"You Shook Me" is a 1962 blues song recorded by Chicago blues artist Muddy Waters. Willie Dixon wrote the lyrics and Earl Hooker provided the instrumental backing; the song features Waters' vocal in unison with Hooker's slide-guitar melody. "You Shook Me" became one of Muddy Waters' most successful early-1960s singles and has been interpreted by several blues and rock artists.

Background

"You Shook Me" is unique among Muddy Waters' songs – it is the first time he overdubbed vocals onto an existing commercially released record. The backing track for Waters started as an impromptu slide guitar instrumental by blues guitarist Earl Hooker during a May 3, 1961, recording session for Chief Records. To start the session, Hooker and his backup band played a "warm-up" number, loosely fashioned on earlier Hooker songs and a rhythmic element from the blues standard "Rock Me Baby". One take was recorded, apparently unknown to Hooker. A.C. Reed, who played tenor saxophone on the recording, recalled:

Chief owner and producer Mel London chose "Blue Guitar" for the title and issued it as a single on the Chief subsidiary, Age Records, in 1962. Hooker is listed as the artist and writer and backing him on slide guitar were Reed and Ernest Cotton on tenor saxophones, Johnny "Big Moose" Walker on organ, Ernest Johnson on electric bass, and Bobby Little on drums.

English rock band Led Zeppelin recorded "You Shook Me" for their 1969 debut album Led Zeppelin. AllMusic critic Bill Janovitz describes it as "a heavy, pummeling bit of post-psychedelic blues-rock, with healthy doses of vocal histrionics from Robert Plant and guitar fireworks from Jimmy Page". Pearce wrote that Plant "croons like he's plunging down a rabbit hole". Later, he added: "When he [John Paul Jones] did ours, he didn't say anything about it... He probably didn't know it was the same number because the two versions were so different."

However, Beck biographer Annette Carson notes "during a 1976 interview with NME's Billy Altman, Beck attested to [the fact that Page had accompanied Peter Grant to several Jeff Beck Group gigs when they first played America], stating that '[Jimmy] was going with us from city to city, taking things in'. Rod Stewart made a similar claim about Page on a US radio show during the eighties". Carson adds, "Both Beck and Stewart had vivid memories of Jimmy Page traveling around with their U.S. tour that summer, when he'd obviously listened to all their material".

Led Zeppelin biographer Mick Wall also points out in When Giants Walked the Earth: A Biography of Led Zeppelin that "Peter Grant had given him [Jimmy Page] an advance copy of Truth weeks before its release" and "it seems inconceivable that John Paul Jones would not have mentioned at some point that he had actually played Hammond organ on the Truth version". Major differences between the two versions include the prominence afforded Nicky Hopkins keyboard playing in the Mickie Most mix, and that Stewart sings only two verses in the Jeff Beck recording.

Personnel

According to Jean-Michel Guesdon and Philippe Margotin:

  • Robert Plant – vocals, harmonica
  • Jimmy Page – guitars
  • John Paul Jones – bass, organ, electric piano
  • John Bohnam – drums

See also

  • List of Led Zeppelin songs written or inspired by others

Notes

Footnotes

Citations

References

  • Muddy Waters
  • Led Zeppelin