Johnny Kidd

One of England's top rock & roll outfits before the Beatles led the early-'60s Beat Boom, Johnny Kidd & the Pirates are best remembered today for one international rock classic ("Shakin' All Over") and as a seminal influence on several more famous groups, most notably the Who. Johnny Kidd (born Frederick Heath) had formed his first band, a skiffle group called the Five Nutters, in 1957. They quickly outgrew their skiffle roots and, after a short period fronting the Fred Heath Combo, he joined Alan Caddy (guitar), Tony Docherty (rhythm guitar), and Ken McKay (drums), in early 1958 in an outfit that was dubbed Johnny Kidd & the Pirates, who were spotted by an EMI Records representative and signed to the label. The group cut their first record, the outstanding Please Don't Touch, in April 1959, highlighted by Heath's menacing vocals, which reached number 26 on the British charts. The group's subsequent records were an uneven mix of solid R&B-based rock juxtaposed with awkwardly covered standards. In May of 1960, however, the band was in the studio to record one of those standards, "Yes Sir, That's My Baby," with an original B-side that they hadn't fully worked out. That B-side, a Heath original called "Shakin' All Over," became the A-side of a number one single that became the first original rock song in England to achieve the status of an international rock standard. Driven by Caddy's guitar and a mournful, ominous lead vocal by Heath, the song topped the charts and completely astonished everybody who heard it that such a track could have come from an English rock & roll band. Unfortunately, like every other British label of the era, EMI was never sure how best to deal with rock & roll success, and the group was made to record any amount of dross in the wake of this...