A Shot of Rhythm and Blues

From Wikipedia:

“A Shot of Rhythm and Blues” is a song written by Terry Thompson and first recorded by US soul singer Arthur Alexander. It was originally released in the USA in 1961, and in the United Kingdom the following year, as the b-side of “You Better Move On“.

As well as having Rhythm and Blues in the title, the songs is itself an R’n’B number. Featuring only blues chords, it begins as an apparent 12-bar blues, but then diverts from that standard structure into a more distinctive composition. […]

The song, along with Some Other Guy, became a standard on the 1960s Mersey scene, particularly at the Cavern Club, and was covered by Cilla, The Beatles. and Gerry and the Pacemakers.

Recording was always the thing. Rather than TV and films. TV and films were a possibility, if we became stars, but records were the main objective. That was what we bought, that was what we dealt in. It was the currency of music: records. That’s where we got our repertoire from, the b-sides, the Shot Of Rhythm And Blues, the lesser known stuff that we helped bring to the fore, the R&B stuff.

Paul McCartney in “Anthology“:

A lot of our [early] tracks may not have been ‘cool’. I think if we’d just been cool, we wouldn’t have made it how we did. But that was a great aspect of us. John would do A Shot Of Rhythm And Blues or You Really Got A Hold On Me – you could call that cool.

From BeatlesWiki:

[…] The Beatles have made at least four known recordings of the song, the first three of which were for BBC radio. The first one was recorded at the BBC Paris Studio on June 1, 1963 for the program Pop Goes The Beatles. It was broadcast on June 18 [and officially released on Bootleg Recordings 1963]. The next attempt was recorded on July 17, 1963 and broadcast on July 21. It was recorded at the BBC Playhouse Theatre for the program Easy Beat. This arrangement was slower than the earlier one and contained a short, bluesy guitar break played by George Harrison. This was the only recorded version played in front of a live audience. The last one recorded for BBC Radio was recorded on August 1, 1963 at the Playhouse Theatre in Manchester. It was broadcast on August 27, 1963 as part of Pop Goes The Beatles. This version, like the previous recorded version, also utilized the slower arrangement. This was included on the 1994 compilation Live at the BBC. The last recorded version was recorded more than five years later, in a Get Back session at Twickenham Film Studios on January 7, 1969. This version has been included on many bootlegs, including Thirty Days. […]

Lyrics

Officially appears on

Bootlegs

Live performances

“A Shot of Rhythm and Blues” has been played in 6 concerts.

Latest concerts where “A Shot of Rhythm and Blues” has been played

Going further

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.