Saturday, June 26, 2010

Fiddling Sam Long



We take great delight when contacted by descendants of  Artists of the Past.  Even more so when it's an artist of the stature of Fiddling Sam Long - always a favorite of mine.  If only he was able to record more and with the Electric Process a year or so after .... oh well we are thankful for the few wonderful recordings he did make.  Sam Long was the great uncle of Hugh Long who provided the above newspaper clippings and the following narrative.

Attached are the newspaper articles re Fiddling Sam Long. I know at least one of the articles was published in the Joplin Globe in 1926. The other could have been from the paper out of Commerce, Oklahoma.

Sam's niece had worked many years to complete a genealogy on the Long family, but she passed away in 1986. She had 3 daughters who I have contacted regarding the genealogy, but all deny they have it, so I (we) are in the process of obtaining the info on our own and hopefully get it recorded with Ancestory.

Sam died in 1935 at the home of his Uncle Ransom Long in Butler County, KS of lung problems as a result of working in the lead mines in Joplin, MO.

Hugh Long
Newton, KS

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Listen to Fiddling Sam Long and Ray Kastner playing Echoes of the Ozarks from a 1926 recording.