It’s one of the great resurrection stories in pop history. In 1961, a song called “Twist and Shout” was recorded by a forgotten vocal group, produced by a 21-year-old Phil Spector — and it flopped so completely that its own co-writer disowned the recording. A year later, three brothers from Cincinnati took the same song into a New York studio, rebuilt it from the ground up, and turned it into a hit so explosive that the Beatles themselves would bow down to it. This is how the Isley Brothers stole a song back from oblivion.
The Latin Misfire
The song began life in 1961, written by the Brill Building pros Phil Medley and Bert Berns — the latter working under the name “Bert Russell”. It was originally titled “Shake It Up, Baby”, and its first recording went to the Top Notes, a vocal group on Atlantic Records. The session took place on February 23, 1961, at Atlantic Studios in New York, and the producer was a 21-year-old kid named Phil Spector — years before he’d invent the Wall of Sound.
Spector gave the song an uptempo Latin arrangement, all cha-cha rhythms and polite bounce, courtesy of arranger Teddy Randazzo. It was… fine. It was also completely wrong. The record stripped the song of every ounce of its inherent wildness, and when it was released, it sank without a trace. Atlantic dropped the Top Notes. The song looked dead on arrival.
The session itself tells you everything about what went wrong. February 23, 1961, Atlantic Studios, New York: a 21-year-old Phil Spector — years from inventing the Wall of Sound, still learning his trade — draped Medley and Berns’s raw tune in an uptempo Latin arrangement by Teddy Randazzo, all cha-cha bounce and cocktail-lounge politeness. It was professional, it was tidy, and it was completely soulless — the song’s wild heart surgically removed. Released into a world that had no reason to care, it stiffed. Atlantic terminated the Top Notes’ contract. As far as the industry was concerned, “Twist and Shout” — then still “Shake It Up, Baby” — was a closed case.
Berns’s Obsession
Everyone gave up on “Twist and Shout” — everyone except Bert Berns. The co-writer was furious about what Spector had done to his song. He hadn’t written a polite Latin novelty; he’d written a barn-burner, and he knew it. Where others heard a flop, Berns heard a masterpiece waiting for the right voices.
So Berns did something almost unheard of: he decided to produce the song himself, to show Spector — and the world — what he’d intended all along. He needed singers with gospel fire, R&B grit and rock-and-roll abandon. He needed a group that could take a song apart and put it back together louder. He found them in Cincinnati: three brothers named Isley, who’d had a massive hit with “Shout” in 1959 and then spent three years wandering the commercial wilderness. They were hungry. They were perfect. They just didn’t know it yet.
Berns’s fury was the engine of the whole resurrection. He hadn’t written a Latin novelty — he’d written a barn-burner, and hearing Spector’s bloodless version made him determined to prove it. In an almost unheard-of move for a songwriter, he decided to produce the record himself, to demonstrate to Spector and the world what the song was supposed to sound like. He needed voices with gospel fire and R&B grit. The Isley Brothers — three Cincinnati brothers who’d detonated “Shout” in 1959 and then spent three years in the commercial wilderness — were starving for a hit and built for exactly this kind of song. When Berns brought them the tune, they were skeptical. He was certain. Certainty won.
Four Ascending Notes
The Isleys cut their version early in 1962 for Wand Records in New York, with Berns producing — and the transformation was total. Gone was the cha-cha politeness. In its place: a churning, gospel-fired groove, Ronald Isley’s lead vocal soaring and testifying over the relentless call-and-response of his brothers Rudolph and O’Kelly.
And then there was Berns’s masterstroke — the detail that turned a good record into an immortal one. He built a brand-new bridge out of nothing but four ascending sung notes, the tempo growing more emphatic and dramatic with each one, building to exultant, sustained whooping before crashing back into the verse with a cry of “shake it up, baby”. It was pure church, pure theater, pure electricity. Berns even brought in crack session players to set the earth shaking — including, by one account, the great saxophonist King Curtis. The Spector version had been a dance record. This was a revival meeting.
The 1962 Wand session in New York was Berns’s answer to Atlantic Studios, and every choice was a rebuke. Where Spector had been polite, Berns was ferocious: Ronald Isley’s lead vocal soaring and testifying, Rudolph and O’Kelly answering with relentless call-and-response straight from the Cincinnati church of their childhood. The rhythm churned instead of bouncing. And then the masterstroke — that new bridge, four ascending sung notes climbing toward heaven, the tempo growing more emphatic until it burst into exultant whooping and crashed back into the verse on a cry of “shake it up, baby”. Berns even drafted ringers to thicken the sound, including — by one account — the great King Curtis on sax. It wasn’t a cover. It was a reclamation.
A B-Side That Refused to Stay There
Here’s the delicious irony: nobody involved thought “Twist and Shout” was the hit. The plan, hatched by Berns and Medley, was to cut it as a B-side — a bit of fun on the flip, a raucous approximation of an Isley Brothers stage show. The A-side was supposed to be a Burt Bacharach ballad, “Make It Easy on Yourself”. Ronald Isley himself later recalled that “Twist and Shout” was meant to be buried on the back of the single.
Then everyone heard Ronald’s vocal — that unbridled, wind-up, roof-raising lead — and the plan changed on the spot. You don’t hide a voice like that on a B-side. “Twist and Shout” was promoted to the A-side (backed with “Spanish Twist”), and released on the Wand label in 1962. The B-side that refused to stay a B-side was about to become one of the most famous singles of the decade.
The original plan sounds like a music-business parable. Berns and Medley intended “Twist and Shout” as the flip — a fun, raucous B-side capturing the Isleys’ stage energy — while a Burt Bacharach ballad, “Make It Easy on Yourself”, would be the proper A-side. Ronald Isley himself later recalled the song was meant to be buried. Then the playback happened: Ronald’s unbridled, wind-up, roof-raising vocal filled the room, and the plan disintegrated on the spot. You don’t hide a voice like that. “Twist and Shout” was promoted to the A-side — backed with “Spanish Twist” — and released on Wand in 1962. The ballad became the footnote. The throwaway became the legend.
No. 17 and No. 2: The Comeback
The record exploded. “Twist and Shout” roared to No. 17 on the Billboard Hot 100 and — more importantly for the brothers’ soul credibility — to No. 2 on the R&B chart. It was their first hit in three long years, since “Shout” had shaken the rafters in 1959, and it announced that the Isley Brothers were far from finished.
Overnight, the brothers went from has-beens to party-starters. The song became a standard — the record every R&B and rock-and-roll band had to learn, the guaranteed floor-filler, the sound of 1962 letting its hair down. And it did something even more important: it proved the Isleys could take someone else’s song and make it unmistakably theirs. That alchemy — gospel voices, R&B muscle, pop smarts — would power them for the next sixty years.
The chart story was the comeback of the year. “Twist and Shout” roared to No. 17 on the Billboard Hot 100 — the trio’s first Top 20 record — and to No. 2 on the R&B chart, where it truly belonged. It was their first hit in three long years, since “Shout” had shaken the rafters in 1959, and it ended the wilderness in a single stroke. Almost overnight, the song became a standard: the guaranteed floor-filler, the party record every R&B and rock-and-roll band had to learn, from bar bands to the Beatles. The Isleys weren’t one-hit wonders anymore. They were the guys who’d stolen a dead song and made it immortal — and everybody wanted to know what they’d steal next.
Eleven Minutes at EMI
Across the Atlantic, four young men from Liverpool were paying very close attention. The Beatles had been playing the Isleys’ “Twist and Shout” in their Hamburg club sets, studying every whoop and holler. When they went into EMI Studios on February 11, 1963, to record their debut album “Please Please Me” in a single marathon day-long session, they saved “Twist and Shout” for last — with just fifteen minutes of studio time remaining.
John Lennon was suffering from a vicious cold. His voice was shredded. Producer George Martin knew they had, at most, two takes in him — and the second take was abandoned, unusable. What survived was a single, desperate, magnificent take: Lennon, throat raw, hurling himself at the song like his life depended on it. “Every time I swallowed, it felt like sandpaper,” he remembered. The Beatles’ version became one of the most famous recordings in history — and it was, note for note and whoop for whoop, the Isley Brothers’ arrangement. The students had honored the masters the best way possible: by nearly matching them.
The circumstances were pure rock-and-roll legend. The Beatles had been woodshedding the Isleys’ version in Hamburg’s clubs for months. On February 11, 1963, recording their debut album “Please Please Me” in a single day-long marathon at EMI, they saved “Twist and Shout” for last — with fifteen minutes of studio time left. John Lennon had a vicious cold; his voice was hanging by a thread. They got one usable take — the second was abandoned, Lennon spent — and what survived was desperate and magnificent. “Every time I swallowed, it felt like sandpaper,” he recalled. Released as a US single on March 2, 1964, on Vee-Jay, it hit No. 2 — kept from the top only by the Beatles’ own “Can’t Buy Me Love” — and they’d already torn through it on “The Ed Sullivan Show” on February 23. The Isleys watched from across the ocean as their arrangement conquered the world twice.
Six Decades of Hits
“Twist and Shout” did more than revive a career; it lit a fuse. The song sparked the Isley Brothers’ almost unbelievable streak of scoring Billboard pop hits in six consecutive decades — the ’50s, ’60s, ’70s, ’80s, ’90s and ’00s — a run no B-side was ever supposed to start. It made Bert Berns one of the most sought-after songwriter-producers in the business. And it cemented the template: take a song, Isley-fy it, watch the world catch up.
The longest echo is the one nobody could have predicted in 1962. “Twist and Shout” lit the fuse on the Isley Brothers’ almost unbelievable streak: Billboard pop hits in six consecutive decades — the ’50s, ’60s, ’70s, ’80s, ’90s and ’00s — a run no other act has matched, all sparked by a B-side that refused to stay buried. Berns rode the momentum to become one of the great songwriter-producers of the era. And the template held for sixty years: find the fire in a song, add gospel and grit, and let Ronald testify. It worked on a Phil Spector reject in 1962. It never stopped working.
Think about the journey: a flop Latin single, disowned by its own writer, rescued by three brothers and rebuilt with four ascending notes and a whole lot of church. “Twist and Shout” is proof that in pop music, there are no dead songs — only songs waiting for the right voices. The Top Notes had the song first. Phil Spector had it second. But it took the Isley Brothers to show the world what it had been all along: pure, shouting, shake-it-up joy.
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