Lauded for his longevity and admired for his musicianship, the guitarist Huey Long, who has died aged 105, gained his greatest fame as a sometime member of the Ink Spots, the close-harmony group whose smooth sound and bestselling recordings earned them widespread appeal. Enlisted by the Spots leader, Bill Kenny, to replace the group's guitarist in 1945, Long moved away from jazz to tour and record with Kenny and his fellow superstars.
Nine months later, however, Long was out, his predecessor having returned unexpectedly. For all its brevity, his association with the group stamped him for ever as an Ink Spot, enabling him to tour later with replica line-ups of his own. With her father's help, Long's daughter, Anita, set up the Ink Spots museum across the street from her father's apartment in Houston, Texas, in 2007, where the prize exhibits include Long's own memorabilia and, until recently, the frequent presence of the venerable guitarist himself.
Long came from Sealy, a farming community near Houston, and grew up in a musical family. His brothers Jewell (who recorded blues), Herbert and Sam were also active as musicians. Moving from the piano to the ukulele, he eventually settled on the banjo. He was working as a shoe-shiner outside the Rice Hotel in Houston in 1925 when an opportunity came his way. The Frank Davis Louisiana Jazz Band, featuring star trumpeter Punch Miller, was in town to perform at the hotel and needed a banjo player. Thus began Long's career as a professional musician.
After completing his summer-long engagement with Davis, he played with a local band before heading for Chicago to seek his musical fortune. A competent sightreader and soloist, Long began to work his way through a succession of prominent bands serving the city's populous South Side black audience. He changed to guitar with the actress-singer Texas Guinan's "Cuban" Orchestra at the 1933 Chicago World's Fair, presaging stints with Jesse Stone's big band and others led by Zilner Randolph and Johnny Long.
Fully absorbed in the mid-1930s Chicago jazz scene, Long made a number of prized recordings with the New Orleans pianist Richard M Jones, as well as others with the pianist-vocalist Lil Armstrong, the former wife of Louis Armstrong. Although later based in New York, he looked back on his Chicago days with affection, remembering the gangsters who ran the clubs as "generous and friendly. They threw large bills on the stage as some sort of status symbol."
When the bandleader Fletcher Henderson came to Chicago in 1941 for a residency at the Grand Terrace supper club, he asked the local musicians' union to send him a good guitarist who could sightread. Long appeared and played the first show. This "audition" successfully passed, he went on to tour with Henderson, ending up at the Apollo Theatre, New York. When Henderson disbanded his line-up, Long stayed on in New York, joining the musically advanced Earl Hines Orchestra, which boasted Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie in its ranks. Apparently at ease with jazz modernity, he recorded with the boppers Fats Navarro and Al Haig in an Eddie Davis group while leading his own trio at the Three Deuces on 52nd Street.
Then came the fateful call from Kenny and the Ink Spots. Shortlived it may have been, but his tenure with the group allowed Long to branch out into more popular forms of entertainment, although he always maintained a foothold in jazz. He linked up with the trombonist Snub Mosley in 1952 for a tour of overseas military bases that included the UK, where the band also played for a 2,000-strong crowd at Butlin's in Ayr. This was followed by further United Service Organisations tours to Korea and Japan with his own trio before he moved to California for two years with his breakaway New Ink Spots. Long briefly enrolled at Los Angeles City College but, feeling homesick, he returned to New York, where he continued to lead groups and set up a guitar studio in the CBS building in New York. This blossomed into a small school, located at Broadway and 52nd Street.
Long moved back to Houston in 1996, where he was cared for by his daughter. He remained alert, happy to spend time with visitors to the museum and was much loved in his community. A gracious and warm-spirited man, he had his autobiography, The Huey Long Story, published privately. As well as Anita, he is survived by his sons Rene and Shiloh and seven grandchildren.
• Huey Long, guitarist and banjo player, born 25 April 1904; died 10 June 2009
