J. B. Long

James Baxter Long, Sr. (December 25, 1903 – February 25, 1975) was an American store manager, owner, and record company talent scout, responsible in the 1930s for discovering Fulton Allen ("Blind Boy Fuller") and Gary Davis, among other notable blues musicians.

Long was born in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina to parents Henry Baxter Long and Minnie Swarigen Long. When he was three years old, his family moved to Hickory, North Carolina, where he lived until he moved to eastern North Carolina circa 1926. Also in 1926, he married Elizabeth "Frankie" Mae Johnson.

By 1933, Long was working in Kinston, North Carolina, as the manager of the regional chain, the United Dollar Store. During an interview in the 1970s, Long recalled:

I'd always loved music... down in Kinston, the farmers were coming in selling tobacco.... I got this old phonograph out and began to pile a few records in. The more I played, the more they stayed.... So from that basis on I ordered a few records and they [the United Dollar Store] began to buy 'em and sell 'em there. Everybody thought that the radios'd kill the record business, but I satisfied so many people that I went ahead and ordered more and more [records].

It was also while he was in Kinston that he first began recruiting local music talent to make recordings. In early 1934, people began coming by his store asking for a song about a deadly wreck between a train and a car in nearby Lumberton, North Carolina; Long found out that no such song existed, but received permission from the American Record Corporation (whose records he was selling through the store) to have someone record the song. Long wrote the song, with the help of a local female journalist, and titled the song the Lumberton Wreck. He held a local talent contest for white musicians, and a group by the name of the Cauley Family from nearby Duplin County, North Carolina won the contest, recording the song (and 23 others) in a three-day New York City recording session August 7–9, 1934. It was the only time Long recorded a white musician or group.

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