Rock and Roll
The song “All Shook Up” was written by Otis Blackwell. One of the owners of Blackwell’s publishing company Shalamar Music was urging Blackwell to write a follow-up hit to “Don’t Be Cruel.” The story behind the song goes something like this. One day around this time, Black was sitting at a desk at his publisher’s office. Someone asked if he wanted a Coke from the machine down the hall. When the person gave it to him, the Coke slipped out of his hands and landed (bubbling away) on the floor. The person retrieved it and handed it to Otis, but he said, “I Can’t drink it now ’cause it’s all shook up.”
The song went to #1 on the U.S. Top 100 Singles Chart, R&B Chart, and Country Chart in 1957. It was also the first #1 hit in the U.K. for Elvis. Since then, “All Shook Up” has gone on to be certified as 2x platinum by the RIAA. It is also listed in Rolling Stone’s “500 Greatest Songs of All Time.”
One anecdote about “All Shook Up” comes from Gordon Stoker, who was the tenor for The Jordanaires. The group often backed up Elvis, but on “All Shook Up, ” it was only Stoker providing harmonies here and there. This included the refrain where they sing “Uh-uh huh, uh-huh, yay-yay, I’m all shook up.” Stoker said that he and Elvis sat on stools facing each other with a single microphone between them. They sang the harmonies in perfect sync throughout the take that was finally used, but on the last “yay-yay” Elvis tricked him by changing the timing of his delivery and smiled as he watched Stoker’s nervous expression. Stoker said he always remembered that moment whenever hearing the song over the years, and it’s very easy to notice it at the end of the record.
The stories around the rise of Elvis are fun ones. Here was this daydreaming teenager hanging around a soda fountain in Memphis, drinking a shake, listening to the jukebox, waiting for his cousin to get off work. And he goes on to become an American icon by gathering up and interpreting different strands of American music. He is the best-selling solo artist in recorded music history. His work includes several genres, including rockabilly, rock and roll, pop, country, blues, gospel, and R&B.
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[…] the Name) His Latest Flame,” “Can’t Help Falling in Love With You,” “All Shook Up,” “Don’t Be Cruel,” and “Jailhouse […]
The information about the song, “All Shook Up” and how the idea for the song came about is incorrect. Otis Blackwell wrote the song in Brooklyn, New York. He relayed the story to me personally. He was sitting at a desk in a publishers office. Someone asked him if he wanted a Coke from the machine down the hallway. When the person brought it to him, it started slipping out of his hands and he struggled to hold on to it but it ended up landing on the floor. So the guy picked it up and handed it to Otis. Otis then told him, “I can’t drink it now cause it’s All Shook Up.
If you do more research, you will learn that Elvis never co-wrote any of the songs that Otis Blackwell wrote for Elvis. Otis was a black songwriter from Brooklyn and when Elvis began recording Otis’ songs, Elvis Presley’s father insisted that Elvis be given 50% of Otis Blackwells writers credits. Furthermore Otis and Elvis never, ever met each other…….never wrote anything together. But Elvis recorded all the vocals for the Blackwell songs straight off of the demo tapes with Otis singing and copied The vibrato style from Otis’s voice. Otis did plan to go and see Elvis and meet him for the first time in 1974 in Vegas but It never happened.
I feel it necessary to mention these things because it is important that history be documented in “truth”. He Never met Elvis Presley face to face in his life.
I am a songwriter/publisher and Otis and I worked on a couple projects together and we became good friends from the mid 1980’s til his stroke and subsequent death.
He was not only a humble person , considering all his accomplishments but was also one of the greatest songwriters and I ever met.
Thank you for all the information.
Want to clarify. It was a “bottle “of coke from the coke machine. Back in those days sodas did not come in cups with beverage dispensers from the machines. They only came in bottles.
So who ever added the words that it landed “ bubbling away” is incorrect. If a Coke, in the bottle dropped on the floor, it was then too agitated to take the top off and open it right away as it would spray out all over the place. So he would have had to wait about ten minutes before the bottle could be opened.,especially if it had been dropped on the floor. So that is why Otis said, I can’t drink it now, it’s all shook up.