JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — In Moe Ricks’ studio, his audio board sits silent.
Speakers still.
His chair empty, but heavy.
“Whenever he [Moe] walked in the room, everything felt like five pounds lighter," artist, friend and mentee of Ricks, Willie Evans Jr., said.
Two days after, Ricks died of heart failure. Evans Jr., and fellow Jacksonville artists, Jay Myztroh, and Patrick Evan McMillan shared memories.
“When Moe showed up the energy was nuts," Myztroh said.
The easy feeling, the energy is gone,
“He was the connective tissue,” Evans Jr. said.
“Almost every band that made noise between ’98 and 2010 dealt with him in one way or another," he added.
Born in 1971, in Brunswick, Georgia, Moe moved to Northeast Florida as a child. He pursued music in college and after graduation went out to San Francisco where he had his big bang.
“Ca'Ron Marcelous was the lead he was the MC and the band was called the Big Band Theory. He [Marcelous] was writing tunes, and I was writing hooks and stuff, so he was like I got this friend named Maurice he’s out in California I got to send him the stuff that we were demoing. Moe loved it. He came home because of that band,” Evan McMillan said.
Moe came back to Jacksonville to work with Evan McMillan and the Big Band Theory, he never left.
“Moe was a perfect example of one of those people that could have gone anywhere and done whatever he wanted to do for anybody, but he chose to be here," journalist Shelton Hull said.
Hull covered Moe's rise in the local music scene.
“If you bought something his name was attached to you knew A it was a good artist and B the best possible representation of what that artist was capable of," Hull said.
In the mid 2000s, Moe continued to produce music despite health issues. In 2019, he needed an organ transplant.
While waiting for a new heart and kidney on an operating table, a flock of birds flew into a plane carrying the organs.
It caused the plane to make an emergency landing. The organs could not be preserved for Moe and he never got the heart and kidney he needed.
“That whole situation with the plane was just one of the most awful craziest things I’ve ever heard," Hull said.
But Moe never stopped caring about the music and people.
The community held a benefit for him after the failed transplant and raised thousands of dollars.
But unfortunately, he never got the heart and kidney he needed.
“With him being gone I’m always going to feel that five pounds," Evans Jr. said.
Moe’s studio will forever be heavy.