Saturday, July 26, 2008

Shake Your Hips

Exile on Main St.
Side One, Track Three
"Shake Your Hips" (Slim Harpo) – 2:59




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Kind of a proto-ZZ Top shuffle via John Lee Hooker on the one. The Stones attack the blues from many different directions on Exile, but on "Hips" they meet the blues head on – something they haven't done in a while (maybe since "Parachute Woman"). I was never a big fan of this track, but now I'm starting to hear some things that escaped me before: Charlie's clickity clackity percussion work; Mick's echo-drenched vocal; Keith's chugging open-G rhythm work.

"Shake Your Hips" is a song closely associated with its composer, Slim Harpo (né James Moore). Swear to god, until this moment, I thought the songs was one of those ancient delta blues songs, but it turns out that Harpo first performed it in 1966, only three years before the Stones recorded it using his arrangement. Take a listen:

2 comments:

Mondo said...

Never heard the original before - I wonder how the Stones, picked up on this obscure nugget?

Nanker said...

Slim Harpo was a Stones favourite, I think. The band had earlier covered his "I'm a King Bee".