Friday, May 16, 2014

Great rock song - Shakin' All Over.

I had eye surgery earlier this week; I'm not going to go on about it, it wasn't for cataracts but for an epiretinal membrane scrape; you can look it up if you wish.
So I sent the photo (above) to the kids to show them daddy as a pirate and it reminded me of one of the greatest rock'n'roll records ever made; by this bloke:
That's right! Johnny Kidd of Johnny Kidd and the Pirates and his great record was Shakin' All Over – here it is on You Tube:
I hope you can click on to that.
As you will see, his right eye had the patch, and mine is on the left.
Shakin' All Over wasn't really a hit outside Europe but it was covered in Canada by a group from Manitoba called The Guess Who – and I know someone from Manitoba – where it reached number one in 1965.
Johnny Kidd's original version (which he also wrote) was released in 1960 and it was one of those records which was totally original; in those days all British singers tried to sound like Elvis – well not all of them but most did – and Johnny Kidd really sang from the heart.
They had other hits – I'll Never Get Over You and Please Don't Touch – the latter being their first single, but sadly, the life and career of Johnny Kidd was cut short when he was killed in a road accident on October 7th, 1966 near Bolton in Lancashire when he and his "Pirates" were driving away after a performance.
The guitar part on Shakin' All Over was played by the session guitarist Joe Moretti and whilst it is not a great piece of guitar playing it is, and was, for the time, original. Just the right amount of echo, reverb and wow wow, on the opening guitar picking, which I think might have influenced Hank B Marvin playing guitar for the Shadows track Wonderful Land.
I remember when I went to the various 'Caverns' that sprung up in the British cities after The Beatles made the one in Liverpool famous, groups playing 'Shakin' All Over' nearly every night and I suppose thinking back that Johnny Kidd was the link between the teeny bop of the sugary British pop songs of the late 50s to the Beatles and the hard rock and blues that came later.
Johnny Kidd sang Bo Diddley songs way before The Rolling Stones.
Johnny Kidd and the Pirates – a group that preceded Alice Cooper; they were as theatrical as AC - and as Johnny didn't play an instrument on stage groups like Led Zeppelin and The Who felt they could have a solo singer who didn't carry or play an instrument; there's also footage or recordings of Led Zeppelin playing Johnny Kidd songs.

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