Resources & Questions for contemplation about this story

É Today, more than ever before, the troubadour’s songs are essential to the survival of that part of us that is both universal and unique É The troubadour must stay on the road, must come into a community É and give it back its own character and experiences É we need the troubadour to find songs in our lives. The troubadour É will leave us changed in that we will be more ourselves than ever before.

—Madonna Hettinger, Assistant Professor of Medieval History, College of Wooster Ohio

Larry Long - Photo by Andrew Goetz

On an early April day in 1968, youthful Larry Long burst through the door of his home, hungry for dinner and some family time.

Throughout his childhood, Larry had always enjoyed the hours he spent with family members. In grade school, he had worked part-time at his grandfather’s fish market. He also helped his grandpa pass out Bibles on street corners and at front doors on the Eastside of Des Moines, Iowa. Sometimes Larry went on the road with his father, a traveling salesman, setting up coffee displays in corner grocery stores in Iowa and Minnesota.

Those happy memories had been tempered by violence and tragedy that had recently struck close to home during the turbulent 1960s: the rape and murder of an eight-year-old cousin, the loss of his father at when Larry was thirteen, the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, racial riots, Kent State, the Vietnam War—all of which filled Larry with confusion and anger. Two things had pulled him through those difficult days: his music and the quiet moments with his family. He was looking forward to both as he came home on that spring evening.

But Larry had barely entered the house when the loud blaring of the TV in the next room had caught his attention. Instead of being in the kitchen for the traditional family dinner, everyone was gathered around the set. Larry peered into the room as a somber newscaster repeated the words:

“The Reverend Martin Luther King was assassinated today while standing on a hotel balcony in Memphis . . .”

Larry listened in stunned silence. Although he was a white suburbanite, he had worshipped Dr. King and had been moved by his words and actions. He recalled storming to his room and picking up his guitar, his rage and sorrow pouring out with his furious strumming and singing. His spontaneous songwriting had helped him vent his deep sorrow that words alone could never express.

Larry’s music was a way to soothe and release his complex feelings. It had been that way ever since he began sitting next to his mother at the piano while she played at their Baptist Church.

When he wasn’t playing his own music, Larry loved listening to the Beatles, Tim Buckley, and Miles Davis, or spending time with Woody Guthrie’s book Bound For Glory, which he read over and over again. That book changed his life.