Motown Treasures

Has anybody ever come across an interview with Shorty Long?

I think I've only ever tracked down a couple of news items about him in music magazines, apart from a fab review in Soul of a live Motown Revue-type concert where he was the master of ceremonies.

The UK press printed something about Shorty, saying he was once one of the Inkspots. I wrote to the guy who wrote a book about the Inkspots and he said this was not true. He suggested that there were several touring groups using the Inkspots name and perhaps Shorty was briefly in one of those.

A Canadian piece had Shorty in front of a judge for a traffic violation, where he collapsed in laughter when the judge passed the same sentence given out in Shorty's Here Comes The Judge (30 days of boogaloo, etc.).

I know Shorty was married and had at least one child and I would love to find a contemporary interview with this fascinating Motown hero.

SWI

I dug up this piece on Shorty - more to follow.

SHORTY LONG
Snippets from Soul Magazine, Volume 3, Number 9, dated 26 August 1968
 
LOS ANGELES – The largest crowd indoor (sic) in California history – an incredible 18,537 persons – turned out to see Diana Ross and The Supremes at The Forum in Inglewood. The gate receipts totalled $96,494 with tickets scaled from $3.50 to $6.50. Also on the bill, promoted by Concert Associates, were Stevie Wonder and Shorty Long.
 
Shorty Long a knockout on stage but wondering who the one lone singer is who backs Shorty up on most of his numbers.
 
An all-Motown tour started in July with The Marvelettes, Judge Shorty Long, the Contours and Spinners……
 
SHORTY LONG: CAN YOU DIG HE’S ONLY 5’ 1”?
BUT HE CAN REALLY SOCK IT
By Bobbi Jean Lewis
 
He came on stage before The Supremes and before Stevie Wonder and managed to hold the audience anyway.
 
That should be all anyone needs to describe Shorty. Dynamic, talented, persistent, friendly and damn good would be fitting, too.
 
He’s a tight bundle; only 5’ 1” tall, round like a ball and he’s got a voice that’s surprisingly deep, soulful and perfect for his material.
 
“Function At The Junction” made him famous not long ago and “Here Come The Judge” has had him riding pretty high on the charts, despite the fact that Pigmeat Markham also has a version out.
 
Frederick Long (his real name) hails from Birmingham but lives in Detroit because he’s on Motown. He’s married and his wife’s name is Rosemary.
 
Shorty’s roots go back to Little Willie John and Johnny Ace who he listened to over and over again when he was a kid. He sang at parties and socials while he was still in elementary school; by the time he was in high school he was doing more important gigs, plus singing at the Birmingham Baptist Church.
 
He studied under people like Alvin Robinson and W. C. Handy, then took some dramatic lessons. It paid off.

----
This can't have been long before Shorty's fatal accident.

SWI

And here's another old piece I posted years ago. I shared this with Harry Weinger some years back and he thought the story was something Motown's publicity department dreamt up:-

I've dug back and found that thing about Shorty Long:-
 
I bought PHOTO VEDETTES, which is a French Montreal paper dating back to 6th
November 1968, because there was a paragraph on Shorty Long - and tracking down
anything mentioning that gentleman's name is very difficult these days.

Sadly, there was no picture, and I don't read French, so the original article
stumped me.

SHORTY LONG DEVANT LE JUGE

Celui que avait enregistre le disque "Here Comes The Judge" s'est retrouve a la
Cour de Justice, la semaine derniere. Shorty Long devait faire face a
l'accusation d'avoir omis de payer un billet de stationnement.

Une accusation benigne, en soit.

Heureusement le juge avait le sens de l'humour et apprenant qui il avait devant
lui, il le condamna seance tenante a 30 jours de Boogaloo, 30 jours de
Shing-A-Ling, et enfin 30 jours d'Afro Twist . . . tout comme dans la chanson.
Shorty Long sortit de la Cour plie en deux tellement il riait.


Simon's translation:-
 
"SHORTY LONG IN FRONT OF THE JUDGE
 
The man who made the record "Here Comes The Judge" found himself in a court of
law last week. Shorty was charged with having failed to pay a parking ticket.
 
A minor offense, really.
 
Luckily the judge had a sense of humour and seeing who was standing before him,
he sentenced him to 30 days of boogaloo, 30 days of shing-a-ling and 30 days of
afro twist... just like in the song. Shorty left the courts doubled over with laughter."

Isn't that a lovely story?

----
SWI

You're welcome, John.

There's just so little available about Shorty Long and, believe me, I've searched high and low.

I have some conflicting accounts of what the weather was like when Shorty and his fishing buddy had their accident - one says it was a stormy day and another says it was not.

Also, Motown was putting it about that he had been in the Ink Spots. I see no evidence of that at all. I wrote to the Ink Spots expert (he'd written a book about the group) as I knew there had been splinter groups and fake acts and thought the expert would know. He had never heard of Shorty, so he wasn't in the main or any of the splinter groups.

There's also Harvey Fuqua's account. And an interesting story from Sylvia Moy. I'll see if I can track them down.

SWI

And here we learn about Shorty's last months at Motown:-

From SOUL SURVIVOR magazine: interview by Richard Pack of Sylvia Moy

Shorty Long and I got really close. He was loud and just crazy. In fact, sometimes he’d remind me of that little guy on Taxi (Danny DeVito). I mean Shorty was a mess, a real comedian.

I believe Shorty had a premonition that he wouldn’t be around that long and there was some things he wanted said first.

I HAD A DREAM was definitely Martin Luther King-influenced.  About writing it, usually if I collaborate with one of the producers or another writer, I had a lot of latitude and could decide what I wanted to write about and the whole bit, but this time Shorty told me he had something on his mind and it had to be written a certain way. He had the melody and kept playing it over and over on the piano, and I immediately felt something from it. I finally tapped into what he had in mind and told Shorty I understood what he wanted, but he’d have to leave me alone to work on it. Don’t call me all the time like you normally do to see if it’s finished. I stayed up all of one night just working on it. I just stayed with that track and came up with the vocal melody and the lyric. Shorty heard it and said that’s it, that’s got to be said.

It wasn’t long after that he brought me one other melody called GIVE ME MY FLOWERS WHIE I’M LIVING. I said no, I’m not working on that. I changed that one around. I was beginning to wonder where he was in this stage of his life. Before I could finish it he died. He often tried to get me out on that boat. He loved to fish.

----SWI