He discovered Del Shannon, and also organized or produced recordings by Dave Brubeck, Chet Baker, Dorothy Ashby, Barbara Lewis, and the Capitols, among many others.
After graduating and serving in the US Army during World War II, he studied at Columbia College in Chicago,[1] before returning to Ann Arbor in the late 1940s to work as a DJ on radio station WHRV.
McLaughlin had Shannon re-record one of his songs in New York City, using band member Max Crook's Musitron as lead instrument, and the resulting single, "Runaway", reached No.
Many of his recordings were made in Chicago and in Detroit, in some cases using musicians contracted to Motown, and several were leased to, and released by, the Atlantic and Atco labels.
Among other musicians recorded by McLaughlin were Bettye LaVette, Richard "Popcorn" Wylie, Ruth Copeland, The Soul Twins, Johnnie Mae Matthews, and Matt Lucas.