The North Carolina Music Hall of Fame has announced its 2026 class of inductees – and Orange County is well represented this year.
The Hall of Fame’s 2026 class includes Hillsborough jazz legend Billy Strayhorn and the 1970s band Arrogance, a founding figure in Chapel Hill’s bustling music scene.
Born in 1915, Billy Strayhorn spent much of his early childhood in Hillsborough before moving to Pittsburgh. It was in Pittsburgh that he first met fellow jazz legend Duke Ellington and forged a partnership that would help define the sound of American jazz music (though Strayhorn himself described their style not as jazz but “beyond category”). It was Strayhorn who composed songs like “Take the ‘A’ Train,” “Satin Doll,” “Lush Life,” “Chelsea Bridge,” and many more. Ellington got most of the public attention (an occasional source of tension), but he was always quick to acknowledge Strayhorn’s vital role, famously saying: “Billy Strayhorn was my right arm, my left arm, all the eyes in the back of my head, my brain waves in his head, and his in mine.” Their collaboration lasted from 1938 until Strayhorn’s death from cancer in 1967, at the age of just 51.
Strayhorn was also a personal profile in courage: he was a vocal supporter of the civil rights movement in the 1950s and 60s, and he was also openly gay at a time when LGBTQ people were subject to extreme discrimination, attacks, and frequent arrests. And musically, his reputation has only grown since his death: Strayhorn today is frequently recognized as one of the greatest jazz composers of all time…