All Shook Up
The Stories Behind Elvis' #1 Hits
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Otis Blackwell sold six songs on Christmas Eve, 1956, to Shalimar Music for an advance of $150. That amount doesn’t sound like much today, but for a man near starvation, it was like finding a gold mine. Certainly that is just what the New York City music publisher found in the songwriter. Before he died, Otis would become a member of numerous song writing halls of fame, the winner of hundreds of awards, pen compositions that would help define an era and generate 185 million record sales, and that number is still climbing today. Those who recorded his songs include five decades of “who’s who” of the entertainment world and Blackwell numbers are still being recorded today. During his life, he would become a legend, but in the fall of 1956, Otis was still just known as the guy who wrote “Don’t Be Cruel” for Elvis.
Though Presley never met Blackwell, just from hearing him on demo records Presley must have felt he knew the songwriter well. There is absolutely no doubt that Elvis felt Otis was one of the greatest tune smiths in the business. He shared that belief with lots of people. It was fact, that early in his career, when the singer received a demo record from Blackwell, it would almost always find its way to the turntable ahead of every other demo in the stack. In Presley’s heart, he and Blackwell were somehow connected. For those who knew both, this connection was obvious in the way Elvis moved, sang and even talked.
After “Don’t Be Cruel,” Elvis had immediately cut Otis’ “Paralyzed.” The latter was a great song, was a favorite of fans who discovered it on the “Elvis” EP and was one that the singer loved to perform, but the song was never released as a true single. This was due to RCA’s conviction that some handicapped individuals might take offense at the number’s lighthearted use of the term often utilized to describe the results of a horrific injury, as a way of portraying a man’s frozen condition whenever he was around the woman he loved. Most likely few at the time connected the two, or, if they did, allowed that connection to concern them. But because of the use of the word paralyzed, few today have heard this incredibly well-written and performed tune. So, in order to produce another Presley hit, and some much needed cash for his bank account, Blackwell was forced to go back to the drawing board.
To say that Otis was a very prolific tune smith is a vast understatement. The writer could find an idea almost anywhere and seemingly reshape it into a pop song in a matter of minutes. He often joked, “I can write a song about anything.” He did just that over one thousand times.
A number of those at Shalimar often challenged Blackwell’s claim. Aaron “Goldie” Goldmark was one who constantly brought in off-the-wall ideas and said, “Otis, see if you can write a song about this?” Invariably, Otis would always come up with something. Often the results were commercial, such as the huge Jerry Lee Lewis hit, “Great Balls Of Fire.” Yet the best known of the challenge efforts would become the second #1 for Elvis in 1957.
On a warm fall day, Goldmark purchased a nickel Pepsi-Cola from a vending machine, but before he could pop the top, he dropped the bottle on the floor. Now he faced a dilemma. With the dark liquid in an explosive state, Goldie knew opening it would mean spraying half the drink all over the office and probably also onto his white shirt. So rather than consume it, he simply walked over to Blackwell’s desk, set the Pepsi in front of the songwriter and said, “You say you can write about anything, well write about this.” With that he turned and left Otis with the fizzing bottle of pop.
Blackwell studied the Pepsi for a moment, probably thought about the company slogan, “Twice As Much For A Nickel,” might have even pictured the then company spokesperson, movie star Joan Crawford, hawking Pepsi on TV, before finally picking up the bottle. Shaking it, he watched the fizz redevelop. Though no one witnessed it, he must have grinned then, because he immediately set the Pepsi back on his desk and picked up a pen. He wrote the new song so quickly that the drink was still cold by the time he finished the number.
After completing “Goldie’s” Pepsi, Otis called everyone at Shalimar to stop what they were doing and take a place around the company’s piano. Smiling, the songwriter sat down, began to pound the ivories while singing the new lyrics written on the page directly in front of him. It only took one performance for everyone to agree that the writer had not just met the first ever “Pepsi” challenge, but had written a rock and roll hit. Blackwell sensed, that with a title like “All Shook Up,” he had done more than that, he had penned a classic for the king of the genre. It is therefore ironic that Presley was not the initial artist to cut the new song. Instead, two singers, David Hill and Vicki Young, put their stamp on “All Shook Up” first. Neither the male or the female effort earned a place on radio playlists, so the song was still an unknown when it found its way into Elvis’ hands.
RCA and Presley were both filled with expectations even before they heard a copy of the latest Otis Blackwell demo. When they finally got to listen to “All Shook Up,” Elvis loved it, Steve Sholes thought it was a hit and even the Colonel gave it a thumbs up. So, after Parker hammered out the usual publishing arrangements, the song was scheduled for the singer’s very next recording session. After all, Sholes laughed, what could be a more perfect marriage than a song called “All Shook Up” and singer who couldn’t stop shaking when he sang?
It would be on January 19, 1957, the same day he would cut the gospel standards for the best selling EP release in the history of music, “Peace In The Valley,” that Elvis would record the new Blackwell cut. In the studio Elvis rejoined the familiar group of performers who had worked on the earlier L.A. session that had produced “Too Much.” As in that case, the Los Angeles Radio Recorders’ studio had been reserved for Presley and RCA.
What only a few people knew then, and what fewer realize today, was that Elvis did not read music. He would learn a song by listening to the demo over and over again, not by looking at a sheet filled with lyrics and musical notes. Hence, more than many singers, Presley was often heavily influenced by the style employed on the demo recordings. So it was only natural that he learned “All Shook Up” with all of Blackwell’s singing nuances. It is also not surprising that, along with the songwriter’s casual approach to the song, most of those nuances found their way into the final recordings. In fact, Otis’ interpretation, attitude, vocal inflections and even the way the song’s words were pronounced, are all evident in the Presley cut. Yet even Blackwell must have wondered what was the source of the steady thumping that made it onto the released recording.
Those who listen closely to the final version of “All Shook Up” often pick out what sounds like the beat of a drum badly in need of a new skin or head. In fact, the sound was a result of Elvis slapping the back of his guitar to keep the song at the pace he wanted. In a couple of places, where all the instruments pause to allow Presley’s vocal to carry the number, the slap is the only instrumental sound heard on the recording. Another interesting fact about this well-know hit is that the “All Shook Up” grunt, used time and time again by everyone who covers the song, actually could only be heard once in the single, just before the final “I’m all shook up.”
Presley did not drive his group as hard in this session has he had others. It only took ten takes to get a solid version of the two minute song. After adding the weepy ballad “That’s When You’re Heartaches Begin,” the new A and B sides were complete and the record was put to bed. Just a little over two months later, on March 22, the single was shipped. Again, as had been the case with “Don’t Be Cruel” and “Paralyzed,” Elvis’ name was added with Blackwells’ as one of the song’s writers.
Three weeks after its release, on April 13, “All Shook Up” knocked Perry Como’s non rocking “Round and Round” out of #1 on the pop charts. Elvis’ latest single would rule this side of Billboard’s lists for the next eight weeks, blocking a number of great songs, including the classic “Little Darlin’” by the Diamonds, from reaching the top spot. More remarkably, considering its meteoric three week rise to the top of the charts, the single would remain in the Top 40 for twenty-two weeks and Top 100 for thirty. On most pop radio stations, “All Shook Up” would stay in heavy song rotation for the remainder of the year. It would also be named, by Billboard, as the best selling and most played record of 1957. The second year in a row Elvis had accomplished this feat.
Over on the country side, “All Shook Up” would claim #1 for a single week. The record would rule the R & B playlists for a solid month. It would also cross the “big pond” and hold the top spot in the UK for seven weeks. It would become one of a handful of records to rule all these charts at the very same time.
More than just generate sales, the new Presley single actually infected the American culture. “All Shook Up” became a catchall phrase used to describe anyone who was too nervous to do something. A student would get “all shook up” and fail a test. A love sick boy would be “too shook up” to ask a girl out. A basketball player would get too caught up in the pressure of a key moment in the game and miss a shot and fans would say, “Boy did you see him, he was ‘all shook up,’ or we ‘shook him up,’ didn’t we?” Eventually this catch-phrase was shortened to just “shook,” and five decades later it is still a part of American language.
There are some critics who feel that “All Shook Up,” along with Rick Nelson’s “Stood Up, Brokenhearted Again,” did more to capture the innocence, awkwardness and daily pain of youth than any other songs in the history of music. That fact can be argued and surely hundreds of other numbers could be picked to fill this roll. But what can’t be debated is that in “All Shook Up,” Otis Blackwell said more about the emotions of a love-sick teen in just two minutes than most writers could pack into a 100,000 word novel. That is the real genius of “All Shook Up” and would be the mark of genius Blackwell would bring to hundreds of compositions.