Word: longhair
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Guess again. The blond (Joan Jeanrenaud) is a cellist by craft, and the longhair (Hank Dutt) plays, appropriately, the viola. Along with violinists David Harrington and John Sherba, they form the Kronos Quartet, the nation's most adventurous chamber-music ensemble. No Haydn or Mozart for this earnest foursome. Works by Charles Ives and Anton Webern are probably the creakiest items in their wide, of-today repertoire. It ranges from Steve Reich's Different Trains, in which synthesized voices, recorded railroad sounds and minimalist arpeggios are combined in a haunting memoir, to a growling, down- and-dirty setting of Jimi...
PROFESSOR LONGHAIR: Rock 'n' Roll Gumbo. (Dancing Cat) His rightful name was Henry Roeland Byrd, but down in New Orleans everyone called him Fess and they knew without being told that he was more than a local legend. He was one of the all-time great rhythm-and-blues piano thumpers. His left hand rolled over the keys, keeping a wild rhythm that seemed to play out like an entire band. His right hand was like an antenna, pulling in melodies from the Delta blues, from Caribbean calypso, from rock and pop and jazz and anywhere else his ear chanced...
...Style. "A lot of the music I play is music the Mardi Gras Indians do. The guys that did this thing-Professor Longhair, Smiley Lewis, Guitar Slim-died off. There was nobody to keep it alive except the few guys who worked with them. Me, James Booker, Huey Piano Smith, Fats Domino, Allen Toussaint. I guess I would call my own style barrelhouse with blues and jazz mixtures. Rock 'n' roll...
...room called the Pepper Pot, sittin' on a log, smokin' a joint or somethin', just relaxing. I was a little kid coming to bother him, and he just took time to tell me things about music. I didn't even know it was Professor Longhair...
DIED. Henry Roeland Byrd, 61, legendary blues pianist also known as "Professor Longhair," whose recordings of the '40s and early '50s laid the groundwork for rock 'n' roll; of a heart attack; in New Orleans. Born in Bogalusa, La., Byrd taught himself to play the piano, imitating such barrelhouse blues players as Kid Stormy Weather. His Mardi Gras in New Orleans and Big Chief combined elements of blues, New Orleans marching music and Caribbean rhythms. Though he never matched the success of Fats Domino and others who popularized the Byrd piano style, recognition finally came...