The way Carlo Ditta tells the story of how he got his hands on a previously unreleased recording of Professor Longhair, it takes a minute. He starts with an anecdote about how guitarist Billy Gregory played in music stores with that big hat pressed low on his head. Then, Gregory went[…]
As the rhythms roll and tumble across the piano keyboard, sometimes it seems the world comes together in the hands of Henry Roeland Byrd, better known as Professor Longhair. Born in Bogalusa, Louisiana, and raised in New Orleans, “Fess” first began teaching himself piano when he found a broken-down one[…]
Professor Longhair, Live in Chicago. Talk about New Orleans, Roy “Professor Longhair” Byrd might be the ultimate musical ambassador to that fine burg that ever lived. Right up there with Fats Domino for sure. He created a crazed piano style that was equal parts rhythm & blues, stride, rhumba, and 100% personalized[…]
On Feb. 1, 1976, a living legend performed at the University of Chicago Folk Festival. His name was Henry Roeland “Roy” Byrd and he played the piano and sang. Most of the folks in the crowd knew him as Professor Longhair. He was 57 at the time. Live In Chicago (Orleans Records) documents the[…]
Henry Roeland Byrd, the New Orleans pianist known to the world as Professor Longhair, has been dead for 35 years. But he’s by no means forgotten. At the recently concluded (and rain-sodden) Jazz and Heritage Festival, there he was above the Arcura stage — or rather, an image of him[…]
Carlo Ditta is one of the most crucial spokes in the New Orleans wheel whom you never heard of. Maybe that’s because he’s been too busy being a singer-songwriter-guitarist-producer-label operator working with a myriad of Crescent City artists to the point where he’s just now, at 61, releasing his first solo[…]
Stardom may have eluded him, but as a newly released recording demonstrates, Professor Longhair set a standard for Crescent City piano that no one will ever top. The superb blues rocker Professor Longhair (real name: Henry Roeland Byrd), died in his sleep in 1980, two days before his album Crawfish Fiesta shipped[…]
Does one really review a Professor Longhair live album? I’m not meaning to sound rhetorically cute or anything but the prospect of giving a ‘yay’ or ‘nay’ to the recording now jouncing through my headphones like the pure Crescent City spirit of celebration itself strikes me as pointless as reviewing the eating[…]
Though he had been an active presence around the Louisiana music scene for decades and was a well-known character around New Orleans, the great piano legend Professor Longhair, known to most as Fess, led a life that was as troubled as his career. When he passed away from a heart attack[…]
An unreleased live album from one of New Orleans’ greatest musicians, Professor Longhair, is to be released. ‘Live at the University of Chicago Folk Festival – February 1, 1976’ is an unreleased radio broadcast aired by a Chicago radio station. It features Professor Longhair on piano, vocals and whistling, guitarists[…]
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