Professor Longhair, born Henry Roeland Byrd, is the patron saint of the New Orleans piano tradition. His voice, melodic sense, wordplay and piano style, the latter a heavily percussive ...

Professor Longhair — whose friends called him "Fess" — sang in his own language. Writer Jason Berry, who co-authored Up From the Cradle of Jazz, a definitive book about New Orleans music ...

Henry Roeland Byrd had many pseudonyms during his musical career, but New Orleanians knew him best as Professor Longhair or ...

Henry Roeland Byrd, better known as Professor Longhair, the patriarch of New Orleans rhythm & blues piano, owned only one home in his life, and then only briefly. In 1979, less than a year before ...

The New Orleans pianist Professor Longhair once described his particular ... very difficult to see) documentary “Piano Players Rarely Ever Play Together,” which aired on public television ...

Professor Longhair's house has been saved ... Longhair is a hero to nearly every modern-day New Orleans piano player - Fats Domino, Allen Toussaint, Dr. John. Even the Beatles and the Rolling ...

In addition to piano, he learned to play guitar and drums ... gulf for some new and classic Cuban sounds. ... Some people swear Professor Longhair (1918--1980) was at the very first New Orleans Mardi ...

I haven’t stopped,” said Fess’s daughter Patricia. Legendary New Orleans piano player Professor Longhair (Roeland Byrd) was a Jazz Fest mainstay 40 years ago and helped it grow to the world ...

Later that year, legendary New Orleans bluesman and pianist Professor Longhair performed a concert ... mambo, and calypso piano based blues sound." ...

Professor Longhair — whose friends called him "Fess" — sang in his own language. Writer Jason Berry, who co-authored Up From the Cradle of Jazz, a definitive book about New Orleans music ...