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Thursday, November 12, 2026Nov 12

City Beat: Cecil Allen Moore’s songs featured in ‘Buckshot’

Tim deZarn stars in "Buckshot" as an aging country music singer-songwriter. Local musician Cecil Allen Moore wrote nine songs that have been used in the film's soundtrack. / Photo from Freestyle Digital Media
Tim deZarn stars in "Buckshot" as an aging country music singer-songwriter. Local musician Cecil Allen Moore wrote nine songs that have been used in the film's soundtrack. / Photo from Freestyle Digital Media Tim deZarn stars in "Buckshot" as an aging country music singer-songwriter. Local musician Cecil Allen Moore wrote nine songs that have been used in the film's soundtrack. / Photo from Freestyle Digital Media

How nine songs by Cecil Allen Moore came to be used on a movie soundtrack is the kind of thing that, well, they make movies about.

Moore, who used to go by “Peewee,” is one of the better singer-songwriters around this area. His honky-tonk sound is as honest and true as a gulp of corn liquor from a Mason jar, and it can cause the hairs on your scalp to sweat about the same.

Joshua Smith is an independent filmmaker living in California. When he went looking for music to include in his directorial debut, “Buckshot,” he stumbled across Moore’s music on Bandcamp. The movie is about a young songwriter who is more interested in being a star than in being an artist. He is then tasked with driving an aging honky-tonk singer to Nashville for what is likely his final show, and along they way he discovers what it means to make real music from an honest place.

photo Barry Courter

Smith reached out to Moore and, “He sent me four of his albums. I was over the moon and fell in love with his voice, and it matched the movie. I started sticking in his music as a placeholder while I was making the movie, and then they became the songs I wanted to use.”

And not just one or two Moore originals. Smith ended up using nine.