Frederick Earl Long, known as Shorty Long, brought a gritty Birmingham, Alabama blues sound to Motown in 1963 after recording for the Tri-Phi and Harvey labels run by Harvey Fuqua and Gwen Gordy. Rather than reshape him, Motown created the Soul Records imprint for his music. Its first release in 1964 was Devil With a Blue Dress On, co-written with William Mickey Stevenson, which failed to chart nationally. In 1966 Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels sped it up with rock guitars and turned it into a major hit.
Long made himself indispensable, playing piano, organ, drums, harmonica and trumpet on sessions, serving as MC on the Motortown Revue tours, and earning the right to produce his own records, a privilege the episode says he shared mainly with Smokey Robinson. Function at the Junction charted R&B in 1966, and in 1968 Here Comes the Judge, built on a Laugh-In catchphrase, reached number 4 R&B and the Billboard top 10. On June 29, 1969 Long and a friend were killed when their boat crashed on the Detroit River. He was 29.
- Pigmeat Markham, who originated the Here Comes the Judge routine on Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In, rushed out his own version three weeks later, which peaked at number 19.
- Here Comes the Judge was the only album released in his lifetime.
- Marvin Gaye championed him inside Motown, once asking Holland-Dozier-Holland why they were producing Gaye instead of Shorty Long.
- At his burial Stevie Wonder played a harmonica tribute and left the harmonica on the casket.
- The posthumous album The Prime of Shorty Long came out in November 1969, and the Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame inducted him in 1980.
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