Big Joe Turner, the Kansas City blues shouter, cut this 12-bar jump blues for Atlantic Records in 1954. The walking bass and hard backbeat of its dance-floor drive topped the R&B chart and became the eve of rock and roll.
Bill Haley & His Comets rewrote the raunchier lyrics and covered it in 1954. Reaching #7 on the pop chart, it was one of the first rock and roll covers to carry Black R&B’s beat into the white pop market.
The physicality of Black jump blues reached the pop market as a rock and roll beat through a white band’s cover.