| |
4/25/1904 - 6/10/2009
I came
to know Huey Ink Spots Long in 1995 when I came from Fiji to teach
in Houston, Texas. We hit it off together and became best friends
throughout my stay in Houston from 1995 to 2003 when I returned home
to Fiji. Huey Ink Spots Long is a rare diamond - a precious
gentlemen who inspires love, devotion, reverence, respect and allows
one to forget the problems of this world and wing one's flight with
him in the world of music, joy, happiness and love. He has unlimited
energy and soul power. A fountain of joy and inspiration. He
inspires excellence in all things. A perfectionist who forgives
people for their shortcomings and never gives up on you. He is a
rare and precious soul whose influence lasts forever in people's
lives.
To Dear Anita:
I wish to share with you my deepest sympathy and
heartfelt sorrow on your moment of grief at the passing away of your
dear father, who has given so much to so many people in so many ways
for so long...
Thank you God for Mr. Huey Long. Thank you
Huey for your lessons on wisdom, too many to count:
- To take care of the little things
exceptionally well and the big things will take care of
themselves;
- To be happy no matter what;
- To be steadfast no matter what;
- To be persistent, no matter what;
- To smile all life long, no matter what;
- To be a soulmate to all;
- To be genuine;
- To be kind;
- To be gentle;
- To give and to receive graciouly;
- To be who you really are;
- To believe in the goodness of others;
- To be trusting;
- To take chances;
- To be hopeful;
- To never give up a noble dream no matter
how daunting;
- To be a friend to all, the high and the low
and the in betweens;
- To manage your life, resources and time
like a business - professionally and responsibly;
- To be steady, stable and calm and accepting
of all situations and circumstances that life brings your way;
- To be accepting of all people;
- Never to burn any bridges;
- To be infinitely patient;
- That all your dreams will come true;
- That beauty and joy are the only true
realities;
- That every human soul has something
precious to contribute to your life;
- That people are the most important
treasures on earth;
- That there is much much more to a person
than meets the eye;
- To be orderly;
- To be happy;
- To be self sufficient;
- To be good;
- To be appreciative of every moment;
- To do the right thing;
- To do things right.
God brought Huey into my life as a friend,
co-worker, teacher, guide, advisor, confidante, devotee at the most
excellent stage of his life - in his early 90's.
To have such a deep and beautiful wellspring
of memories of Huey in the core of my heart - to remember whenever I
choose to and to nourish my soul with such a sweet and beautiful
life, is the priceless gift that Mr. Huey (Ink Spot) Long has given
to me and may His Soul Rest in Peace even though he will live on as
long as I do.
Tavenisa Diri
|
On
July 19, 2009, a memorial service was held in Suva, Fiji Islands,
for Huey Long sharing food, readings from the various published
information about his life, viewing an exhibition of his
photographs, and and reading from the sacred writings. |
1904 HUEY LONG 2009
Ink Spots
guitarist was ‘such a heavy cat’
By ALLAN TURNER Copyright 2009 Houston Chronicle
June 11, 2009,
9:41PM
Sealy-born jazz guitarist
Huey Long, who performed and recorded with seminal jazz musicians
ranging from Lil Armstrong to Fletcher Henderson before joining
the Ink Spots in 1945, died Wednesday in Houston. He was 105.
Long’s career encompassed
stints as sideman, band leader, arranger and music teacher. He was
equally at home on the piano or banjo, although the guitar
remained his instrument of choice, said his daughter, Houston
vocalist Anita Long.
“Daddy was always, like,
intense,” she said. “He was such a heavy cat, right? I was a
singer, and he would accompany me. You had to stay on your p’s and
q’s all the time. Daddy was just a privilege. He was such an
amazing man.”
Long’s first encounter with
professional musicians came as a teen when a group of minstrels
visited his home town, his daughter said. Long took up the banjo,
working odd jobs in Houston before joining the Frank Davis
Louisiana Jazz Band in the mid-1920s.
Switching to guitar in the
1930s, Long migrated to Chicago, where he was a sideman in a
number of bands. In that decade he recorded with pianist Armstrong
on the Decca label. Long joined Henderson’s orchestra in 1942 at
Chicago’s Grand Terrace Ballroom, then moved to New York with the
famed leader in 1943.
For a time, he played with
Earl Hines’ big band, a group that also featured future be-bop
titans John “Dizzy” Gillespie and Charlie Parker.
Long was leading a trio on
New York’s 52nd Street in 1945 when he was invited by vocalist
Bill Kinney to join the immensely popular Ink Spots.
With their smooth harmonies
and popular tunes, the black group was one of the first successful
cross-over groups appealing to white listeners, said Houston
cultural historian Mack McCormick.
“It was a marvelous
organization, and he was a part of it and made a contribution,”
McCormick said.
In five sessions, Long and
the group recorded favorites such as If I Didn’t Care, Java Java
and Street of Dreams.
An avid teacher
After the war, Long
performed with saxophonist Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis, fronted his own
combo and enrolled in a California university to study music. In
the 1960s, he lead a revived version of the Ink Spots.
In the 1970s, Long’s career
reached its apex as he established a studio in New York City to
teach guitar, his daughter said.
“I remember people from all
over the world coming just to take lessons,” she said. “He really
enjoyed teaching. It was something he fully had control over. When
he was with those other groups, he was just one of many
musicians.”
In later years, as arthritis
stiffened his fingers, Long taught himself to play the piano.
Anita Long said her father
was a steadfast supporter of her singing, a talent she sometimes
doubted she possessed.
“I always had my subtle
insecurities; I’d stop on and off,” she said. “He finally told me,
‘Let your voice come out. Sing the way you sing.’”
Anita Long was with her
father on his final day.
“Even at the bedside
yesterday I was singing to him,” she said. “It was a broken,
tearful singing, but it was something I know he wanted to hear. I
sang If I Didn’t Care by the Ink Spots and Amazing Grace.
“He wanted those old
spiritual ballads.”
Funeral arrangements for
Long are pending.
allan.turner@chron.com
|
Huey Long played Dixieland, swing and bebop
jazz, along with making other musical detours. |
On
July 19, 2009, a memorial service was held in Suva, Fiji Islands,
for Huey Long sharing food, readings from the various published
information about his life, viewing an exhibition of his
photographs, and and reading from the sacred writings. |
1904 HUEY LONG 2009
Ink Spots
guitarist was ‘such a heavy cat’
By ALLAN TURNER Copyright 2009 Houston Chronicle
June 11, 2009,
9:41PM
Sealy-born jazz guitarist
Huey Long, who performed and recorded with seminal jazz musicians
ranging from Lil Armstrong to Fletcher Henderson before joining
the Ink Spots in 1945, died Wednesday in Houston. He was 105.
Long’s career encompassed
stints as sideman, band leader, arranger and music teacher. He was
equally at home on the piano or banjo, although the guitar
remained his instrument of choice, said his daughter, Houston
vocalist Anita Long.
“Daddy was always, like,
intense,” she said. “He was such a heavy cat, right? I was a
singer, and he would accompany me. You had to stay on your p’s and
q’s all the time. Daddy was just a privilege. He was such an
amazing man.”
Long’s first encounter with
professional musicians came as a teen when a group of minstrels
visited his home town, his daughter said. Long took up the banjo,
working odd jobs in Houston before joining the Frank Davis
Louisiana Jazz Band in the mid-1920s.
Switching to guitar in the
1930s, Long migrated to Chicago, where he was a sideman in a
number of bands. In that decade he recorded with pianist Armstrong
on the Decca label. Long joined Henderson’s orchestra in 1942 at
Chicago’s Grand Terrace Ballroom, then moved to New York with the
famed leader in 1943.
For a time, he played with
Earl Hines’ big band, a group that also featured future be-bop
titans John “Dizzy” Gillespie and Charlie Parker.
Long was leading a trio on
New York’s 52nd Street in 1945 when he was invited by vocalist
Bill Kinney to join the immensely popular Ink Spots.
With their smooth harmonies
and popular tunes, the black group was one of the first successful
cross-over groups appealing to white listeners, said Houston
cultural historian Mack McCormick.
“It was a marvelous
organization, and he was a part of it and made a contribution,”
McCormick said.
In five sessions, Long and
the group recorded favorites such as If I Didn’t Care, Java Java
and Street of Dreams.
An avid teacher
After the war, Long
performed with saxophonist Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis, fronted his own
combo and enrolled in a California university to study music. In
the 1960s, he lead a revived version of the Ink Spots.
In the 1970s, Long’s career
reached its apex as he established a studio in New York City to
teach guitar, his daughter said.
“I remember people from all
over the world coming just to take lessons,” she said. “He really
enjoyed teaching. It was something he fully had control over. When
he was with those other groups, he was just one of many
musicians.”
In later years, as arthritis
stiffened his fingers, Long taught himself to play the piano.
Anita Long said her father
was a steadfast supporter of her singing, a talent she sometimes
doubted she possessed.
“I always had my subtle
insecurities; I’d stop on and off,” she said. “He finally told me,
‘Let your voice come out. Sing the way you sing.’”
Anita Long was with her
father on his final day.
“Even at the bedside
yesterday I was singing to him,” she said. “It was a broken,
tearful singing, but it was something I know he wanted to hear. I
sang If I Didn’t Care by the Ink Spots and Amazing Grace.
“He wanted those old
spiritual ballads.”
Funeral arrangements for
Long are pending.
allan.turner@chron.com
|
Huey Long played Dixieland, swing and bebop
jazz, along with making other musical detours. |
June 13, 2009 - The New York
Times
Huey Long, Guitarist for Ink
Spots, Dies at 105
Frank Davis and his Louisiana
Jazz Band were booked to play at the Rice Hotel in Houston in
1925. The banjo player never showed. For Huey Long, who shined
shoes outside the hotel and occasionally got onstage to announce
the bands, this was the unmistakable sound of opportunity
knocking. Putting down his ukulele, he ran out to a music store,
got a banjo on credit and stepped into the breach.
And so began an 80-year
career in jazz and popular music. For the rest of the century Mr.
Long, who took up the guitar in 1933, performed with an extensive
list of greats in a journey that began with Dixieland, moved into
swing and jumped forward to bebop. Along the way, he spent nine
months in 1945 as a guitarist and singer with the Ink Spots, the
enormously popular and influential vocal quartet that paved the
way for rhythm and blues and rock ’n’ roll.
He died on Wednesday
in Houston, the last surviving
Ink Spot
from the days when the group still had some of its original
members. He was 105.
The death was confirmed by
his daughter, Anita Long.
On the extended timeline of
Mr. Long’s career, his tenure with the Ink Spots takes up no more
than a couple of inches, but he joined the group in its heyday. In
early 1945, while playing with his own trio at the Three Deuces on
52nd Street in Manhattan, he was approached by Bill Kenny, one of
the earliest Ink Spots and the group’s signature voice. Kenny
wanted him to replace their guitarist, Bernie Mackey, who was
filling in for Charlie Fuqua, an original member who was doing
military service.
In late March Mr. Long,
providing guitar accompaniment and vocal support, appeared as an
Ink Spot at Detroit’s Paradise Theater. He also recorded several
songs with the group, including “I’m Gonna Turn Off the
Teardrops,” “I’ll Lose a Friend Tomorrow,” “The Sweetest Dream”
and “Just for Me.”
When Mr. Fuqua reappeared
unexpectedly in October, Mr. Long was suddenly an ex-Ink Spot. But
his career rolled on.
Mr. Long was born in Sealy,
Tex., a farm town about 20 miles west of Houston. His brother Sam
played ragtime piano, and Huey picked up the chords on his
ukulele. After he finished his adventure with the Louisiana Jazz
Band, a visiting aunt took him back to Chicago, intent on getting
him some music lessons and starting him out in nightclubs.
In 1933 he switched to
guitar to perform with Texas Guinan’s Cuban Orchestra at the
World’s Fair in Chicago. The city was a hotbed of jazz, and Mr.
Long, who developed a deft hand at constructing chordal solos,
found himself in demand as a studio musician. In 1935 and 1936 he
recorded sessions for Decca Records with the pianist Richard M.
Jones’s Jazz Wizards and the pianist Lil Armstrong and Her Swing
Orchestra, including her signature tune, “Just for a Thrill.” He
went on to perform and do arrangements for the trumpeter Zilner
Randolph’s W.P.A. Concert and Swing Band.
It was a colorful period.
“If you were an entertainer in Chicago, you worked for the
gangsters,” he told The Journal of Longevity in 2006. “After
midnight they would close a club to the public for a party.
Generous and friendly, they threw large bills on the stage as some
sort of status symbol. When they left, you counted it, and it was
always more than enough.”
Fletcher Henderson
hired Mr. Long to play with his orchestra at the Grand Terrace
Cafe and later took him to New York, where the simmering bebop
movement propelled Mr. Long into a new phase. He joined the
pianist Earl Hines’s orchestra and performed with emerging stars
like Billy Eckstine, Sarah Vaughan,
Charlie Parker
and
Dizzy Gillespie
before forming his own trio and then taking a detour with the Ink
Spots.
After playing with the
saxophonist Eddie (Lockjaw) Davis’s Be-Boppers, he formed a new
trio of his own and entertained American troops in Korea and Japan
as part of a U.S.O. tour.
Mr. Long briefly attended
Los Angeles City College in pursuit of a teaching certificate but
grew homesick and returned to New York. The Ink Spots, in the
meantime, had broken up, spawning a host of groups using the name,
some with no connection to the original group. In the early 1960s
Mr. Long formed his own version of the Ink Spots and performed
with them in California for two years before returning to New
York, where he set up a teaching studio in an apartment in the CBS
Building. The studio developed into a small school, which he moved
to Broadway and 52nd Street.
In 1996 Mr. Long
returned to Houston, where in 2007 his daughter started the
Ink Spots Museum
across the street from his apartment. In addition to his daughter,
Anita Long of Houston, he is survived by two sons, Rene and
Shiloh, both of San Jose, Calif.; and seven grandchildren.
At his death Mr. Long was
compiling what his daughter described as a musical dictionary, a
compilation of the chord melodies he developed over the years. It
helped tune out unwelcome developments in popular music.
“Music is defined as sound
vibrations that are picked up by the ear,” he told The Journal of
Longevity, diplomatically. “The music of today has sound and
vibrations — heavy on the rhythm.”
|
April 22, 2008, 4:06PM
Daughter preserves Huey Long's
legacy
Musician to mark 104th birthday at area
museum
By ARLENE NISSON LASSIN
Chronicle Correspondent
HUEY Long, a former member of The Ink Spots and a jazz legend, was
recently in the news because of some legal troubles. Living on his
own at age 103 in the Heights House, 1950 Heights Blvd.,
individuals were handling his prized memorabilia and finances.
His daughter, Anita
Long, 52, was residing in San Jose, Calif., when she first heard
of the situation and she made the decision to move to Houston to
take care of him.
"No one watches out
for someone like family and I just felt this was what I had to
do," Anita Long said. "I love my father and we have always been
very close, so even though it was a sacrifice, I willingly did
it."
Despite having to
leave behind friends, family and a career in digital storytelling,
Anita Long came to Houston 1 1/2 years ago, hired attorneys and
recently regained legal control of his items of memorabilia that
were missing.
Included was a rare,
custom-made D'Angelico guitar that is 60 years old.
In June 2007, she
opened the The Ink Spots Museum at 117 East 20th St., across the
street from her father's apartment at the Heights House.
There she has
arranged photos, his autobiography, articles, music and many other
items that detail her father's storied musical career.
On Friday, Huey Long
will celebrate his 104th birthday at the museum, which will be
open from noon-8 p.m.
Music collection
"My father has
gathered a collection of music," Anita Long said. "He has things
that have a lot of history. They used to be in his apartment, but
I opened this as a tribute to him.
"This is something
he always wanted, and I am so happy he could live to see this
dream come true."
Anita Long opened
the museum in the former Clayton Lee Plumbing building at her own
expense. She opens it daily, and also runs a small boutique out of
the back.
Upstairs are an art
gallery featuring works by up-and-coming artists and her offices,
where she hopes to continue teaching at-risk youth to document the
lives of seniors in digital storytelling projects.
Her documentary work
is represented in more than 30 museums and libraries, including
the Library of Congress and the Smithsonian Institution in
Washington, D.C.
Before moving to
Houston, Anita Long was executive director and co-founder of the
Digital Clubhouse Network, a nonprofit.
Planning projects
She plans to
continue those projects. She will offer classes in photography and
photo journalism, documentary workshops, and learning labs to
teach digital storytelling.
Long also took care
of her mother, Louise Long, Huey Long's first wife, until she
passed away around three years ago. Now she is doing the same for
her father.
"He is so much more
accomplished than people might know," Anita Long said. "For
example, he has written about 80 songs, and he has written an
entire dictionary for chord melody."
Huey Long was
healthy until a broken hip from a fall made him very frail. Anita
Long said he was depressed during the legal proceedings to get his
memorabilia returned.
"People he trusted
let him down," she said. "That is very common with the elderly."
Caretaking for him
is taking up most of her time, so she can't open the museum quite
as often as she wants. She hopes to find volunteers from the area
to man the museum when she cannot.
I am hoping to make
this work, but right now it is both a financial and time drain for
me," Long said. "Still it is important to my father, so I will
work to keep it going." |
March 7, 2008, 11:09PM
Reunion is music to jazz legend's ears
End of legal battle puts instrument back
into the hands of 103-year-old
By DALE LEZON
Copyright 2008 Houston
Chronicle
Legendary Houston
jazz musician Huey Long strummed his rare, hand-made guitar Friday
afternoon for the first time in nearly a year.
A smile spread
across the 103-year-old's thin face as he cradled the smooth,
polished guitar in his hospital bed, his resting place since
recently fracturing a hip bone.
"It's so wonderful,"
said Long. "It seems more like a dream."
The reunion ended a
legal battle for the custom-made D'Angelico guitar between him and
Nancy Tankelson, a woman he said he gave the instrument to for
safekeeping. Long said he asked for the guitar back and Tankelson
refused, prompting him to file a lawsuit last week.
At court a hearing
Friday, state District Judge Ken Wise told Tankelson to return it
immediately. He also told her to return about $2,000 cash and
memorabilia as well.
Tankelson agreed.
She said she is
making a documentary film about Long and needed the guitar for
filming. She said she would give it back but wanted to use it
again to complete the film.
Anita Long, Long's
daughter, said Tankelson could use it again as long as it was
insured and handled with care.
"I'm happy,"
Tankelson said. "I want him to have the guitar."
Anita Long said her
father had told her he feared he would never see the instrument
again.
He bought it more
than 60 years ago in New York City, and it reminds him of all the
good times and bad times in his life, she said. He was able to
hold onto it even in the times when he had very little money.
According to the
lawsuit, Tankelson befriended Long in 2004, culminating in Long
giving her power of attorney. That has been terminated, said Ken
Ward, Long's attorney.
The suit states that
Long allowed Tankelson to make a documentary film about him and
helped her with it, but later he could no longer assist her.
The lawsuit alleges
that she wanted Long to travel to Austin, Galveston, New Orleans
and downtown Houston for more filming and threatened to sue if he
refused.
Tankelson, however,
said she never threatened to sue Long or asked him to travel when
he was unwell. Also, she said, Long signed a contract with her
that states she could use any of his memorabilia and materials to
make the film.
The woman said that
if she had returned the guitar she feared she would not have
access to it anymore.
The film is nearly
complete, said Tankelson of the documentary that is composed of
interviews with Long reminiscing, including performances with such
jazz greats as Dizzy Gillespie, Sarah Vaughn and Charlie Parker.
dale.lezon@chron.com
Click here for video coverage |
March 1, 2008, 12:27AM
Tribute to jazz icon
Huey Long now in discord
A 103-year-old
Houston musician lost his guitar to a woman making a documentary
about his life. He is suing to get it back.
By DALE LEZON
Copyright 2008 Houston Chronicle
A legendary
103-year-old Houston jazz musician who trusted a local woman to
make a documentary film about him is singing a different tune now.
Huey Long, a former
member of the famed musical group The Ink Spots, sued Nancy
Tankelson of Bellaire on Thursday to get back his rare,
60-year-old guitar and other memorabilia he says she refuses to
return.
"I was very close to
it," Long said of his favorite guitar. "I played it in many places
and it means a lot to me. I would certainly like to have it back."
The lawsuit, filed
in state district court, seeks the return of the items or $50,000
in damages and a minimum of $20,000 in attorney's fees.
State District Judge
Grant Dorfman granted a temporary restraining order Thursday to
keep Tankelson from selling the items. A hearing is scheduled for
March 7 to allow Tankelson to explain to a judge why she should
keep them.
Tankelson did not
return telephone messages.
"This is a real
common case with older people," said Ken Ward, Long's attorney.
"Others insinuate themselves into their lives and try to take
advantage of them."
Loss of a
lifeline
Long's daughter,
Anita Long, said the conflict has taken its toll on her father.
He's depressed and has trouble sleeping because he's worried he'll
never again see his guitar, which he has owned and played since
1940.
She said her father,
who was born April 25, 1904, in Sealy, told her he cherishes the
instrument and it reminds him of all the good times and bad times
in his life. He was able to hold onto it even in the toughest
times when he had very little money.
"The guitar is his
lifeline," she said. "It's the reminder of his talent and
everything he is in the music world. This lawsuit is something at
the end of his life he didn't need."
Anita Long operates
the Original Huey "Ink Spot" Long Living History Music Museum in
the Heights. Her father often visits with fans at the museum to
reminisce about his career, which began in Houston in 1925 after
he landed a job playing with Frank Davis' Louisiana Jazz Band.
According to the
lawsuit, Tankelson befriended Long in 2004 and "began to insinuate
herself" into his life, culminating in Long giving her power of
attorney. The power of attorney has been terminated, Ward said.
She also took
possession of $2,000 of Long's cash as well as photographs and
other memorabilia and his custom-made D'Angelico guitar, the
lawsuit alleges.
Long said he gave
her the guitar for safekeeping.
Ward said Long also
gave Tankelson $10,000 to create and have published a book about
his life entitled, The Huey Long Story. He said 1,000
copies were printed. Long has 500 of them. Tankelson has the rest.
A film
still in the making
Ward said Tankelson
and Long have completed about two-thirds of the documentary film.
It includes Long, who lives in an assisted living center in the
Heights, traveling to some of the clubs and other venues where he
performed with such greats as Dizzy Gillespie, Sarah Vaughn and
Charlie Parker.
But beginning in
2007, health problems prevented him from traveling anymore, Ward
said. He has congestive heart failure and has suffered some mild
strokes, he added.
The lawsuit alleges
that Tankelson wanted Long to travel to Austin, Galveston, New
Orleans and downtown Houston for more filming and threatened to
sue him if he refused.
She said she would
keep his money, memorabilia and guitar as "security" for his
performance in the film, the lawsuit states.
The lawsuit is
especially troubling for her father now, Anita Long said. His mind
is clear, but she took him to the hospital Friday after he fell
and hurt his hip the day before.
He told her, she
said, he feared he wouldn't come back from the hospital alive.
Friday before he
left for the hospital, he was alert and talkative in his
one-bedroom apartment and recalling highlights of his career. He
said playing spots in Chicago was one of his greatest memories.
The walls of his
apartment were covered with framed photographs of him with other
legendary musicians.
Beside his bed was a
tray packed with containers of dry granola mix, crackers with
peanut butter and dates.
He sat up in bed and
balanced a narrow electronic keyboard on his lap. He smiled, his
dark eyes twinkling, as his slender fingers slid along the keys
and he crooned Route 66.
His secret to long
life?
"You do things in
moderation," he said.
dale.lezon@chron.com
|
Biography
of HUEY LONG, An Original "InkSpot"
(Huey
Long is the last living member of the Original "Ink Spots)
Huey Long
was born in Sealy, Texas
and worked in various jobs in the Houston area until he got a break
playing a banjo in 1925's top band of Houston, Texas, "Frank Davis'
Louisiana Jazz Band." Huey played in the band with Punch Miller on trumpet
and Frank Gibbs on trombone. Later, they were the celebrated "Dixielanders".
After migrating
to Chicago,
Long
appeared at the World's Fair, "A Century of Progress" in 1933
with Texas Guinan's Cuban Orchestra,
under the leadership of violinist Clarence Eddie Moore. That's
when Huey Long had to give up the banjo and started playing the guitar.
In the
mid-30's, he
became a member of Jesse Stone's newly organized orchestra, "Chicago"
along with members AI Wynn, Bud Johnson, Scoville Brown, Willie Randall,
Gedion Honore and Jabbo Smith. In the late 30's, he was a member and assistant
arranger and conductor to Zilner Randolph, who had the WPA Concert and
Swing Band, which included jazz stars Preston Jackson and Franz Jackson
(not related). Long made recordings around the same time with Lil Armstrong
on the Decca label and with the famous Buster Bailey, C. Berry and Joe
Thomas.
In 1940
and 1941, he was a
member of Johnny Long's Gig Band, which featured the great Joe Williams
and on occasion, Dorothy Donnegan on piano. In 1942, he joined Fletcher
Henderson's band in the Grand Terrace Cafe in Chicago, and was brought
to New York City by Henderson in early 1943. Long then joined Earl "Fatha"
Hines, who was revamping his band. Among other names were: Billy Eckstine,
Sarah Vaughn, Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Bud Johnson, Willie Randall,
George Carey, Jesse Simpkins, Brockman and Bennie Green.
In
early 1944,
Huey Long
formed his first trio with C.C. Williams at the piano and Eddie Brown
on the bass, which he took into the Three Deuces Café on 52nd street in
N.Y.C. The "Ink Spots"
had just reached their peak and this is where Ink Spot and leader, Bill
Kenny talked Huey into giving up his trio and become an "Ink Spot",
recording those mid-40's war-years tunes like "If I Didn't Care",
"My Prayer", "When the Swallows Come Back to Capistrano",
"I Don't Want to Set the World on Fire", "Java-Java",
"Street of Dreams" "To Each His Own" and many more
songs featuring Huey's famous guitar introduction.
In
the late 40's, Huey
was recording with Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis and his "BeBoppers"
on Savoy Label. This group consisted of Davis, Fats Navarro, Denzil Best,
Gene Raimey and AI Haig.
In the
early 50's,
Huey was
making USA tours with his own trio, and in the mid 50's, he moved to California
and entered Los Angeles City College, where he majored in music, putting
in a few semesters with plans to teach. Instead, he returned to New York
in the late 50's.
In the
early 60's,
he formed
his own group of "Ink Spots" and took them to California for
a year or two, returning to New York where he decided to teach and write
music in his apartment in the CBS Building (now the building that David
Letterman's "Late Night" occupies, formerly the Ed Sullivan
Theatre). Later, he moved his studio down to 1674 Broadway at 52nd Street.
During his studio teaching years, he played many engagements, keeping
up with his friends in jazz music.
After writing
and arranging more than 80 songs for chord melody guitar style, he decided
to move back to his "roots" in Houston, Texas, where he developed
an exhibit of his vast history, memorabilia and songs. In Sealy, Texas,
where they are very proud of their native son, there is a large display
in their historical museum commemorating Huey Long.
Presently,
Huey Long lives in Houston, Texas, where he still writes and teaches,
and on weekends, he exhibits his "roots" and his memorabilia.
Huey Long is a true gentleman and a legend.
Written
by Ed Astrich, guitarist and friend of Huey Long
June, 1998
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Click Here for Info about Huey
Long's Autobiography - now available for purchase |
Huey
Long's Links
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-
Huey Long Living History
Museum
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Huey
Long of the Ink Spots
- by
Bill "Porkchop" Proctor
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The
Original Ink Spots - Includes information
about the group from 1934 through 1953, a discography, radio,
TV and movie appearances, CDs, press, books & articles,
audio & video clips, and other related links
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Houston
Press April 4, 2004 - A Century of Progress:
Huey Long is From All the Eras by John Nova Lomax
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The
Vocal Group Harmony Ink Spots Web Site -
Includes photo album and record albums
-
Ink
Spots Evolution - This site chronicles
the evolution of the group in the form of a family tree with
photos, artwork and eventually music (when available) of the
many groups that followed
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The
Vocal Group Hall of Fame & Museum
- The
Ink Spots
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Book
Review of "More Than Words Can Say: The Ink Spots and Their
Music" by Andrea Siegal
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Historic Houston: Huey Long Has A Place in Jazz History
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Wikipedia: Huey Long
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Wikipedia:
The Ink Spots
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