Shake Your Hips

Album: Exile on Main St. (1972)
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Songfacts®:

  • This was originally recorded by Bluesman Slim Harpo. It was Mick Jagger's idea to record it for the album - he is a big fan of Harpo. The Stones recorded Harpo's "I'm A King Bee" on their first album.
  • Slim Harpo was born and lived in Louisiana and in the 1950s and the 1960s helped create a style known as Electric Louisiana Blues. A guitarist, vocalist and harmonica player who played songs in the deceptively simple way of Jimmy Reed, Harpo played a style, along with his Louisiana contemporaries Lazy Lester, Lonesome Sundown and Lightnin' Slim, that has also been called swamp blues. The music was definitely laid back in the style of Jimmy Reed, often featuring reverberating guitars and a slower rhythm and mood that gave it the name swamp blues, which also mixed in elements of other Louisiana music (calypso, gospel, R&B and soul). Harpo was an early influence on The Rolling Stones. Jagger and Richards were the first to discover him and were already into his music during the pre-Stones era. When they met Brian Jones, they turned him on to Harpo in the same way that they turned him on to Chuck Berry. The Stones covered Harpo's "I'm a King Bee" on their first album. Their title for the live album Got Live If You Want It! is a reworking of a Harpo song called "Got Love If You Want It." >>>
    Suggestion credit:
    Bertrand - Paris, France
  • The song is also known as "Hip Shake."
  • The Stones recorded this in London, but reworked it at Keith Richards' villa in the South of France, where the band was staying on their "exile." It was recorded to sound like a '50s record.

Comments: 5

  • Jay Grant from Key WestCheck out Harpos "Tip On In" parts one and the down tempo part two. I believe someone coined the genre Popcorn Music. Whatever. It's sheer genius.
  • The Dude from Chi-town, IlHere's how mick described it in 1995:

    "Stoned is the word that might describe (the band at the time). (Laughs) It's the first album Mick Taylor's on, really (sic). So it's different than previous albums, which had Brian on them - or Brian not on them, as the case may be. It was a difficult period, because we had all these lawsuits going with Allen Klein. We had to leave England because of tax problems. We had no money and went to live in the South of France - the first album we made where we weren't based in England, thus the title."
  • Steve from Ottawa, CanadaWhere "I'm A King Bee" was a fairly true cover of Slim Harpo, "Hip Shake" from "Exile on Main Street" is almost a completely different song - but it rocks nonetheless.
  • Stefanie from Rock Hill, ScThat's because LaGrange also barrowed from the original "Shake Your Hips" by Slim Harpo. You can hear it in the intros of both songs.
  • Johnny from Los Angeles, CaThis sounds like ZZ top's La Grange I believe it's called
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