Alfred McMoore, the Akron artist who inspired Dan Auerbach and Pat Carney to choose The Black Keys as their band name, died last Friday at the age of 59. Pat's father, Jim Carney, a staff writer at the Akron Beacon Journal, has written a beautiful remembrance of the "outsider" artist he came to know as a friend. "There was no way to resist Alfred McMoore," writes Carney.
Alfred McMoore, the Akron artist who inspired Dan Auerbach and Pat Carney to choose The Black Keys as their band name, died last Friday at the age of 59. Pat's father, Jim Carney, a staff writer at the Akron Beacon Journal, has written a beautiful remembrance of the "outsider" artist he came to know as a friend.
Carney was first introduced to McMoore through his neighbor Chuck Auerbach, Dan's father, who helped the artist sell his unique drawings; the writer and artist would remain in each other's lives for the rest of McMoore's life. "There was no way to resist Alfred McMoore," Carney writes in the Beacon Journal.
He goes on to explain that, among the many messages McMoore would leave on his answering machine was this: "This is Alfred McMoore. Your black key is taking too long"—"black key" being a regular expression of his and, then, the name Pat and Dan would choose for their band. They plan to sponsor a showing of McMoore's work in their shared home city sometime this fall.
To read Jim Carney's heartfelt essay on Alfred McMoore, and for information on helping to defray the cost of his funeral, visit ohio.com.
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