Customer Reviews

What's Shakin'

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3 star:		(1)
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First let me give a piece of advice or warning. I bought this CD from another page here on Amazon that stated the CD was no longer available new and could only be obtained from third-party sellers. And those sellers were offering it for 35.88. And I bought it, hook, line, and sinker and now I am 24.02 poorer and wiser. Make sure, if you're going to buy this CD, to get it from this page. And before buying anything that seller-created pages state is not available from Amazon, do some more searching first.

Now, about the CD and the music. I found this CD accidentally while searching for more Lovin' Spoonful titles. I guess how easily I was taken in to pay 35.88 for it shows how impressed I was by the lineup here. And can you believe that in 1966, the Lovin' Spoonful, as great as they are, received bigger billing on the cover than Clapton and Butterfield? And Butterfield has 5 tracks while the Spoonful only have 4.

This is such a unique combination of talent with the pop-ish Lovin Spoonful and count them, not one... but two of the top blues acts in history - ok.. THE top blues act, Eric Clapton, performing with one of the finest male vocal instruments in the history of rock, Steve Winwood. The second blues act, Paul Butterfield Blues Band, is one of the top also-rans. Add Al Kooper, the perpetual also-ran but a good talent and a good eye for talent who later produced many great artists and then finish the list with the great folk artist, Tom Rush.

All-in-all, this CD is pure genius. No label today would ever think to create compilation with so much breadth. This CD should be one of the top sellers for Amazon ever. Every 50-something, like myself, should have one and should buy more for each of their children. Then our children would understand why we just never could get into Motley Crue.

Originally issued in 1966, this compilation pulled together a variety of otherwise unreleased electric rock and blues sides from the Elektra vault. Having developed their reputation in the folk scene, Elektra was just starting to dip their toes into the electrified waters of the mid-60s; Paul Butterfield's debut had been issued the year before, Love was just developing, and commercial rock 'n' roll dominance was still a year away with The Doors. In the interim, Elektra flirted with a pre-Kama Sutra version of THe Lovin' Spoonful, the one-off purpose-built British blues supergroup Powerhouse (Eric Clapton, Steve Winwood, Jack Bruce, Pete York and Paul Jones), and Tom Rush and Al Kooper making the turn to folk-rock.

Several of these tracks were the side-result of other projects. Paul Butterfield's Blues Band's initial album sessions were deemed a failure in comparison to those which yielded their debut album, but Elektra rethought the earlier works and dropped five of their tracks here, including two covers (Little Walter's instrumental "Off the Wall" and James Cotton's "One More Mile") that don't appear on other CDs covering these sessions. The other three tracks include the superb original "Lovin' Cup," and covers of Willie Dixon's "Spoonful" and Sonny Boy Williamson's "Good Morning Little Schoolgirl." It's hard to imagine how these sessions were rejected in the first place!

The other blues powerhouse heard here is a one-off group built of future Cream bandmates Clapton and Bruce (Baker was originally slated, but away on tour), Clapton's future Blind Faith bandmate Winwood, Manfred Mann lead singer Paul Jones, and Spencer Davis group drummer Pete York. The highlight of their three songs is the Yardbirdsian "I Want to Know" (likely written by Jones), supplemented by a cover of "Crossroads" (which Clapton would record to greater impact with Cream) and "Steppin' Out" (which Clapton recorded with John Mayall and would visit a third time with Cream).

The four tracks from The Lovin' Spoonful catch them before the jug-band inspired folk-rock ascendancy that would follow on te Kama Sutra. In addition to covers of Chuck Berry ("Almost Grown") and The Coasters ("Searchin'"), there are two John Sebastian originals, of which "Good Time Music" (which would scrape the bottom of the singles charts as a cover by San Francisco's Beau Brummels) suggests The Spoonful's coming success. The album's remaining pair of cuts include a Tom Rush cover of Fats Domino's "I'm in Love Again" that appears to be an outtake from side two of Rush's "Take a Little Walk With Me" LP, and Al Kooper's "Can't Keep From Crying Sometimes" that was an outgrowth of his role as a sideman on Elektra sessions. The latter would be re-recorded for the Blues Project's second LP, but this version (with BP's rhythm section) is truly superb.

What ties this collection together is the sense of Elektra's growth into new musical areas. Label head Jac Holzman had a great sense for talent and an organic sense of the label's direction. Though these tracks don't always represent the artists' most superlative efforts, they're all interesting footnotes and essay Elektra's future. This reissue returns to CD all 14 tracks of the original 1966 Elektra LP along with the original LP cover art. [©2006 hyperbolium dot com]

For years and years, fans of Eric Clapton have heard of this mysterious collection, entitled What's Shakin', that contained tracks from numerous Elektra Records (and other) artists, but especially contained three tracks from a supergroup known as the Powerhouse, featuring Jack Bruce, Steve Winwood, Paul Jones, and the aforementioned Mr. Clapton. If only we could get ahold of such a collection (we said to ourselves) our musical fantasies would be fulfilled, we would finally get our rocks off, and the heavens would open and reveal the mystery of life to us!!! Great, huh? Well, the fine folks at Collectors Choice Music have done just that for us and reissued this collection on CD, and while even as I speak, the skies have not yet opened, this is still a pretty darn good CD!! The Lovin' Spoonful is also featured and their goodtimey jugband sound is in full evidence, particularly on the fabulous "Good Time Music," a tune which reminds us that the blues is, as with all these artists, at the root of John Sebastian and Co's music. Al Kooper, the Blues Project and Blood, Sweat and Tears founder, NOT the horror-rock guy, weighs in with the delicious "Can't Keep From Crying Sometimes," which sounds exactly as if it were recorded live in a smoky club in the Village. (Sudden thought: Could Al Koopers career and bankroll have been negatively affected just a little by the success of Alice Cooper? Ya think???) Tom Rush contibutes a good version of Fats Dominos "I'm in Love Again" from his Take a Little Walk With Me album. (Fans of Lilian Roxon's old tome Rock Encyclopedia may remember that this album supposedly featured the piano stylings of one Roosevelt Gook, who was rumored to be none other than Bob Dylan.) The Powerhouse's recordings would be frankly disappointing if not for the superb vocals of Steve Winwood (billed here as Steve Angelo). His r and b shouting is in full throttle on "I Want To Know" and makes it the standout track of their set. As for their other tracks, "Crossroads" was, of course, turned into a mega-classic by Cream (the solo on the Powerhouse version was performed by Paul Jones on harmonica, of all things, not Mr. Clapton's guitar), while "Stepping Out" was done much better on the first Blues Breakers album. For my money, the very best tracks on What's Shakin' were performed by the Paul Butterfield Blues Band. Paul's polished harp playing carries the Little Walter instrumental "Off the Wall," while Mike Bloomfield's stinging leads on "One More Mile" remind us that in the mid-60's, his name was often mentioned in the same breath as Clapton's! OUTASITE!!! Finally, one last word of warning: most of these tracks, except the Butterfield ones, suffer from pretty poor sound quality, about like above-average demos. Still, if you love totally groovy rock, get What's Shakin' right away, and you too, can say with pride, What It IS!!!!

In the Sixties and Seventies, many record labels released sampler albums to promote new releases. However, this 1966 Elektra 14-track sampler (now reissued almost forty years later by Collectors' Choice Music) was something of an anomaly in that many of these songs never appeared on any other Elektra album, including five tracks from the Paul Butterfield Blues Band's first recording session for the label. Two of these tracks-"Off the Wall" and "One More Mile"-never appeared on any another recording in any form.

There are also three Eric Clapton tracks with his band Powerhouse (with Jack Bruce, Steve Winwood and Paul Jones) that were recorded in February of 1966. [Two of these tracks-"Crossroads" and "I Want To Know"-showed up on Winwood's 1995 box set THE FINER THINGS.]

In addition, there is an outtake ("I'm in Love Again") from Tom Rush's album TAKE A LITTLE WALK WITH ME, and a pre-Blues Project version of Al Kooper's "I Can't Keep From Crying Sometimes."

But the most exciting tracks (for me, anyway), are the four tracks that the Lovin' Spoonful recorded for Elektra before signing with Kama-Sutra. The first of these, "Good Time Music," appeared on Rhino's 1990 LOVIN' SPOONFUL ANTHOLOGY, but that album is now out of print. The other three tracks ("Almost Grown," "Don't Bank on It Baby" and "Searchin'") have never appeared anywhere else. That alone makes this release a must for Spoonful fans.

In the mid-Sixties, Elektra was just getting its feet wet with rock `n' roll, and there are enough rarities on this disc to make it one of the more exciting reissues of recent years. RECOMMENDED

Wow, they finally released this and with the original cover too!
This is full of great versions of stuff and was highly influential.
I've read that Duane Allman listened to this record and that the Allman Brothers based their versions of some of these songs on the ones here.
The review says Jones is the singer on the Powerhouse stuff, but it was always my understanding that the singer was Winwood.
A personal note, my parents bought this for me in 1966 when I was a 10 year old kid heavily into the Lovin' Spoonful.
The real choice stuff is Butterfield, Kooper and Clapton though.
This sounds as good to me now as it did 40 years ago.
Basically a "primer" for rock inflected blues.

This cd is the missing link between the Bluesbreakers and Cream, for all you Clapton fans. The version of "Steppin' Out" is historically important enough to warrant buying this. As for the other bands involved...well, I'm not really a fan/expert of any of them,but I found them to be pleasant enough listening. Sorry, but that's really all I remember about those tracks!

Glad to see this out on CD. The one and only place to hear E.C. and The Powerhouse most especially.

Just to hear Al Kooper do a solo of "I can't keep from crying" and The Paul Butterfield Band is worth every penny!!!!