ALL THIS AND MOORE: SINGER-SONGWRITER HUNTER MOORE TO PERFORM SATURDAY AT GRACE CAFE

The last time Hunter Moore played Cape Girardeau was under the black lights at the long-defunct Hullabaloo club in the 1960s. His teen-aged rock band, The Absolute, came up from Sikeston, Mo., to roar out their versions of tunes by Grand Funk Railroad and Jimi Hendrix.

As a musician, Moore has gone through some changes since then, from singing James Taylor and Carol King songs to Beatles covers to music influenced by the Band and eventually to writing stone-country songs for the likes of Kathy Mattea, Ricky Skaggs and Don Williams.

Now Moore sings and records his own songs, tunes that reflect who he is. His soon-to-be-released album consists of conversation songs based on a Robert Frost book of poetry titled "North of Boston."

He will perform at 8 p.m. Saturday at Grace Cafe in downtown Cape Girardeau.

Even before leaving Sikeston for college, Moore switched from playing in a power rock trio to folk rock. In college at Vanderbilt, he and a friend played Beatles covers, and Moore began to write and perform some of his own material for the first time.

He was a history major in college, but music was always calling his name, he says. "I didn't know if I could do it or how to do it. There was a lot of questioning. Heck, I still question it," he says.

After a one-year stint at the famed Berklee College of Music in Boston, Moore returned to Nashville and then to Sikeston, where he worked on the family apple and peach orchard to make money for his next sojourn in music. Back in Nashville, he caught on as a staff writer with the first of three music publishing companies where he wrote songs recorded by Mattea, Skaggs, Williams, Juice Newton, Alabama and lesser-known acts.

Eventually, Moore realized that the songs he was writing weren't the kind of songs Nashville was turning into hits. "The calling I felt was to go in more of an artistic direction," he says. "... My stuff became more idiosyncratic. It left me in a quandary what to do. I didn't' seem to fit in down here."

But there are other ways to be a musician even in Nashville. Moore discovered the informal folk music circuit that crisscrosses the U.S. Sometimes singers perform in a club, sometimes in a church basement, sometimes even in someone's home. In the latter case, supper might be served. The artist is assured an attentive audience and a chance to sell CDs and gets to keep most of the money.

Cousin Andy's, a folk club run in an Episcopal Church in Carbondale, is on the circuit. Moore will play there tonight before moving on to Grace Cafe Saturday.

Nancy Griffith, Lyle Lovett, John Gorka and Lucinda Williams are singer-songwriters who've prospered despite not fitting into the Nashville mold, but for most it's not lucrative.

"I have come to the point that I have accepted that I am an artist, musician and songwriter whether or not my work receives commercial acceptance," Moore says.

His two previous albums are "Departure" and the critically well-received "Delta Moon." They are available through his website, www.Huntermoore.com.

Besides touring as a singer-songwriter, Moore also works in teacher training and arts education and real estate. He and his wife, Bonnie, have two children, James 16, and Rebecca, 12.

His Christian faith is an important to him but is in the background of his songs. "I relate to some novelists like Flannery O'Conner and Walker Percy ..., people who had a strong faith, but the way it was expressed in their work was not overt," he says.

WANT TO GO?

WHAT: Hunter Moore in concert

WHERE: Grace Cafe, 119 Themis St., Cape Girardeau

WHEN: 8 p.m. Saturday

ADMISSION: $5