Shorty Billups
Sixty Seven year old drummer/singer Shor’ty Billups was born and bred in Boston Mass;. He recorded his first record ‘Boss Chick’, a Little Richards style rocker, in the late 50’s. He then went on to record twenty odd singles for various labels many of which became highly prized amongst the soul fraternity.
As a drummer Shor’ty has been in great demand working with, amongst others, Screamin’ Jay Hawkins, Rufus and Carla Thomas, Etta James, Bill Doggett and Oscar Tony Junior. He dropped out of the R&B circuit in the late 80’s to work in the gospel field with the Gospel Conveyors in Atlanta.
By 2001 he was back on the Southern Chitlin Circuit and released a CD retrospective of his career ‘Alone With Shorty’ on the Solid Gold Label. This was followed by a set of new recordings ‘Shorty’s Got The Blues’ an interesting selection of blues and soul blues songs. After we had booked Shor’ty for the gig we initially had a problem finding a band that could span the music of the 50’s through to the present day, hearing Dave Thomas’s excellent work with Joe Jonas - and knowing that his long career stretched back to Little Richard’s heyday – the problem was solved.