“Shake Rattle And Roll” by Big Joe Turner

"Shake, Rattle and Roll" was cut to measure for Big Joe Turner in 1954. Ahmet Ertegun of Atlantic Records asked Jesse Stone for an up-tempo blues for the big-voiced shouter, whose career had started in Kansas City before World War II, and Stone kicked phrases around until the title stuck. He filed it under his BMI pen name, Charles Calhoun, which is how it usually gets credited.

The phrase was older than the song: vaudeville performer Baby Franklin Seals had published a ragtime number about shooting dice, "You Got to Shake, Rattle and Roll", in New Orleans in 1910, and Al Bernard recorded it in 1919. Turner cut his version in New York City on February 15, 1954, Atlantic had it out as a single that April, and Rolling Stone later ranked it No. 127 among the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.