Eurreal Wilford "Little Brother" Montgomery (April 18, 1906 – September 6, 1985) was an American jazz, boogie-woogie and

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 Afri ...

pianist and singer. Largely self-taught, Montgomery was an important blues pianist with an original style. He was also versatile, working in jazz bands, including larger ensembles that used written arrangements. He did not read music but learned band routines by ear.

Career

Montgomery was born in Kentwood, Louisiana, United States, a sawmill town near the Mississippi border, across Lake Pontchartrain from New Orleans, where he spent much of his childhood. Both his parents were of African-American and Creek Indian ancestry. As a child he looked like his father, Harper Montgomery, and was called Little Brother Harper. The name evolved into Little Brother Montgomery, and the nickname stuck. He started playing piano at the age of four, and by age 11 he left home for four years and played at barrelhouses in Louisiana. His main musical influence was Jelly Roll Morton, who used to visit the Montgomery household. Early in his career he performed at African-American lumber and turpentine camps in Louisiana, Arkansas, and Mississippi. He then played with the bands of Clarence Desdunes and

Buddy Petit Buddie Petit (born Joseph Crawford; ca. 1897 – July 4, 1931), also spelled Buddy Petit, was an American early jazz cornetist. His early life is somewhat mysterious, with dates of his birth given in various sources ranging from 1887 to 1897. He ...

. He lived in Chicago from 1928 to 1931, regularly playing at rent parties, and Chicago was where he made his first recordings. From 1931 through 1938, he led a jazz ensemble, the Southland Troubadours, in Jackson, Mississippi. In 1941, Montgomery moved back to Chicago, which would be his home for the rest of his life, and went on tours to other cities in the United States and Europe. He toured briefly with

Otis Rush Otis Rush Jr. (April 29, 1934 – September 29, 2018) was an American blues guitarist and singer-songwriter. His distinctive guitar style featured a slow-burning sound and long bent notes. With qualities similar to the styles of other 1950s art ...

in 1956.
In the late 1950s he was discovered by a wider white audience. His fame grew in the 1960s, and he continued to make many recordings, some of them on his own record label, FM Records, which he formed in 1969 (FM stood for Floberg Montgomery, Floberg being the maiden name of his wife). Montgomery toured Europe several times in the 1960s and recorded some of his albums there. He appeared at many blues and folk music festival, festivals during the following decade and was considered a living legend, a link to the early days of blues in New Orleans. Among his original compositions are "Shreveport Farewell", "Farrish Street Jive", and "Vicksburg Blues". His instrumental " Crescent City Blues" served as the basis for a song of the same name by Gordon Jenkins, which in turn was adapted by

Johnny Cash John R. Cash (born J. R. Cash; February 26, 1932 – September 12, 2003) was an American country singer-songwriter. Much of Cash's music contained themes of sorrow, moral tribulation, and redemption, especially in the later stages of his ca ...

as " Folsom Prison Blues." Grave of Eurreal Wilford Montgomery (1906–1985) at Oak Woods Cemetery, Chicago

In 1968, Montgomery contributed to two albums by Spanky and Our Gang, '' Like to Get to Know You'' and ''Anything You Choose b/w Without Rhyme or Reason''. Montgomery died on September 6, 1985, in Champaign, Illinois, and was interred in the Oak Woods Cemetery. In 2013, Montgomery was posthumously inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame. The R&B musician and producer

Paul Gayten Paul Leon Gayten (January 29, 1920 – March 26, 1991) was an American R&B pianist, songwriter, producer, and record company executive. Career Gayten was born in Kentwood, Louisiana, the nephew of blues pianist Little Brother Montgomery. In hi ...

was Montgomery's nephew.

Discography

References

External links

Montgomery Discography
at

Folkways Records Folkways Records was a record label founded by Moses Asch that documented folk, world, and children's music. It was acquired by the Smithsonian Institution in 1987 and is now part of Smithsonian Folkways. History The Folkways Records & Service ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Montgomery, Little Brother 1906 births 1985 deaths People from Kentwood, Louisiana African-American pianists American blues singers American blues pianists American male pianists American jazz singers American jazz pianists Jazz musicians from New Orleans Paramount Records artists Riverside Records artists Delmark Records artists 20th-century American pianists Singers from Louisiana American male jazz musicians Earwig Music artists Folkways Records artists Warner Music Sweden artists 20th-century African-American male singers

Career

Discography

See also

Further reading

References

External links