Motown Treasures

Right, I've tracked down a few of the pieces where Shorty is mentioned. First up is how he found his way to Tri-Phi (and, eventually, to Motown):

From BLUES & SOUL magazine: interview by “unknown” with Harvey Fuqua

Shorty Long was available (for Tri-Phi Records) too. I first ran across Shorty in Birmingham, Alabama, while we were the Moonglows back in ’57 or ’58. We went over to a club – it’s a white club, incidentally – straight after a concert the Moonglows had done in the city. Actually, you know, the only reason we were allowed in the club was because we were celebrities. The guy that had the concert also owned this club, you see, and he wanted us to see this fantastic little guy he had singing at his club. Shorty Long was playing four instruments at least, he was playing piano, trumpet, guitar and saxophone, the whole bit. But he was a little young at that time but when I actually got the label four or five years later, I remembered him. So I just took a chance by calling him at the same number and he was still there. Amazing! So he decided to come to Detroit and by this time he must have been about 21 or 22. We put out two records on Tri-Phi by Shorty. One was called BAD WILLIE but I can’t recall the other.

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SWI