Shake Rattle and Roll by Arthur Conley debuted Jun 67 and peaked at number 31.
The song was written in 1954 by Jesse Stone and recorded that year by Big Joe Turner. His original peaked at number one on the rhythm and blues chart and crossed over to number 22 pop. The week it went to number one, it was recorded by Bill Haley and His Comets, and their version peaked at number seven pop. Elvis Presley recorded it in 1955 when he was still with Sun Records.
Art's big hit, Sweet Soul Music, was the number 24 biggest hit of 1967.
From Bach last week to an absolutely iconic film score this week, we're swimming in interpolations. Thankfully, I love a good musical quotation- and this song's chock full of them!
Sweet Soul Music - Arthur Conley (7)
Yup, we're starting strong, with the main trumpet riff from Elmer Bernstein's 1960 Magnificent Seven score, opening the whole thing. And it works shockingly well as a hook to pull you into the song. It's epic, it's fun, it's just old enough, at this point, that people are probably feeling all nostalgic about it. It works as a soul riff, with its bright horns. And more than that, it's also really recognisable, giving the song an instant memorable shtick. I like when it comes back at the end, too, it feels like it bookmarks the whole thing nicely.
Is the song sandwiched between the riffs worth the hype, though? I'm not sure. It's not bad, exactly. It's got a lot of soul, as you'd expect from a song that's literally called "Sweet Soul Music". It's laid back and cool, and there's a definite groove going on, you can get into it and kind of let the vibe carry you along, let it all wash over you. But it doesn't feel like it's doing very much with all that. Arthur's taken a Sam Cooke number, Yeah Man, from his posthumous 1965 album Shake, has done very little with it (to the point where he'll end up getting sued for plagiarism), has ad libbed over the top a bit and then called it a day. The result's something that feels more like a bridge than a full song, lots of backing yeah yeahs with Arthur scatting and throwing short little lines in over the top. It's... well it's hard to dislike it, it's solid enough, but I keep waiting for it to do something new, and it never does.
I like that it's a song about music, though. Because the whole song is just that, a love letter to other soul musicians and their work. In this vein, you could probably even frame the Sam Cooke rip-off as homage, if you were feeling charitable to Arthur (and uncharitable to Sam). But beyond that, half of the lyrics, such as they are, are also just Arthur shouting out his heroes, either by name, singing spotlight on Lou Rawls y'all, or spotlight on Sam and Dave now or spotlight on Wilson Pickett, and shouting out James Brown, the king of them all, or by naming one of their songs, with the Miracles' Going to a Go-Go, Wilson Picket's Mustang Sally or Lou Rawls' Love is a Hurtin' Thing all referenced.
And, like, I do enjoy this. I'm not sure the song's doing much, but there's still something kind of nice about artists supporting each other and letting themselves gush a bit, unabashedly and openly. Which is absolutely what Arthur is doing. I also like that he makes a point of talking up how cool they all look, there's got to be a little don't they look boss y'all line. Which is adorable, it's like he's trying to flatter them. He even throws a few bones to Otis Redding, including quoting one of his songs, the improbably named Fa-Fa-Fa-Fa-Fa. Which is doubly sweet, because Otis was Arthur's co-writer on this one. I'm imagining them working on the song together and Arthur deciding to throw Otis into the mix, a little bit of love to a collaborator that Arthur clearly really admires. I don't know, I think it's cute, at least.
As I said, I can't really muster the energy to dislike this one. I do still think the Magnificent Seven riff is the best thing about it, by quite a way. But the rest of it's fine. It doesn't really do very much, and it's 100% stolen of Sam Cooke. But it does all come off fairly well-intentioned, and is clearly mostly just Arthur trying to big up his idols. Which is hard to really complain that much about.
Favourite song of the plagiarised but still kind of wholesome bunch: Sweet Soul Music
