11/26/2025
Ahmet Ertegün (co-founder and president of Atlantic Records) :
“While we were down South, someone mentioned Professor Longhair, a musical magician who played in a style all his own.
We asked around and finally found ourselves taking a ferryboat to the other side of the Mississippi, to Algiers, where a white taxi driver would deliver us only as far as an open field. ‘You're on your own,’ he said, pointing to the lights of a distant village. ‘I ain't going into that n!gger town.’
Abandoned, we trudged across the field, lit only by the light of a crescent moon. The closer we came, the more distinct the sound of distant music - some big rocking band, the rhythm exciting us and pushing us on. Finally we came upon a nightclub - or rather a shack which, like an animated cartoon, appeared to be expanding and deflating with the pulsation of the beat.
A big man at the door barred our way and told us we couldn't go in. I was going to say, we’re from Atlantic Records, but then I remembered that hardly anyone had even heard of Atlantic, so I said, ‘We're from Life magazine.’ And he said, ‘Oh really?’ I said, ‘Yeah and we've come to hear Professor Longhair.’ So the guy said, ‘Well, I don't think you should be coming in here.’ So I said, ‘Well, just put us in a corner, hide us, we want to hear the music.’
I mean it was blaring out of there - drums, a mike on the piano and on the vocals, the place was packed, people hanging out of the windows and everything. Finally the guy on the door said, ‘Okay, I can put you right behind the bandstand. I said, ‘Fine put us anywhere, it doesn't matter.’
So he walked us in, and a lot of people actually scattered because they figured the law had arrived. We were put in a corner and I was amazed to see that there wasn't a full band, there wasn't even a drummer, there was only a single musician - Professor Longhair.
He was using the upright piano as both keyboard and bass drum, pounding a kick plate with his right foot to keep time, playing two and four against the thing, creating these weird, wide harmonies and singing in the open-throated style of the blues shouters of old. ‘My God!’ I said to Herb, ‘We've discovered a primitive genius.’
I'd never heard music like that and I've never to this day heard anybody else play the piano quite like that. So after the set he came over and I said, ‘You know what, you're going to be recording for Atlantic Records. So he said, ‘I'm terribly sorry, but I signed with Mercury last week.’ Then he added, ‘But I signed with them as Roeland Byrd. With you, I can be Professor Longhair." 🎹
