Died On This Date (January 30, 1980) Professor Longhair /New Orleans R&B Icon
themusicsover Professor Longhair (Born Henry Byrd; aka Roy Byrd)
December 19, 1918 – January 30, 1980
Professor Longhair was a New Orleans rhythm and blues pianist and singer whose career spanned some thirty years. Longhair was a street hustler before turning his focus on playing the piano professionally in the late ’40s. He made several albums throughout his career, mostly considered among the best of the New Orleans genre. He was also a crowd pleasure at the most respected music festivals in the world, New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, Newport Jazz Festival and the Montreux Jazz Festival. Longhair suffered a heart attack and died while asleep. He was 61 years old.
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Willie Dixon is best remembered as one of the few main architects of the Chicago blues sound. As a singer, bassist and prolific songwriter, Dixon was one of themost influential figures of the era. He was also considered one of the key bridges between blues and rock ‘n roll. Dixon wrote such blues staples as “Little Red Rooster,” “Hoochie Coochie Man,” and “I Ain’t Superstitious” and has been covered by the likes of Led Zeppelin, Cream, the Faces, Bob Dylan, Queen, the Grateful Dead and the Rolling Stones. In later years, Dixon worked to secure royalties and copyrights for blues artists who had been exploited int the past. He suffered from diabetes for many years and succumbed to heart failure at the age of 76.
John Martyn was a Scottish folk singer-songwriter and guitarist whose career spanned the better part of four decades. With a sound that was equal parts folk, blues, jazz and rock played acoustically through a fuzzbox, Martyn was without peer in the British folk and blues scene of the ’60s and ’70s. Over the course of his career, he has played with the likes of Phil Collins, David Gilmour and Eric Clapton. John Martyn died of double pneumonia in an Ireland hospital. He was 60 years old.
Jimmy Durante was a curiously popular singer and actor of the 1920s through the 1970s. Not known for having a traditional singing voice or leading-man good looks, Durante nonetheless became one of entertainments most popular fixtures during his career. After learning to play ragtime piano, Durante dropped out of school while still in his early teens to pursue a career in music. He began by playing in several ragtime and New Orleans jazz bands. He scored his first hit with “Inka Dinka Do” in 1934, and soon went on to become a popular draw on Broadway. Durante started appearing in popular films during the early ’30s, and would do so until 1963’s It’s A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. And of course, Durante also conquered radio and television throughout his career. His face that only a mother could love was very familiar on TV through most of his later career. He was also the narrator for the wildly popular Frosty The Snowman cartoon special that has aired every year since 1969. In ailing health during his final years, Jimmy Durante passed away from pneumonia on January 29, 1980. He was 86 years old.