Few songs have lived nine lives in American pop culture quite like “Shout.” From its soulful 1959 Cincinnati birth to its Animal House revival and its eternal role as a wedding-reception floor-filler, this entry explores the wild history of The Isley Brothers’ greatest party anthem — plus the surprisingly tricky science behind the “a little bit softer now” squat that stumps half your dance floors every Saturday night.
November 25, 2024
1959.
Eisenhower is in the White House. The Cuban Revolution ends with dictator Fulgencio Batista fleeing the island nation and the United States recognizing the new government under Fidel Castro. The Soviet Union launches primates Miss Able and Miss Baker into space on board Luna 1. Alaska becomes the 49th state; Hawaii becomes the 50th. The Guggenheim Museum, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, opens in New York City. At eleven inches tall with a waterfall of blonde hair, the Barbie doll makes her debut. Disney releases Sleeping Beauty, its first 70 mm film with Stereophonic sound. Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and J.P. "The Big Bopper" Richardson die in a plane crash...
...and the greatest party song of all time is recorded by The Isley Brothers, a trio of brothers from Cincinnati, Ohio.
A mainstay of popular music for nearly seventy years, The Isley Brothers are one of the most enduring and influential groups in the pantheon of popular music. Without them, soul, funk, R&B, and even hip-hop wouldn't have the same complexion, and their fingerprints can still be felt in contemporary songs of today. Beginning life as a vocal trio in 1954, The Isley Brothers have been through various iterations, be it lineup changes (two generations of siblings have carried the mantle) or the evolution in their sound from Gospel to Doo Wop to Motown stars of the '60s, to blistering funk and soul seducers throughout the 70s. The Isley Brothers' influence is innumerable.
A young Jimi Hendrix was a fan of the Isleys. He was soon hired, and he toured and lived with the Isleys for months, learning guitar tricks from legendary guitarist Ernie Isley such as playing the guitar behind his head or with his teeth
And by the time the 90s arrived and rap blew up, everything changed. Their music was sampled by everyone you can think of: Dr Dre, Ice Cube, Tupac, Jay Z, and Biggie Smalls. In the aughts, they were sampled by Lil Wayne, Thundercat, and Kendrick Lamar. Aaliyah and Frank Ocean both covered them. And the list goes on.
But despite a 65 year old catalog of major hits, their signature song remains their first single release: the aforementioned greatest party song of all time, the 1959 double sided single "Shout, Parts 1 and 2." The song was originally conceived by Ronald Isley on the spur of the moment at a Washington, DC, concert in mid-1959. As they performed a cover of Jackie Wilson's "Lonely Teardrops," Ronald ad-libbed, "WELLLLLLLLLLL... you know you make me want to SHOUT" and Rudy and O'Kelly joined in on the improvisation. The audience went wild, and afterwards, RCA executive Howard Bloom suggested putting it out as their first RCA single.
The improvisation evolved out of the call-and-response style the Isleys grew up singing in church. The organist from their church, Professor Herman Stephens, played on the track. "Shout" may have kickstarted their career in music, but the Isley Brothers did not consider it an actual song at first. It was just a "thing" they would do onstage and the crowd would go nuts. They knew they were onto something, however, when Jackie Wilson, who they were opening for, started using their stop-and-go style in his own show.
I DJ nearly ever Saturday throughout the year, and while every reception is different, there’s a pretty specific corpus of music that I play again and again. One of those staples is “Shout.” Each time I play the song, I watch the dance floor from behind my DJ booth. Because many wedding guests have no sense of rhythm or coordination, this song presents a minor issue for them:
What is the proper rate of descent during the “a little bit softer now” portion of the song?
In case you’re unfamiliar, dancing to “Shout” is basically the easiest thing in the world. If you don’t have a head for anything much more complicated than orchestrated flailing — if “Cha Cha Slide” is your cue to hit the bar — “Shout” is a musical oasis because it involves putting your hands up and jumping when you hear the word “shout,” and that’s about it.
Except there’s a part when the song implores dancers to — wait a minute — take it easy, and then slowly descend to essentially a squat.
Here’s some archival footage from the documentary National Lampoon's Animal House demonstrating what I’m talking about:
A few weeks ago, a wedding guest confided in me that she was terrible at timing the descent. She said she always ends up way too low way too early. It’s a problem. Then, she either has to just sit there until the section is over or say “screw it” and basically get on the floor. She's not alone. Even as a DJ, I often have the same issue, and it got me thinking.
I wanted to figure out a rule of thumb for descending during the “a little bit softer now.” This meant figuring out the average distance between someone’s starting height and his or her finishing height and spacing out the difference evenly over the “a little bit softer now” section. This involved walking around my office with a tape measure and bugging my wife.
This is definitely a non-scientific sample, but, on average, my wife dropped to a little less than 60 percent of her full height when asked to get into the “softest” position she’d want to be in at the end of the “a little bit softer now[s].”
There are 15 repetitions of “a little bit softer now” in the song. Let’s say you want to be at your full height on the first and at your lowest on the last. You’ll need to drop 15 times. How much should you drop each time?
Here’s the best rule of thumb I could figure out: Take your height in feet and divide it by three, and descend that many inches on every “a little bit softer now.” If you are, say, 6 feet tall, you should drop by 2 inches with every “softer now.”
Plugging this metric in for the guinea pig my wife, the difference between her ideal end point and the predicted end point was 1.9 inches, which wasn’t that bad. If you’re a flexible person, descend a little faster. If you’re less flexible, descend slower because nobody wants to be seated on the floor waiting for others to join him or her.
Anyway, the rest of the song keeps things simple. You just jump around and go crazy. It's an easy dance, which makes it popular at weddings, proms, and other events where many rhythmically challenged people end up on the dance floor.
The song is a mainstay. Immortalized by Animal House, "Shout" has become the quintessential party song. It always will be.
I should add that the version in Animal House was performed by a fictional band called Otis Day And The Knights, with Otis played by actor DeWayne Jessie. After the movie became a huge hit, Jessie was getting constant requests to perform. He quickly put together a real Otis Day and The Knights and became a touring act, mostly hitting college campuses. They were still touring into the 2010s. In 1989, they released an album called Shout.
Jessie is not the only artist to cover the song. "Shout" helped introduce the singing sensation Lulu. The Scottish singer went to London at age 15 and recorded a version of the song with her group Lulu & The Luvvers. Early on, Lulu often performed in blues clubs where the song was a great fit. She soon became a very successful actress as well, appearing in the film To Sir With Love and scoring a #1 US hit with the movie's title track.
Lulu, just 13 at the time, was introduced to "Shout" by the Scottish rocker Alex Harvey, who she saw perform it in a Glasgow club called The Scene. Lulu added it to her act with The Luvvers, and it became their first hit when Lulu sang it at an audition for Decca records. She had a terrible cold when she recorded it, which gave her a rougher sound that suited the song.
"Shout" charted seven times in America from 1959-1969. The original Isley Brothers version went to #47 in 1959. A cover version by Joey Dee And The Starlighters went to #6 in 1962; that same year a re-release of the Isley's original went to #94. Lulu's version, a huge UK hit (it peaked at #7 in the UK), reached #94 in 1964, the same year Dion's version hit #108. Lulu's cover was re-released in 1967 and reached #96. Finally, the Chambers Brothers took the song to #83 in 1969. The Isleys would not have another hit until "Twist and Shout" in 1962, though the Beatles' cover of that track outperformed the Isley's original on the charts as well.
Though “Shout” only reached No. 47 on Billboard’s pop chart in 1959, it became the Isley Brothers’ first million-selling record thanks to its enduring popularity and covers by many other artists. Everyone knows the song today, and it is a guaranteed floor filler, which goes to show that Billboard ranking does not always determine a song's acclaim and favorability.
And in case you missed it, Nike re-created the Animal House scene with "Shout" in a 2015 video celebrating University of Oregon athletics - company founder Phil Knight is an alumnus and the company is based in Oregon. Appearing in the spot are popular University of Oregon athletes, past and present, including football players Dan Fouts, Marcus Mariota, Ahmad Rashad, Dennis Dixon and Joey Harrington; track stars English Gardner, Mandy White and Galen Rupp; and the Duck mascot. Otis Day (DeWayne Jessie) reprised his role from the film. You can find the video on YouTube.
And, as a final aside, "Shout" was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1999 (as it should be.)