It Was 50 Years Ago Today: “Shakin’ All Over” by Guess Who?
March 31, 1965
“Shakin’ All Over” by Guess Who? (Chad Allan & the Expressions)
#1 on the RPM Top Singles Chart (Canada), March 22 – April 11, 1965
The mid-’60s were a pretty good time to be a British rock band. And if you were unlucky enough to be born in the United States or Canada, or anywhere else outside the British Isles, well, you could always pretend. Many North American garage rock bands dressed in costumes or adopted names that hinted at Merrie Olde England in order to ride the British Invasion’s wave of Anglomania. Some, like the Beau Brummels (“Laugh, Laugh”), managed to sound convincingly Beatlesque; others, including the unmistakably Texan group dubbed the Sir Douglas Quintet (“She’s About a Mover”), barely bothered to cover their New World roots.
Occasionally, however, some especially assertive acts weren’t content to merely imply that they call Blighty home. These enterprising souls took it one step further: they didn’t just masquerade as part of the British Invasion, they hinted that they might be a specific well-known band operating under a pseudonym. These imposters never explained why a genuine British Invasion group would want to disguise its true identity, its most marketable feature. Nevertheless, they hoped that by offering a bit of mystery, and appealing to fans of the beloved acts they imitated, they might sell a few records.
The first imposter band to achieve notoriety was a studio act calling themselves the You Know Who Group, whose “Roses are Red (My Love)” (not to be confused with the Bobby Vinton song) just missed the Top 40 in early 1965. Not only did the You-Know-Whos record an LP in full faux-Merseybeat style, complete with terrible phony accents, they even appeared in promo photos wearing masks and capes, the better to obscure their famed (or not so famed) identities. More successful, however, was a group who swapped out their name on the record label in favor of a simple question: “Guess Who?”
The band usually known as Chad Allan & the Expressions (and previously known as Chad Allan & the Reflections) formed in Winnipeg, Manitoba, in 1962. Although the group had released several singles in its native Canada, none were hits. The Expressions’ breakthrough finally came when their label, Quality Records, adopted the questionable (in more ways than one) promotional campaign. The newly-christened “Guess Who?” doubled down on its faux-Englishness by covering “Shakin’ All Over,” a song originally recorded by UK group Johnny Kidd & the Pirates a few years prior to the British Invasion. While the Pirates’ version of “Shakin’ All Over” had topped the UK Singles Chart in 1960, it was unknown in North America — and thus ripe for plunder.
The original by Johnny Kidd & the Pirates is a terrific nugget of elemental rockabilly, made all the more electrifying in the context of its release. In 1960, UK rock was highly derivative of its American cousin: singers adopted fake American accents and copied American rock ‘n’ roll sounds; some even dressed in Westernwear and took on punchy, American-sounding stage names. In short, the transatlantic cultural appropriation of the British Invasion era was already in effect, albeit moving in the opposite direction. Kidd stood out, however, because his “Shakin’ All Over” was no wan imitation, but every bit as good as what New World rockers were putting out at the time. Despite its initial lack of success outside of Europe, the song has since become somewhat of a standard. Rockabilly pioneer Wanda Jackson even covered it on her 2011 album The Party Ain’t Over.
Chad Allan & the Expressions’ version of “Shakin’ All Over” doesn’t veer too far from Johnny Kidd & the Pirates’ original, but it was effective enough to propel the unknown Manitobans to overnight success. Their record topped the Canadian singles charts for three weeks — including, appropriately, April Fools’ Day — and climbed to a respectable #22 on the US Hot 100. Quality Records almost immediately revealed Chad Allan & the Expressions as the culprits and quickly added their names and faces to the sleeves of their hit single. Nevertheless, the “Guess Who?” trick worked a little too well, as that pithier name stuck better in the minds of the record-buying public. Once Chad Allan left the Expressions in early 1966, the band began billing itself simply as “The Guess Who?” (The new name’s similarity to a genuine British Invasion act couldn’t have hurt, either.)
The erstwhile Expressions scored several hits in their native Canada after “Shakin’ All Over,” but it would take four years for them to have another taste of international success. By that point, the group had reinvented their sound and dropped the question mark from their name. The Guess Who become familiar presence on the rock and pop scene in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s, not only in their homeland, but in the US and UK as well. The band became the first Canadian rock group to top the US singles chart, with “American Woman” in 1970, and other hits like “These Eyes,” “No Sugar Tonight,” and “Share the Land” are still staples of classic rock radio. The fake-British gimmick may have helped the Guess Who get their first shot at the spotlight, but it quickly became a footnote in the group’s career.
It Was 50 Years Ago Today examines a song, album, movie, or book that was #1 on the charts exactly half a century ago.
