Shout

Bristol Beacon, 8th Feb 2014

Shout was written by the Isley Brothers (Rudolph, Ronald and O’Kelly Jr.) and released as their second single in 1959. The story goes that they wrote it as an answer to Jackie Wilson’s Lonely Teardrops, which was itself in the Isley Brothers’ early repertoire. Certainly the call-and-response format is similar, but the Isley Brothers’ song is much more upbeat.

At around 4 minutes Shout was too long for radio play, so it was split across the two sides of the single as Parts 1 and 2. It was only a moderate hit (#47 in the US) at that time, but in the 1960s it was covered by all and sundry. Joey Dee and the Starliters had a big US hit with it in 1962, but their version lacked the vocal energy and interplay of the original. Here in the UK most people got to know the song from Lulu’s 1964 hit version, to which she mimed valiantly on Ready Steady Go!.