Biography:

LONGORIA, JOSEPH EARL [JOEY LONG] (1932–1995).Joey Long, blues guitarist, singer, and songwriter, was born Joseph Earl Longoria in Zwolle, Louisiana, on December 17, 1932, the son of Earlene Leone and Fred Longoria. His parents were of Italian-French and Mexican-French extraction. When Joey was very young the family moved to Merryville, Louisiana, and continued sharecropping during some of the bleakest years of the Great Depression. Along with his parents, six brothers, and one sister, Joey picked cotton, worked on the farm, and lived a hard rural life. When he was four years old he developed polio. The disease left his legs weak and slightly deformed. For a time, until his legs became stronger, Joey’s mother had to carry him on her back into the cottonfields.

Although Earlene played mandolin, young Joey’s interest in music came from his friendship with Charlie Wiser, an old Black sharecropper who lived down the road from the Longorias. Wiser taught Joey to play guitar, and, after working all one summer saving his money, Joey bought himself a guitar. He also learned to play the harmonica and sometimes sneaked out of the house at night to go out to the pasture and practice his music in the moonlight.

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