Biography
Huey Long’s family name seems almost predestined for punning, yet in the case of this guitarist it neatly captures the extraordinary longevity of his working life. Still active at age 100 in 2004, he operated a booth inside a Houston antiques collective where visitors could purchase vintage photographs, reel-to-reel tapes, and copies of the instructional guitar method he had authored. Rhythm-and-blues fans already knew his playing from sessions with the Ink Spots, while devotees of modern jazz could trace his crisp single-note lines on the fiery Fats Navarro dates that helped redefine the instrument inside the bebop idiom. Across a career spanning multiple idioms, Long moved fluidly between banjo and guitar according to the demands of each style.
Care must be taken not to mistake him for the Louisiana governor and composer Huey P. Long; some discographies insert the middle initial C to keep the two men separate. The musician’s own bloodline included three brothers—Jewell, Herbert, and Sam—who likewise pursued music. Although he began on piano, Long soon abandoned the keyboard for banjo and, by the middle of the 1920s, was working regularly with Frank Davis’s Louisiana Jazz Band and Dee Johnson’s Merrymakers. Relocating to Chicago in 1926, he embarked on a period of freelance employment that found him alongside bandleaders such as Willie Hightower and Mack Swain; the thicker rhythmic pulse favored by Chicago ensembles prompted his permanent change from banjo to guitar.
From the early 1930s onward his recorded work reflects that switch, and the following decade brought engagements with Fletcher Henderson and Earl Hines. While with Hines he shared the bandstand with Billy Eckstine, Sarah Vaughan, Charlie Parker, and Dizzy Gillespie. He also worked with Jesse Stone in 1933, years before Stone wrote the hit “Shake, Rattle and Roll.” Having absorbed these varied influences and refined his formal training, Long concluded the decade serving as assistant arranger and conductor for both concert ensembles and swing orchestras.
In 1944 he formed a trio that held a long engagement at the Three Deuces on New York’s Fifty-second Street. It was there that Bill Kenny recruited him to replace Charlie Fuqua in the Ink Spots, though the actual transition proved more intricate: Bernie Mackey had already assumed Fuqua’s parts, and Long’s role was to occupy the chair Mackey vacated. The guitarist’s touch can be heard on such Ink Spots sides as “I’m Gonna Turn Off the Teardrops” and “The Sweetest Dream.” In 1945 Fuqua returned from military service and reclaimed his position onstage in Kentucky, abruptly ending Long’s tenure with the group.
Long’s association with the Ink Spots did not conclude permanently. Meanwhile he demonstrated equal command of bebop on a 1940s studio date alongside Navarro, tenor saxophonist Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis, pianist Al Haig, bassist Gene Ramey, and drummer Denzil Best. Sideman work in the early 1950s included stints with Snub Mosley and the Ravens. He attempted a brief return to college, continued freelancing in New York, and later joined several unofficial Ink Spots offshoots—aggregations that featured at least one former member and performed at out-of-the-way venues unlikely to attract industry scrutiny. One such unit kept him employed at a California lodge for more than two years.
After another stretch of freelance activity in New York, the aging musician returned to Houston in the mid-1990s to be nearer younger relatives. The son with whom he had planned to reside passed away shortly after Long’s arrival. A singular figure in Black American music, he could still be found in 2004 at the Heights Antique Co-op on Nineteenth Street in Houston.
Care must be taken not to mistake him for the Louisiana governor and composer Huey P. Long; some discographies insert the middle initial C to keep the two men separate. The musician’s own bloodline included three brothers—Jewell, Herbert, and Sam—who likewise pursued music. Although he began on piano, Long soon abandoned the keyboard for banjo and, by the middle of the 1920s, was working regularly with Frank Davis’s Louisiana Jazz Band and Dee Johnson’s Merrymakers. Relocating to Chicago in 1926, he embarked on a period of freelance employment that found him alongside bandleaders such as Willie Hightower and Mack Swain; the thicker rhythmic pulse favored by Chicago ensembles prompted his permanent change from banjo to guitar.
From the early 1930s onward his recorded work reflects that switch, and the following decade brought engagements with Fletcher Henderson and Earl Hines. While with Hines he shared the bandstand with Billy Eckstine, Sarah Vaughan, Charlie Parker, and Dizzy Gillespie. He also worked with Jesse Stone in 1933, years before Stone wrote the hit “Shake, Rattle and Roll.” Having absorbed these varied influences and refined his formal training, Long concluded the decade serving as assistant arranger and conductor for both concert ensembles and swing orchestras.
In 1944 he formed a trio that held a long engagement at the Three Deuces on New York’s Fifty-second Street. It was there that Bill Kenny recruited him to replace Charlie Fuqua in the Ink Spots, though the actual transition proved more intricate: Bernie Mackey had already assumed Fuqua’s parts, and Long’s role was to occupy the chair Mackey vacated. The guitarist’s touch can be heard on such Ink Spots sides as “I’m Gonna Turn Off the Teardrops” and “The Sweetest Dream.” In 1945 Fuqua returned from military service and reclaimed his position onstage in Kentucky, abruptly ending Long’s tenure with the group.
Long’s association with the Ink Spots did not conclude permanently. Meanwhile he demonstrated equal command of bebop on a 1940s studio date alongside Navarro, tenor saxophonist Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis, pianist Al Haig, bassist Gene Ramey, and drummer Denzil Best. Sideman work in the early 1950s included stints with Snub Mosley and the Ravens. He attempted a brief return to college, continued freelancing in New York, and later joined several unofficial Ink Spots offshoots—aggregations that featured at least one former member and performed at out-of-the-way venues unlikely to attract industry scrutiny. One such unit kept him employed at a California lodge for more than two years.
After another stretch of freelance activity in New York, the aging musician returned to Houston in the mid-1990s to be nearer younger relatives. The son with whom he had planned to reside passed away shortly after Long’s arrival. A singular figure in Black American music, he could still be found in 2004 at the Heights Antique Co-op on Nineteenth Street in Houston.