‘Dancin’ With You, Baby. . .’

A while back, I was sorting and tagging mp3s as the CD player over my left shoulder ran through the two-disc set Night Train to Nashville, subtitled “Music City Rhythm & Blues, 1945-1970.” Deep into the second disc of the set borrowed from the local library, I’d already heard a lot of stuff I wished I’d heard long ago, much of it on the Excello label. 

A new track began: a thrumming bass with two measures of eighth notes solo, then percussion on the backbeat for two more measures. And then: “Doooo, do-do doo. Do-do-do! Do-do-do! Do-do-do.” I jerked my head around, stared at the CD player as the verse began: “Dancin’ with you, baby, really turns the soulshake on. Yeah, groovin’ with you, baby, really turns the soulshake on.” 

Knowing the song as “Soul Shake” but never having heard this version, I reached for the booklet that came with the set. The track was by Peggy Scott and Jo Jo Benson, recorded in Nashville in 1969 and released as “Soulshake” early that year on SSS International.

The record did pretty well, reaching No. 37 on the Billboard Hot 100 and going to No. 13 on the R&B chart. The oddly twangy instrument is an electric sitar, played – the booklet noted – by Jerry Kennedy. Others at the session included Pete Drake, Charlie McCoy, Wayne Moss and Kenny Buttrey. (Four of those names – all except Drake’s – I recognized as having played on, among other things, Bob Dylan’s Blonde on Blonde; Drake’s I recognized from Dylan’s John Wesley Harding as well as other projects. A look at the credits of any of those gentlemen at All-Music Guide is instructive.) 

All that was interesting, but what really grabbed me was the song. I’d previously heard it a 1970 cover by Delaney and Bonnie Bramlett, who listed the tune as “Soul Shake” on their album To Bonnie From Delaney. 

Covers can be funny things, especially when a cover version is the first version one hears of a specific song. That’s the version that imprints, I think – at least it is for me – and other versions, even the original, can have a hard time matching the impact of that first-heard cover. And that’s the case here. Meaning no disrespect to Peggy Scott and Jo Jo Benson, their “Soulshake” pales in comparison to the swaggering and propulsive Delaney and Bonnie cover. 

Some of that swagger and propulsion comes from Delaney and Bonnie themselves, but much of it comes from the folks who backed them. Primary among them would be Duane Allman, whose slide guitar helps drive the track. Individual track credits aren’t listed on the LP jacket or in the CD insert, but others listed in the album credits – though not necessarily playing on “Soul Shake” – are Charlie Freeman on lead guitar, Jim Dickinson on piano, Bobby Whitlock on organ and vocals, Tom McClure and Jerry Scheff on bass, Ron Tutt and Sammy Creason on drums, 

And there’s nothing else anyone needs to know except, as Delaney sings, “There ain’t nothin’ ’bout you, baby, that I don’t approve!”

Just listen:

– whiteray