Dialed number – Monthly in Indianapolis

GROWING UP Without much in the way, Kyle Long was forced to search Goodwill stores, local libraries, and Indian supermarkets for used records and cassettes. This unleashed his fascination and obsession with sound and led him to delve deeply into the history of local music. As a result, he became a DJ and music journalist, as well as the driving force behind two WFYI-FM radio shows, Cultural manifesto and Echoes of Indiana Aveon which he discovers the works of unknown musicians who helped build the melodies of our city and state.

You’ve probably never heard of Lester Johnson, who worked in the Ebony Rhythm Funk Campaign, a soul and funk band. Or Billy Wooten, a jazz vibraphonist who also recorded with some Blue Note Records artists. Or the Haughville Slickers, who played Cleveland-style polka. But Long has, and he can tell you why they’re important. Did you know there was lesbian music in Indianapolis in the 1970s? Do you know why the first Beatles record was released on a label in Indiana? Or what else was going on musically in Gary as the Jacksons prepared to explode?

Kyle Long knows. And while he usually focuses on the obscure, he got Brian Wilson, famously hard-pressed, to talk about the influence of Indianapolis quartet The Four Freshmen on the Beach Boys. He also spoke with Carlos Santana about the importance of legend Wes Montgomery to Santana’s guitar playing. We were lucky for a long time, too.

“I think a lot of people think I’m just pulling these things from Wikipedia or something,” Long says. “That simply couldn’t be further from the truth. Many of the episodes of the programs I create are literally years in the making. It’s just a secret Where did this music come from? and I want to better understand what existed before my appearance. And the more I learn about it, the more compelling the story becomes.”

A tall 49. He is tall and lanky and looks like a younger version of the late comedian Norm Macdonald. We’re sitting in the WFYI studio, where his latest acquisition is being temporarily stored: a collection of tapes that belonged to a local soul songwriter named Tony Black. Black died in 2020, after which his son Evan decided to gift Long with his father’s extensive archive, which contains the earliest known pieces of original music by Kenneth “Babyface” Edmonds; lost sessions from Lamp Records, Indianapolis’ version of Motown Records; and early recordings from WTLC-FM.

The collection includes music on microcassettes, floppy disks, flash drives and reel-to-reel discs of various sizes, delivered in bin bags. Eventually, Long will sort through them and use them to tell another previously hidden story. “When Kyle started working with us, I had no idea the depth and passion of his knowledge,” said Roxanne Caldwell, Director of WFYI Radio. “Honestly, it was a hidden gem—a buried treasure that we had no idea we were going to unearth.”

Long began building his knowledge base in the Avon trailer park where he lived with his mother and younger sister. He had few friends and even less interest in school. But he had a constant companion: music. He remembers reading about the iconic Bollywood singer Lata Mangeshkar, who held the world record for the most recordings by any vocalist in history. This led him to an Indian grocery store where he bought her tapes. His interest soon expanded to studying the music of immigrants to Indiana. “Immigrants have been here much longer than we can imagine, contributing to the culture,” he says. “So I would go to these stores and spend hours looking at the tapes, looking at the covers. And I discovered this whole scene of Bollywood funk and psychedelic music that was all the rage in the ’70s.”

He dropped out of school at 16 — “I couldn’t understand it. I couldn’t do it,” and instead spent time at the Indianapolis Public Library. “I remember you could check up to 80 records at a time and I would have the maximum number of records, tapes and books at any one time that you could have.” He also worked a number of “horrible” jobs – as a clerk at a gas station, stacking shelves in a supermarket. He was 30 and working in a restaurant when his mother and sister died within months of each other. “It made me rethink myself and reevaluate my life,” he says. “And things that I might have been afraid to do or hesitant to do before, I just felt more courageous to do.”

DJing was one of those things. The idea of being the center of attention terrified him. But he did it anyway. A concert at IUPUI for the International Student Association, where he played Indiana’s Bollywood and Brazilian music, along with Fela Kuti, a Nigerian performer and political activist, went well. “It’s like I opened something that was bottled.” The second concert at the Garfield Park Arts Center went just as well. “People connected to this music in a way that was very special.”

Long was working in the kitchen of a downtown cafe when the owner asked him to play slow music between 5 and 9 p.m. with accordions” – which ignited the audience. So is the evening of Indian music. Before long, DJ Kyle Long had queues around the building.

Information spread. He and artist Arthur Silva formed a partnership called Cultural Cannibals, which organized events around the city. Alternative paper New expressed interest and appointed the author of Long’s profile. Then New invited Long to add stories.

In 2012, he started a weekly column. Topics included the musical heritage of Indiana Avenue and other regional song history, the contemporary underground scene and immigrant music culture, which involved a visit to a Westside discount mall where vendors sold tapes from Latin America. “I went to Somali and Ethiopian grocery stores and wrote about the music they were selling. So I was just covering local music in a different way.” Later, he accompanied the articles with podcasts.

Ed Wenk, editor at the time New and radio veteran, thought Long’s efforts deserved to be on the radio. “I was amazed at the depth of his knowledge about every person he spoke to,” Wenk says. “That was one of the most well-researched things I’ve ever heard. And he had a very natural ability to interview people and maintain a natural conversation while sounding authoritative, informative and relaxed.” Wenk brought the idea to Caldwell at WFYI. In 2014, she produced Long Cultural manifesto on one of the station’s high-definition signals, which would normally have ensured that no one heard the show. But Long marketed himself well enough to get listeners. In 2015, he made his debut on the main signal 90.1. Five years later, when Prairie House Companion by ceasing to produce new episodes, Caldwell saw an opportunity to increase Long’s audience. Echoes of Indiana Ave this is the result. Long teamed up with Herman “Butch” Slaughter, who grew up in the Indiana Avenue neighborhood, and performed with a soul group called Words of Wisdom. In 2023, their partnership earned them the Edward R. Marrow Regional Award.

today, Cultural manifesto has an average of 8,600 listeners per week, and Echoes of Indiana Ave has another 6,000. Both shows’ podcasts are downloaded 5,500 and 2,000 times a month, respectively. And Long became a curator and keeper of the musical history of Indianapolis. Musicians trust him to tell their stories. Families of musicians trust him to remember the contribution of their loved ones.

It’s an amazing position for a guy like Long who started from nothing. “It’s interesting how Kyle communicates with the musicians,” Wenk says. “A lot of the people he describes are just doing what they love and barely making enough money to pay rent, much less food. And I think there’s a common experience there that he’s kind of talking about, whether consciously or not.”