hard for me to separate Dave the man from Dave the songwriter. The Magic Dust tribute was a celebration of both, but it was also a testament to this land between two rivers, to Iowa City, to this amazing community my family and I call home. My mom was right. Thanks to her return to the land of her birth, my wife, son, and I are blessed with a community that loves and hurts and grieves and sings together.

Nearly 40 years ago, Dave wrote a song called “Elma’s Tomatoes” about the town in northern Iowa named after my great-grandmother, Elma Brandmill. A few weeks ago, he gave me and my right-hand man Scott Samuelson a ride home from the Foxhead at closing time. Greg Brown played my grandma’s piano and sang at a party for the International Writing Program at my house nearly 20 years ago. His daughter Zoe traveled to Japan with me and my wife. Her mother painted our son’s nursery when he miraculously joined this community. Dave Zollo was kind enough to play my 50-something birthday. My dear friend Dustin Busch played at my brother David’s funeral (thank you again, my friend). And the angelic Iris DeMent sang “Amazing Grace” at my pal Luke Benson’s father’s funeral.

Good Lord, I love this town. Good Lord, I love Dave Moore and the whole crazy bunch at The Black Angel, George’s, the Foxhead, and all the pews and barstools scattered throughout this beautiful, broken state.

Sing it, Dave. Sing it for Iowa City. Sing it for Iowa.

Sing it forever:

We need some magic dust and the magic hand
Wanderlust and the willow branch
We need some magic dust to take the rust out of love…

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