JOHNNY KIDD AND THE PIRATES - “Shaking All Over”
(6th August 1960)
It began as a lad’s joke - one of the band saw a girl he fancied, “she gives me quivers in me membranes” he would tell the rest. It began as a riff and a baseline jabbed out in thirty minutes. It began as a B-Side. The marvel of pop (and the reason a biographical approach seems so lacking sometimes) is how circumstances as drab as these produce wonders.
“Shaking All Over”’s first seconds announce it as something special. A lash of electric guitar carves an arc in the silence; as it ends a prowling bassline begins. This music has charge and real threat: the marvel lies in how that charge affects the singer. In a sense “Shaking All Over” is a premonition of the Stones - English boys turned wild by rock. But Mick Jagger sang as a predator, focusing and using his lust: Johnny Kidd feels the same energies but he can’t control them. He sounds haunted as well as hungry, stricken by desire, body in disobedient spasm.
There has been nothing like this at No.1 before; certainly nothing British. Close to perfect, its only great flaw is the showy drum roll and solo that rounds it out, effectively dissipating the spooked energy “Shaking All Over” has built. 8
Site powered by
Joe Williams on August 29th, 2005
Brilliant record. I’d be tempted to give this 10/10 myself. Many years ago I recorded a cover version of this. It wasn’t very good.
Lena on February 14th, 2006
I’ve never heard this, but I have heard the cover by Chad Allen & The Expressions (I think that was their name) who later became The Guess Who. Very good garage rock!
intothefireuk on October 16th, 2006
Agree - this stands out from everything around it as completely different and new. The guitars are deliberately turned up and for the first time you can hear the beginnings of distortion on a number one single. It has a vibrancy that has been severely lacking up till now on previous so-called rock & roll singles. The first true UK rock tune IMHO.
FT's Adrian on October 25th, 2006
I run the Johnny Kidd website and though I agree it is a standout track for the time - written with the freedom of knowledge that it was for the B-side of the disc - even I believe that Sir Cliff Richard’s “Move It” remains the first true British Rock piece. And like “Shakin” even that was going to be the flip - there’s a story there somewhere….!
Tom on October 25th, 2006
Thanks for commenting Adrian. I’m not disputing that “Move It” is the first British rock record - but it didn’t get to #1, so I’d put “Shakin All Over” as the first British rock #1, perhaps!
FT's Adrian on October 27th, 2006
Hi Tom. I wish I’d never looked into it now…. “Shakin” only went to the top in one of the four(?) charts around at that time, in the “Record Retailer” chart (as used by Guinness) as it was regarded to be the most reliable industry-standard chart at the time and lasted through the sixties. (I sometimes think that certain records which maybve only scraped into the top ten were better than the then-current number one.) In reverse, the Beatle’s “Please Please Me” I believe went to the top in all charts, except “Record Retailer”, so number 2 it officially is!
van isacker francis on December 9th, 2006
From Belgium
Where and how can I get this “” very original “” Shaking all over from Johnny Kidd & the Pirates
Wish to down load it as I believe it was at this periode a real cracker……at that time I was 13 years old !
Thanks to the …..helper !!
Francis
Adrian on February 15th, 2007
You Tube has a home-made video to the song, get it for free that way…. no JK in person though as no footage is known to suvive.
Otherwise, the original single and re-issues turns up on eBay from time to time. You can also get it on new-ish CD’s fromm the same place.
Try Woolworths site to hear previews, and buy the track alone for 79p!
http://www.woolworths.co.uk/ww_p2/product/index.jhtml?pid=50099116
Waldo on April 19th, 2007
A truly great record and so far ahead of its time, it beggars belief. The middle-bit is magnificent.
Phil on June 2nd, 2007
I beleive the drum intro to the solo was added as a filler because the track was too short. Has anyone else noticed that Adam Faith’s “Made You” which was in the charts at the same time as “Shaking” has a very similar guitar figure? I saw Kidd twice. In one show he was wearing a white silk blouson and at the solo the spotlight focussed on him alone and he slowly started to shake until he was “shaking all over”. A standout moment in a standout number.
Adrian on September 11th, 2007
That the drum solo is a piece of extending filler was stated in the Kidd “Jukebox Heroes” series episode - I didn’t remember hearing it before then and as it only added around three seconds seemed a strange way of filling. It actually works though, as a juxtaposition between the empassioned delivery of “Shakin’ All Over” and Joe Moretti’s classic guitar solo rather than one leading straight into the other.
Another way of extending the song would have been to repeat the riff twice as if going for a third verse, then beating the drum solo as the last note died away, then the solo itself. The Swinging Blue Jeans faster and more energetic rendition uses a vaguely similar method which on its own adds around 9 seconds - Had Kidd and co attempted this, adding Clems drum solo on the end would have added around 10 seconds. But who cares with a one-take piece of magic that the Pirates were actually a little embarrassed about at the time, and thought was only destined for a flipside?
Brandy on September 26th, 2007
This group, “Shaing All over” is awesome.
I just discovered them, and I was very curious about them. So, I googled them- and much to my disbelief, could find next to nothing about them!
What year did they begin? Are they still around? Just things like that.
I saw that http://www.amazon.com had been selling a cd by them, but other then that, I could find nothing.
Not even lyrics to their songs!
Can anyone help me?
Thanks,
Brandy
Adrian on October 5th, 2007
Hi Brandy.
The group is “Johnny Kidd and the Pirates”, a google will find bits littered all over the place - some of it borrowed from my own site on them (a work in progress). Click here - http://www.johnnykidd.co.uk - to get to it, including history, a Timeline, all songs recorded for EMI plus lyrics, related artists, etc. Various CDs and original LPs and 45’s turn up regularly on Ebay, even the odd sheet music as well.
One of the major line-ups still exitst today part time as The Pirates featuring the awesome guitar and bass of Mick Green and Johnny Spence (who also does the vocals). Their site is also linked, catch them live if you can - it’ll be well worth it!
Cheers
ADRIAN
Brandy on November 26th, 2007
Thanks Adrian!!
FT's rosie on May 26th, 2008
This is another one that (hardly surprisingly given that I’d just turned five when it got to number one) I’ve never not known and so I can’t say anything about how I reacted to hearing it for the first time. But looking back and guessing, it feels like one of the great epiphanies of popular music - something totally unlike anything that had gone before; a bit strange, a bit shivery up the backbone, a lot new and exciting. Surely a 9, possibly even a 10.
Calling it ‘garage rock’ seems entirely anachronistic, like calling Measure for Measure ‘Ortonesque’. It’s superior pop, no more, no less, and it anticipates the bluesier British inflections of rock ‘n’ roll top come.
FT's Lena on May 26th, 2008
I wasn’t talking about this song in particular but the Canadian 60s cover version of it (’64-’65) - as garage rock.
Joe Moretti the original on August 8th, 2008
Hullo folks from Joe Moretti, just a little note to say I’m still alive and kicking. It’s really very humbling to know that so many people dig “Shakin”. At my site you’ll find an article I’ve written about JK. All very tongue in cheek, juut poking fun at the business. Honestly, at the time of recording and even after release I had no idea it was going to be a hit. I still don’t understand it. It was really just a hell of a lot of fun, we played like that all the time. Go well……Joe Moretti.
mike on August 8th, 2008
It’s the story that MUST be read: http://www.joemoretti.org/page8.htm