Johnny Kidd & The Pirates

Before everything became homogenized the musical climate in Canada was quite different from its American counterpart; The Beatles made it here before their US breakthough; before that Canadian radio stations were more attuned to the UK charts, and Canadian musicians were listening to and imitating Cliff Richard and all his British imitators and would-be’s and wanna-be’s. Johnny Kidd & The Pirates had 4 hits that made the UK top 20, and Randy Bachman and Chad Allen were listening.

I only have the one song, and it comes from The Roots Of British Rock.

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Johnny Kidd & The Pirates:

• Shakin’ All Over – A Johnny Kidd original. I read in The Book Of Rock Lists by Kevin Stein and Dave Marsh that Mick Green played lead guitar on this, but Wikipedia says it was Joe Moretti, and that Green joined later. I, of course, have no idea who it was, and perhaps Johnny Kidd (or Mick Green or Joe Moretti) will read this and fill me in. The song is an expression of lust of the wildest sort, and it took on a life of its own after Kidd and the band had their way with it. It was The Guess Who’s first US release (recorded by the group as Chad Allen & The Expressions and released in the US as Guess Who?) and The Who like to perform an extreme arrangement of this; their version was on the Woodstock movie and on the Live At Leeds album. The Swinging Blue Jeans had a crack at it too. From the summer of 1960.