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When Roy Byrd became Professor Longhair is not exactly known, but 1946 or '47 is most likely. The name itself invokes visions of the old Storyvllle "professors" who practiced their trade in the famous red light district of the city. Longhair remembers, "We were playing at the Caldonia Inn. We had Big Slick on drums, Apeman Black on sax and Walter Nelson on guitar. We had long hair in those days and it was almost against the law. By teachin' these fellows Mike [Tessitore, proprietor of the club] says, `I'm going to keep this band-we'll call you Professor Longhair and the Four Hairs combo."' So was born Professor Longhair, at first a name, then in time one which would become synonymous with New Orleans and a driving force behind a generation of recorded rhythm & blues. -Tad Jones LIVING BLUES: Fess, I know you were born in Bogalusa, and you had moved here to New Orleans... PROFESSOR LONGHAIR: Yeah, they brought me here when I was about two months old. LB: What did your father do? PL: I never did know what my daddy (James Lucius Byrd) did. My mother raised me. I don't know where he came from really. He was never really in my life. LB: What was your mother's name? PL: My mother's name was Ella Mae Byrd. She was born in Brookhaven Miss. LB: She met your father in Bogalusa? PL: I think she met him in McComb (Miss.) somewhere. See, he played music. They separated after I was born. About two months after I was born she split, you know. LB: Do you know what instrument he played? PL: No, I really don't. Like I said, I don't know too much about him. LB: How many people in your family played music? Any relatives? QUINT DAVIS: On that paper we got from your uncle it said that your grandfather was Americus Byrd. LB: Who else was in your family? Did you have any brothers and sisters? PL: Well, I had one brother as I know of, Robert Byrd. I was away when he died. I don't know exactly what year he died in. He was about eight or nine years older than I was. LB: So once you moved to New Orleans, what neighborhood did you live in? PL: We lived in the area between Howard Avenue and Canal, around Dryades and Rampart and Girard. In the downtown area. LB: Were there any musicians who lived in that neighborhood? PL: Well, you never be knowin' where the musicians be livin' at. You know, they just drift around till they get to the right places where they can enjoy one another. LB: Any clubs in your neighborhood? PL: Yeah, we had a special club. I mean that they had. I was real small. I was just learnin' then. At that time the club's name was ...they called it Calliope & Franklin, but it was Delpee's Club. Delpee owned the place. And them that didn't know his name would say Calliope & Franklin.. Franklin (Avenue) is now Loyola. Lots of the streets been cut out. 'Cause right in the middle of Howard Avenue was the old basin. Yeah, it ran through there all the way to the lake (Lake Ponchartrain). Well, all that's been tilled in. They used to have big ships and boats and all that used to come up in the basin. LB: It was in this neighborhood that you'd hear musicians? PL: Yeah, yeah, your Louis Armstrong was familiar with us around in this neighborhood. Where he staved I don't know, but I know he was up in that neighborhood. And Jack Dupree. Father Tuts (Isidore Washington) as y'all call him. Big Bramble, well he's dead now. He played trumpet. Junior, Little Junior they called him, he played drums. LB: What Little Junior's name? Or Big Bramble's real name? PL: I don't know', a just knew them by those names. They had Sonny Boy Williams (Rice Miller, Sonny Boy Williamson No. 2). He'd come backwards and forwards. When he'd leave that's where he'd come back to. LB: Now he'd play at this club? PL: Delpee's? Everybody who played music then played there. Local talent. LB: So it was not only jazz music would be played, but a lot of blues? PL: Any kind of music that you could play would be there. Anything that you could play you were welcome to play it. LB: So that was THE hangout spot? PL: Yeah, that was the original hangout 'cause you could get work there. See, people would hear you there and hire you on other places. LB: Do you remember when you first began playing music? PL: Well, I started hangin' out around there listenin' to those people, but I was real small. I was a minor, I wasn't allowed to go in the barrooms at that time. LB: Did the cops hang out in this area? PL: The cops weren't too bad, no badder than they is now. They get off their base sometimes. LB: Were there lots of fights? That was a pretty tough area. PL: Yeah, we had lots of those. I'd hate to imagine goin' back there now. They didn't play in them days, they wash you away. LB: What was some of the first music you listened to? You must have learned some religious music-did your mother teach you any? PL: Yeah, my mother taught me practically everything I know about music: drums, piano, bass, guitar, dancin'. . . . LB: What kinds of songs? Spirituals? PL: I play whatever she play. She play any little ole thing. She played ballads, she play sentimentals. My mother was a professional musician. She played by music. LB: Did she teach you to read music? PL: Well, she tried but I didn't like the readin' part of it. I liked to play the, ah, get down with it, what the boys were doin' around the corner. QD: But you did do church music? PL: Yeah, I played a lot of church music on guitar. I do most of the religious on the guitar. I tried a lot of times to capture it on the piano, but I'm more better on the guitar on religious tunes than I am on rhythm & blues. LB: So what was the first instrument that you played? QD: Let me give you a short dissertation on the evolution of his rhythms in his music. The first instrument he played was this, the bottom of his feet when he was earning a living as a tap dancer. And he worked his rhythms out first on his feet as a tap dancer. So he was dancin' and some other cats were playin', and what he was playin' on his feet was the first expression of like the kind of rhythms that are in himself. And then he started playin' drums in a little band. He'd get like orange crates and like from the movie house those metal cans that they put the film in and make cymbals out of them. And he started playin' drums and the rhythms that was in his body that he played on his feet, he transferred them to the drums. So when he went into the piano he had to teach the drummers that he got how to play. 'Cause he learned his things on the drums from his feet. Then that's why he became the Professor, because he was teaching the drummers how to play his rhythms so they could back him up on piano. 'Cause the only way he could play piano was to teach a drummer what to play. LB: That's pretty good. Now I'm going to ask him the same thing. So what was your first real instrument? Was it drumming? PL: Real instrument? Guitar. It was a regular... they didn't have electrics then. They had acoustics. LB: How good were you? How far did you progress? PL: Well, really, it irritated my fingers a lot. You know, I could play one or two hymns. Well, I could play the whole chords to.. I could play four, six, eight, I could play in C very well. I was on my way of using a choker at that time. It changed the keyboard with the choker. Somewheres down the line I figured it was too much a trouble, you know, to try to keep up a guitar. You had to buy strings and all, and they were poppin'. Guitar wasn't as strong as they is now, there was always somethin' goin' wrong with. LB: What kind of guitar was it? Was it a cheap guitar from Sears or an expensive one? PL: Yeah, it was really cheap. It wasn't much bigger than a ukulele. It was just somethin' to try and make a hustle with. LB: When was the first time you formed a group? One that was to perform in front of people? PL: Well, I got a chance to do that ...we was workin' at the Cotton Club then. We had a mixed group, let me see who was with us. We had Jack Dupree with us then, 'cause Jack Dupree was singin' and a comedian then. He wasn't playin' music. I learned him a little bit about the piano, and he learned me a little bit about the blues and singin' lines. So we just transferred one thing to the other. So the guy at the Cotton Club bought a piano and I had been bangin' on the pianos at people's homes and places, and listenin', you know. Listenin' in these clubs.. So I figured I was good enough to take a chance in there because there wasn't nothin' happenin' no how. LB: Where was the Cotton Club? PL: That was on Rampart between Calliope and Clio. Most of your big-time clubs then around '37, '38. '39, most of your clubs was around between Calliope and Clio on Rampart. You had the Cotton Club, you had the Dixie Bell, you had the Porter's Inn, and a few other joints across the street that I can't remember their names right now. QD: Where did Big Joe Turner play? LB: Turner played at the Rhythm Club, in '48, '47. PL: Yeah, and the Dew Drop too. LB: So the first group you got with was with Jack Dupree? PL: Not my group, I was just with them. I worked with them, that was the first showing I did appearing in the public. Sonny Boy Williams, we worked together at the New York Inn. Well, I made appearances in front of people, nothin' professional. To make a quarter. The first group that I formed was with Al Miller and Robert Parker, the one that recorded "Barefootin"' (Nola 721) and myself. It's hard to go way back here. I had another kid with me but I can't think of his name. He was a little ...he was similar to little Hungarian boy. He wasn't from here, you know. LB: Wasn't Walter Nelson with you? PL: Not at that time. This other kid claimed to be a Hungarian. That's why I named my band Professor Longhair and the Shuffling Hungarians, 'cause he was really a good cat to work with. He give me inspiration. LB: Was he white? PL: No, he wasn't white ... he wasn't really black either. LB: What did he play? PL: He played bongos and congas. He played the sticks, tambourines, and combs and Jew’s harp. He played a little bit of everything. LB: So you first started dancing, you said? That was before you really got into the music? PL: Right. I was around 13 or 14 years old. LB: Who'd you first dance with? PL: Well, Streamline Isaac. At that time he used to go off a lot and learn all these different dances and things. Then when he would come back he would teach them to me. He was travelin'. He be around today, right today. Of course he's a little fat now. Maybe sometime I'll get him together and he'll give you an interview ... Streamline Isaac Harris Isidore, all those was his name, Isidore Isaac Harris. LB: Who else was in the group? PL: Well, what he would teach me I would teach a friend of mine. They called him Hike, Harrison Hike. So when he would come back, we three would do a clog step like you see the Nicholson Brothers does, if you ever listen to 'em, or Bill Robinson. Well, we used to do all of these kind of things. I had other little acts I'd put in it. Streamline was an acrobat, he taught me little tricks of the trade. I used to run up the walls, so high, three or four feets up a well and turn around and come back down. LB: Did you do tumble saults? PL: Yeah, all that. Over one another's back, through one another's legs, over the table. LB: Where would you all perform in town? PL: Well, like I say we performed at the Cotton Club, Porter's Inn, the New York Inn. LB: Did you play any of the big theaters? PL: Yeah, they had the Palace Theater was open at that time. During the time I played at the Palace and the Lincoln, I was playin' music then I had switched from dancin'. We used to dance all up and down Bourbon (Street).
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