The sound of the sea has been a lifelong inspiration to guitarist Moro, and it is one of the reasons he has made his home on the Sonoma County coast near Bodega Bay since the early '70s.
In that tranquil setting, he has devoted his life to practicing his instrument, composing and recording in his state-of-the art home studio. The ocean, he says, opens a window of creativity for him to simultaneously discover, play and record music.
Moro (he uses only one name) has just released a new CD, ''Amilucience.'' It's his first release of new recordings in more than 10 years. Like his three previous albums (all on 12-inch vinyl LPs), it is on his own label, Budwick Music.
“Amilucience,'' a collection of 18 original compositions, was 20 years in the making. Because he insists on retaining complete artistic control of his recordings, Moro considers it a minor miracle that ''Amilucience'' has been picked up by a major distributor, is being carried by Tower Records and is getting significant radio airplay.
''Since my music doesn't obey the rules of any of the genres, only the more adventurous of the programmers will play it,'' he said.
Nonetheless, the new album is being played in five different formats -- new age, classical, jazz, folk and easy listening -- on radio stations in California and throughout the country. Those stations include KPFA in Berkeley, KVPR in Fresno and KUNR in Reno.
Because of his instrument, he's often labeled a classical guitarist. While classical, flamenco and baroque influences can be heard in his music, his meditative, melodious style has a lightness and warmth that defies categorization.
''I do wish we could throw away the categories with their respective rules,'' he said. ''Think of the marvelous variety that would blossom in our music and in our art.''
He said when people hear his music for the first time, they often wonder what kind of instrument he is playing. ''That's because the sound of guitars has changed so much since construction began on my Andalusian guitar in the 1840s,'' he said. The wood on his hand-crafted guitar is so thin that you can see the flame from a candle through it.
Moro refuses to be boxed in by the structures of traditional classical guitar music. ''In classical music, one must play essentially the works of other composers, just like Segovia,'' he said. ''And, like Segovia, one must use a 'classical' guitar of the kind Segovia used -- one with a 'boxey' sound that stifles the sound slightly.
This is how he describes ''Ramayana,'' the second cut on the new album: "It has melody inherent in it, but it doesn't pull you around like an elephant with a ring in its nose. It hints of tunes, but it has more to say than any tune can say. So you put your own experience into it -- more than you would if you were listening to a ballad. It becomes a richer experience if you will cooperate and put your imagination to work. The success of a performance lies with the listener ... the listener creates the beauty.''
Moro, who's in his early 50s, learned to play guitar at the age of 8. He spent the better part of the 1960s traveling the world as a gypsy troubadour. He had written a college term paper on troubadours who flourished in southern Europe during the 10th and 11th centuries. “They all died out after that, but I became fascinated by them and decided I would revive the tradition myself.
''The thing that makes you a troubadour,'' he explained, ''is that you use no money as a means of exchange. A troubadour sings in exchange for his room, board and travel.'' During this period, he sang for kings and maharajahs, as well as common folk. A full-page story in Time magazine described him as ''a one-man Peace Corps.''
But he changed his lifestyle because it became too demanding and he rarely had any privacy. He joined the New Christy Minstrels for a stint in the late 1960s. In 1972, he recorded an album with the London Philharmonic Orchestra. For years afterward, he lived off the royalties from one song, “Vermouth Rondo.''
In all, he has released 62 recordings in 19 countries. And he has performed in concerts in more than 60 nations.
But he has no regrets about turning his back on the commercialism and mass-marketing of the conventional recording industry in order to maintain the integrity of his music.
''Music should flow as freely as the ocean's roar,'' he says. ''If it does not, then the ocean's roar is preferable and one should just listen to that.''
(Published Dec. 8, 1995)
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