Biography
Jimmy Long earned his living on the railroads while cultivating a talent for singing and guitar playing that carried him onto radio and into recording studios throughout the 1920s and the opening years of the 1930s. Shared employment on the rails with Gene Autry was no coincidence; the two became both stage and studio partners, with Long supplying the song that served as Autry’s trademark, “That Silver Haired Daddy of Mine,” and with Autry marrying Long’s niece Ina in 1930. Long already held a position with the St. Louis & Frisco Railroad when Autry arrived in the mid-1920s as a relief telegrapher, and their acquaintance soon followed. Older and more driven at the time, Long filled his free hours with music and entertained hopes of broadcasting and perhaps cutting records; after meeting the younger, less certain Autry, the pair began performing together as an occasional vocal duo. Autry embraced the same ambitions after an unexpected encounter with Will Rogers while on duty, leading the two to appear jointly in Texas and Oklahoma. When the chance to record finally arrived in 1929, both traveled to New York and cut two sides that Long had written. Autry soon launched a solo career on disc, yet continued to work with Long on occasion and kept his railroad job for some time afterward. The marriage to Ina lasted until her death in 1980. In 1931 the pair produced one of the decade’s most successful numbers, “That Silver Haired Daddy of Mine,” which also appeared in Autry’s first film, the serial The Phantom Empire. Long stepped away from music after the 1930s.
Singles
