Git Shorty

Git Shorty was born Elbert Ferguson, in Roney, Ohio. By second grade his family moved to West Palm Beach Florida. Shorty started to focus on music by the fifth grade and began entering talent shows. Shorty's first foray into professional music came in 1958 with Florida bluesman 'Big Joe Dynamo'. Right from the start his reputation for guitar acrobatics began.

Willie Dixon credits his seeing Shorty in a club as the idea behind Buddy Guy's stage persona. Willie writes in his book "I Am The Blues": "They got this guy 'round there in Florida called Shorty who used to do a lot of trick guitar playing. That was the guy Buddy Guy resembled because I was explaining to Buddy how to twist his guitar around, throw it up in the air, upside the wall, and different little "trickeration" stuff just to excite the people. Shorty was the first one I saw with that idea and I started Buddy playing with it".

By 1960, Shorty hooked up with his guitar teacher A.C. Jones & the Chanceteers. The group featured George McCrae who years later had the hit record "Rock Your Baby". In 1961, while working as the backing group at the Sir John Hotel Talent Show in Miami, Shorty was featured singing and playing "Hound Dog". James Brown was in the audience and offered Shorty a job playing with The James Brown Revue. With James, he learned the ropes of professional show business, the discipline, and the fact that it took 'more than being a player' to be successful in this business.

Come late 1963, Shorty was playing with horn man Ace King and doing some regional touring with Sam & Dave. He was a regular at T.K. Studios and played shows with O.V. Wright, Tyrone Davis & J. Blackfoot over the next few years. By 1972, the R&B scene was disappearing and Shorty headed to Pennsylvania and worked for J&L Steel.

Work-related injuries in 1975 kept him from playing for a time. Shorty now resides in Zanesville, Ohio playing the Ohio Valley and East Coast regions and is planning on national and international touring again when his upcoming CD is released. One of the things Shorty is most proud of is that he never smoked, drank, or used drugs.

(Git Shorty at 18th Annual Poconos Blues Festival 2009)