The music of the blues and its many cousins has been producing memorable songs for more than a century. Every once in a while, one of those songs makes a lasting impression and becomes part of the soundtrack of your life.
One of the earliest of these songs on my own blues timeline is the classic 1953 R&B hit by the big-voiced singer, Faye Adams — “Shake A Hand.” Her vocal power on this and other songs earned her the nickname “Atomic Adams”
It’s a gorgeous, gospel-inspired song, and Adams’ soaring vocal is full of passion and yearning, with minimal but effective backing that leans on subtle piano artistry.
The song was written by Joe Morris and recorded by Adams. It stayed at No. 1 on the Billboard R&B chart for ten weeks in 1953 and reached number 22 on the US pop chart. It sold a million copies and won a gold disc.
Adams had her own gospel roots; she was the daughter of gospel singer David Tuell. Her music career started at the age of five when she joined her siblings to sing spirituals as the Tuell Sisters.
Later, under her married name, Faye Scruggs, she became a regular performer in New York nightclubs in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Ruth Brown saw her perform and got her an audition with bandleader and trumpeter Morris of Atlantic Records. Morris recruited her as a singer in 1952, and signed her to Herald Records, under new management by her former vocal coach Phil Moore. After he changed her name to Faye Adams, her first release at Herald was Morris’s song “Shake a Hand.”
Adams had limited commercial success following “Shake A Hand,” with two more R&B hits, “I’ll Be True” and “It Hurts Me to My Heart” in 1954. By 1963 she had left secular music and returned to gospel. In 1998, she received an award from the Rhythm and Blues Foundation. Adams died on November 2, 2016, at the age of 93. However, the song itself lives on, as its power and popularity, plus the elegant simplicity of its theme, spawned dozens of cover versions over the years.
The song has been redone by, among many others, Red Foley (#6 country, 1953), Johnnie Ray (1956), Little Richard (#71 pop, 1958), LaVern Baker (#13 R&B, 1960), Jackie Wilson (#21 R&B, #42 pop, 1963), Elvis Presley (on the 1975 album “Today” and Paul McCartney (on the 1999 album “Run Devil Run.” And of course, you know there’s even a Pat Boone version!
“Shake A Hand” sounds just as impressive today as it did 73 years ago. That’s the power of America’s classical music.
Here are some recordings of the song, starting with Adams’ original, then a live Adams performance of “Somebody, Somewhere,” then a few assorted covers: