R.I.P. Huey Long
Categories: Miles-tones
Guitarist Huey Long, the last surviving member of the doo-wop pioneers the Ink Spots, passed away Wednesday at his Houston home. The Sealy native was 105 years old, khou.com reported.
Long got his start playing banjo in the Frank Davis Louisiana Jazz Band, one of Houston's top Dixieland draws of the 1920s, and played with Texas Guinan at the 1933 World's Fair in Chicago. Shortly thereafter, he switched to guitar and played with Big Joe Williams, Fletcher Henderson (who brought Long to New York City in the early '40s), Charlie Parker, Sarah Vaughan and Dizzy Gillespie, among others.
Long joined the Ink Spots, whose hits included "When the Swallows Come Back to Capistrano" and "Street of Dreams," in the mid-'40s before attending college in Los Angeles and then moving back to Houston. His daughter Anita, who survives him, founded and operates the Ink Spots Museum in the Heights at 117 E. 20th St.
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