Professor Longhair — Scotlandville's Gift to New Orleans

Henry Roeland Byrd — Professor Longhair — was raised in Scotlandville before he moved to New Orleans and invented a piano style that became the harmonic DNA of the entire city. Every New Orleans pianist since 1950 plays in his shadow: the rumba-inflected left hand, the bent notes, the syncopated right. He died in 1980; Allen Toussaint, Dr. John, and the Meters all cite him as the source. Baton Rouge gave New Orleans its greatest musician and got almost no credit for it.