“Shake” by Otis Redding

Sam Cooke wrote "Shake" and cut it at the last session he held before his death in December 1964, and by 1965 Otis Redding, who covered Cooke often, had taken it over for Otis Blue / Otis Redding Sings Soul. He doesn't so much sing it as drive it, with Jim Stewart producing, Tom Dowd recording and a band that hits like a freight train: Steve Cropper on guitar, Donald "Duck" Dunn on bass, Al Jackson Jr. on drums, Booker T. Jones and Isaac Hayes on keyboards, and horns from Wayne Jackson and Gene "Bowlegs" Miller on trumpet, Andrew Love on tenor and Floyd Newman on baritone sax.

He tore through it again with Booker T. & the M.G.'s at the Monterey Pop Festival in June 1967, a set later released by Reprise and Rhino, and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame counts his version among its 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll.

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