Shake, rattle and roll

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Shake, rattle and roll
Cover
Big Joe Turner
publication 1954
Genre (s) Rhythm and blues , rock and roll
music Jesse Stone
Award (s) Rolling Stone Magazine: 500 Best Songs of All Time (# 126)
Cover versions
1954 Bill Haley & His Comets
1956 Elvis Presley

Shake, Rattle and Roll is in 1954 by blues singer Big Joe Turner sung and Bill Haley & His Comets to Millionenseller made Blue Song , who as one of the foundations of rock & roll applies.

History of origin

As a creative collaborator at Atlantic Records, composer Jesse Stone had always made sure to compose and arrange commercial rhythm and blues and tried to transform it into popular blues so that it would be attractive to white buyers. Stone was looking for an up tempo blues for Big Joe Turner. The song Shake, Rattle and Roll is the prototype of a twelve-bar blues. His title has been used before, such as Al Bernard's recordings Shake, Rattle and Roll (Who's Got Me) , released in July 1919 (Emerson # 7503) and Okeh Records # 1235, released in September 1919. The phrase is also mentioned in the lyrics of the song Shake Mattie by Kansas Joe & Memphis Minnie , recorded January 30, 1931. In the context of these songs, the title describes the three acts of dice game, namely shaking, rattling and throwing the dice out of the dice cup . Jesse Stone, who hides behind the pseudonym Charles Calhoun in his composition, takes advantage of the ambiguity of the title.

Recording and publication

The title was written on February 15, 1954 in the Atlantic Studios, the choir in the background consisted of the Atlantic people Ahmet Ertegün (label owner and composer), Jerry Wexler (chief producer of the label) and Jesse Stone (session pianist and arranger). The instrumental line-up consisted of Wilbur De Paris (trombone), Sam Taylor (tenor saxophone), Frank "Haywood" Henry (baritone saxophone), Jesse Stone (piano), Mickey Baker (guitar), Lloyd Trotman (bass) and Connie Kay (drums ). While the drummer keeps an offbeat rhythm, pianist Stone plays the boogie piano. The simple instrumentation strongly accentuated Turner's powerful voice.

In terms of text, the original theme of the dice game has given way to sexual content. It turns out that even the title can be interpreted ambiguously, because Shake, Rattle and Roll describe sexual acts, but also leave open the possibility that these acts can be part of the noise of pots and pans through kitchen work (“make some noise with pots and pans ”); the text thus moves between the kitchen and the bedroom. The ambiguity is reinforced by the fact that all three words in semantics can be used in both their transitive and intransitive form.

Released in April 1954 with the B-side You Know I Love You (Atlantic # 1026), the single entered the Rhythm & Blues chart in May 1954 , where it took first place for three weeks. Her successful crossover into the pop charts was hampered by the ambiguous content with a rank 32. Of all the songs Stone has been involved in so far, Shake, Rattle and Roll had the greatest and most lasting impact on the music market.

Cover versions

Bill Haley & His Comets - Shake, Rattle And Roll (78 rpm single)

The most successful version is by Bill Haley, recorded on June 7, 1954 in the usual Pythian Temple studio, when Turner's original was topping the charts. In addition to Bill Haley, Danny Cedrone (lead guitar), Billy Williamson (steel guitar), Johnny Grande (piano), Marshall Lytle (bass) and Joey D'Ambrosio (tenor saxophone) were present. Who sat on the drums is still controversial today. The regular drummer was Billy Gussak, who was present both in the previous recording session and in the following session. As far as can be seen, however, the majority of the literature assumes that, as an exception, David "Panama" Francis was on the drums. The energetic bass and the saxophone riff answering the verses clearly stand out from the sound of the original. Unlike usual with Haley, there is no guitar solo; instead, an interplay of saxophone, guitar and keyboard is presented. Released on July 10, 1954, it made it to seventh place on the pop charts and fourth in Great Britain. It became Haley's first million seller, even before Rock Around the Clock was released. The Haley version was the first rock & roll single with over a million copies sold. Producer Milt Gabler assured a newspaper reporter that he would clean up any text that was ambiguous to increase the chances of airplay . Therefore, he corrected the more than ambiguous original text by Jesse Stone and faded out the erotic parts, but overlooked an essential passage for lack of knowledge.

On January 28, 1956, Elvis Presley presented the song in the original text version on the Dorsey Brothers Stage Show . In the studio, the title was recorded on February 3, 1956 with altered text and published on September 8, 1956. The line-up here was Elvis (who also plays rhythm guitar), Scotty Moore (lead guitar), Bill Black (double bass) and DJ Fontana (percussion).

The title triggered a wave of similarly constructed lists. Flip, Flop and Fly (also composed by Jesse Stone) was also taken over by Joe Turner (recorded January 28, 1955); Bark, Battle and Ball was released by the Platters (B-side of Only You ; May 1955); finally Jump, Jive and Wail by Louis Prima (April 19, 1956). Stone / Calhoun is also the author of Rattle My Bones by The Jodimars (former members of the Comets; May 1956).

statistics

There are at least 46 versions of the song that received a BMI award . It ranks 126th of the 500 best songs of all time by the music magazine Rolling Stone (2004).

Individual evidence

  1. Jerry Wexler and David Ritz, Rhythm and the Blues , 1993, p. 86.
  2. Tim Gracyk / Frank W. Hoffmann, Popular American Recording Pioneers 1895-1925 , 2000, p. 44.
  3. ^ Stephen Calt, Barrelhouse Words: A Blues Dialect Dictionary , 2009, p. 212.
  4. Ahmet's Atlantic: Shake, Rattle and Roll . In: Time Magazine , July 28, 2001.
  5. ^ Charlie Gillett: Making Tracks: The Story of Atlantic Records. 1988, p. 98.
  6. ^ John Swenson, Bill Haley , 1985, p. 79.
  7. ^ Joseph Murrells, Million Selling Records , 1985, p. 83.
  8. ^ John Swenson, Bill Haley , 1985, p. 81.
  9. "Like a one-eyed cat peeping in a seafood store": one-eyed cat is the penis in slang , the seafood store is the vagina