James Baxter Long Sr. (December 25, 1903 – February 25, 1975) was an American store manager, owner, and record company talent scout, responsible in the 1930s for discovering Fulton Allen ("
Blind Boy Fuller
Blind Boy Fuller (born Fulton Allen, July 10, 1904February 13, 1941) was an American blues guitarist and singer. Fuller was one of the most popular of the recorded Piedmont blues artists, rural African Americans, along with Blind Blake, Josh Wh ...
blues
Blues is a music genre and musical form which originated in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads from the Afr ...
North Carolina
North Carolina () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States. The state is the 28th largest and 9th-most populous of the United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, Georgia and So ...
to parents Henry Baxter Long and Minnie Swarigen Long. When he was three years old, his family moved to
Hickory, North Carolina
Hickory is a city located primarily in Catawba County, with formal boundaries extending into Burke and Caldwell counties. The city lies in the U.S. state of North Carolina. At the time of the 2020 census, Hickory's population was 43,490. Hickor ...
, where he lived until he moved to eastern North Carolina circa 1926. Also in 1926, he married Elizabeth "Frankie" Mae Johnson.
By 1933, Long was working in
Kinston, North Carolina
Kinston is a city in Lenoir County, North Carolina, United States, with a population of 21,677 as of the 2010 census. It has been the county seat of Lenoir County since its formation in 1791. Kinston is located in the coastal plains region of e ...
, as the manager of the regional chain, the
United Dollar Store
United may refer to:
Places
* United, Pennsylvania, an unincorporated community
* United, West Virginia, an unincorporated community
Arts and entertainment Films
* ''United'' (2003 film), a Norwegian film
* ''United'' (2011 film), a BBC Two fi ...
. During an interview in the 1970s, Long recalled:
I'd always loved music ... down in Kinston, the farmers were coming in selling tobacco. ... I got this old phonograph out and began to pile a few records in. The more I played, the more they stayed. ... So from that basis on I ordered a few records and they he United Dollar Storebegan to buy 'em and sell 'em there. Everybody thought that the radios'd kill the record business, but I satisfied so many people that I went ahead and ordered more and more ecords
It was also while he was in Kinston that he first began recruiting local music talent to make recordings. In early 1934, people began coming by his store asking for a song about a deadly wreck between a train and a car in nearby
Lumberton, North Carolina
Lumberton is a city in Robeson County, North Carolina, United States. As of 2020, its population was 19,025. It is the seat of Robeson County's government.
Located in southern North Carolina's Inner Banks region, Lumberton is located on the Lum ...
; Long found out that no such song existed, but received permission from the
American Record Corporation
American Record Corporation (ARC), also referred to as American Record Company, American Recording Corporation, or ARC Records, was an American record company.
Overview
ARC was created in January 1929 by Louis G. Sylvester, president of Scran ...
(whose records he was selling through the store) to have someone record the song. Long wrote the song, with the help of a local female journalist, and titled the song the "Lumberton Wreck". He held a local talent contest for white musicians, and a group by the name of the Cauley Family from nearby
won the contest, recording the song (and 23 others) in a three-day
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
recording session August 7–9, 1934. It was the only time Long recorded a white musician or group.
Long began recording
African American
African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...
groups after holding a local talent contest for black musicians at the nearby Old Central Warehouse in June 1934. The winner of this first black contest was the
Mitchell's Christian Singers
Mitchell's Christian Singers were an American gospel music group who recorded prolifically between 1934 and 1940.
Musical career
Formed in the early 1930s in Kinston, North Carolina, the group initially featured William Brown (lead tenor), Julius ...
, a local Kinston
gospel
Gospel originally meant the Christian message ("the gospel"), but in the 2nd century it came to be used also for the books in which the message was set out. In this sense a gospel can be defined as a loose-knit, episodic narrative of the words an ...
quartet.
In late 1934, due to his success as the manager of the Kinston store, the United Dollar Store company transferred Long to
Durham, North Carolina
Durham ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of North Carolina and the county seat of Durham County, North Carolina, Durham County. Small portions of the city limits extend into Orange County, North Carolina, Orange County and Wake County, North Carol ...
, a larger, more important store.
In 1935, Long and his family moved to
Burlington, North Carolina
Burlington is a city in Alamance County, North Carolina, Alamance and Guilford County, North Carolina, Guilford counties in the U.S. state of North Carolina. It is the principal city of the Burlington, North Carolina Metropolitan Statistical Are ...
, again as the manager of the United Dollar Store. He later became owner-operator of the Burlington Discount Department Store on West Davis Street. Also in 1935, Long was made the southern regional talent scout for the Columbia Recording Corporation, a subsidiary of the Columbia Broadcasting Corporation. Several times a year he traveled with various musicians and bands that he had "discovered" to
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
or
Chicago
(''City in a Garden''); I Will
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to make recordings of their songs. Not long afterwards, the Rev. Gary Davis (an ordained Baptist minister) was discovered by Long, and soon thereafter, Long arranged for Davis to make his first trip to New York City, where he recorded 15 sides between July 23 and July 26, 1935.
Perhaps his most famous talent discovery was Fulton Allen, Long bestowing on him the pseudonym "Blind Boy Fuller." Long is credited with helping to write several of Fuller's songs. In July 1937, Fuller travelled to New York City to record for the
Decca Decca may refer to:
Music
* Decca Records or Decca Music Group, a record label
* Decca Gold, a classical music record label owned by Universal Music Group
* Decca Broadway, a musical theater record label
* Decca Studios, a recording facility in We ...
label; since he had never signed a contract with Long, Long bluffed Decca, telling Decca that he had an exclusive contract with Fuller. Because of this, Long made sure he had a signed contract with Fuller after that, which placed him under Long's permanent management.
In 1938, Blind Boy Fuller's friend and bandmate, washboard player George Washington (aka
Bull City Red
Bull City Red (born George Washington, February 19, 1917 – October 1958) was an American Piedmont blues guitarist, singer, and predominantly washboard player, most closely associated with Blind Boy Fuller and the Reverend Gary Davis. Li ...
), introduced
Brownie McGhee
Walter Brown "Brownie" McGhee (November 30, 1915 – February 16, 1996) was an American folk music and Piedmont blues singer and guitarist, best known for his collaboration with the harmonica player Sonny Terry.
Life and career
McGhee wa ...
to Long. Because Fuller was unable to make the recording session, Long persuaded Columbia to give McGhee an audition. McGhee's first recording session was on August 6, 1940, lasted for two days, and produced 12 sides. Following Fuller's death in February 1941, Long promoted McGhee as "Blind Boy Fuller #2".
Regarding the common-held perception that Long exploited the musicians he represented, McGhee said:
A lot of people give J.B. Long a hard time, but I don't give J.B. Long a hard time. I thought he was a marvelous fellow. He may not have given me every dime I was supposed to get, but how much did I know I was supposed to get? He saw some talent, he saw some quality involved and he used his ingenuity to get me on record, so automatically I owe him a vote of thanks for gettin' Brownie McGhee alive. Long made it possible for me to get on records, so what little money he did take from me, if any at all, he was entitled to it. He didn't take something from me. He made it possible for me to get something for myself if I was intelligent enough to go on and do it and not stop and sit down. And that's what I mean: Anybody blazes a path to a highway that never end, you should appreciate 'em some.
On the other hand,
Sonny Terry
Saunders Terrell (October 24, 1911 – March 11, 1986), known as Sonny Terry, was an American Piedmont blues and folk musician, who was known for his energetic blues harmonica style, which frequently included vocal whoops and hollers and oc ...
, the longtime performing partner of Brownie McGhee, had a different impression of Long, stating: “I’ll tell you something about J. B. Long, he had a mean streak in him back in them days. There’s two ways of looking at a man like that. He helped people get recorded, but he made money on it himself and a lot of times got copyrights on songs he never wrote…. And what you noticed most was it was you out on the streets scufflin’, trying to get by, not him.”
In June 1939, Long was elected mayor of the city of
Elon College
Elon University is a private university in Elon, North Carolina. Founded in 1889 as Elon College, Elon is organized into six schools, most of which offer bachelor's degrees and several of which offer master's degrees or professional doctorate d ...
, North Carolina. Between 1952 and 1972, he served five terms as a member of the
Alamance County
Alamance County (), from the North Carolina Collection's website at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Retrieved September 18, 2012. is a county in North Carolina. As of the 2020 census, the population was 171,415. Its county seat ...
Board of Commissioners.
He died on February 25, 1975, and was buried in the Magnolia Cemetery, in
Elon, North Carolina
Elon () is a town in Alamance County, North Carolina, United States. It is part of the Burlington metropolitan statistical area. The population as of the 2020 census was 11,324. The town of Elon is home to Elon University.
Elon began in 1881 as ...