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.
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.
