walking upstream…
Isley Brothers
sourcesSongfacts — "Shout" by The Isley Brothers (Ronald Isley's on-stage ad-lib) · Wikipedia — The Isley Brothers (formation, naming of Billy Ward and His Dominoes as a model) · Wikipedia — "Shout" (Isley Brothers song) (the "We-eee-ll" lift from Ray Charles' "I Got a Woman," sourced to Marc Myers' Anatomy of a Song) · Genius — "Shout (Pt. 1 & 2)" lyrics and credits (confirms the retained "say you will" line and lists "Lonely Teardrops" as a formal interpolation)
Formed in Cincinnati in 1954 as a gospel quartet of preacher's-son brothers, the Isleys lost their youngest voice, thirteen-year-old Vernon, to a car accident that same year, and nearly ended it there. Coaxed back by their parents, O'Kelly, Rudolph and Ronald agreed to keep singing only if they could trade church music for doo-wop -- and spent the late fifties chasing the R&B stars of the day on the road, closing shows with a cover of Jackie Wilson's "Lonely Teardrops" stretched further every night. By the summer of 1959, that stretch had become its own record, "Shout," self-written and self-credited, the first of seven decades of reinvention: Motown singles in the sixties, the self-contained "3+3" funk-rock band of the seventies once younger brother Ernie joined on guitar, quiet-storm R&B through the eighties and nineties. Ronald Isley's tenor lead carried every version of the group forward.
the sound in question
1973
That Lady, Pts. 1 & 2Isley Brothers
walk the tributaries ↓
Jackie Wilson1950s–60s · R&B / Soul / Rock and roll
By the summer of 1959, the Isleys had spent two years working Jackie Wilson's "Lonely Teardrops" into the close of every live set, stretching it further each night until it barely resembled itself. At one such show, Ronald Isley pushed past the song's own ending -- according to Songfacts' account, he ad-libbed "you know you make me want to SHOUT," and his brothers piled in behind him. RCA released the resulting bit as "Shout" that August, keeping, buried inside it, a single surviving line of the song it grew out of: "say you will, say you will."
listen: upstream & here
1958
Lonely TeardropsJackie Wilson
1962
Twist and ShoutIsley Brothers
listen forCue Wilson's "Lonely Teardrops" against the Isleys' 1962 "Twist and Shout": both ride a lead voice climbing past its comfortable range into a full-throated cry, then handing off to a group holler behind it. It's the same call-and-response shout Ronald Isley first improvised off this very song in 1959, carried three years later onto a different record -- the vocal habit outlasting the specific tune that taught it to him.
Billy Ward and His Dominoes1950s · R&B / Doo-wop
After Vernon's death ended their run as a gospel quartet, a deal was struck: Ronald would take the lead, if the Isleys could trade church music for doo-wop, patterned on what the podcast historian Andrew Hickey calls "the brothers' favourite act" -- Billy Ward and His Dominoes. Both of the Dominoes' successive lead tenors, Clyde McPhatter and then Jackie Wilson, had carried the same church-holler sound the Isleys knew into secular records, and the moment Ronald took the microphone, people started making the same comparison.
listen: upstream & heresource: A History of Rock Music in 500 Songs — Episode 81 ↗
1951
Sixty Minute ManBilly Ward and His Dominoes
1959
RespectableIsley Brothers
listen forSet the Dominoes' 1951 "Sixty Minute Man" against the Isleys' own "Respectable," cut the same year as "Shout": both put a single forceful, talk-singing lead voice out front of a tight, close-harmony group answering him line for line, the boastful call-and-answer arrangement that was the whole vocal-group template the teenage Isleys studied before they had a hit song of their own to sing.
Ray Charles1950s–60s · Soul / R&B / Gospel
Jackie Wilson wasn't the only ingredient in "Shout." Per the account behind Wikipedia's entry on the song, sourced to Marc Myers' book "Anatomy of a Song," the Isleys built the record's opening from "a drawn out 'We-eee-ll' copied from Ray Charles' 'I Got a Woman.'" Once producers Hugo and Luigi agreed to cut their stage routine as a single, the group split it over two sides -- the same call-and-response structure Charles had just used, that same year, on "What'd I Say."
listen: upstream & heresource: A History of Rock Music in 500 Songs — Episode 81 ↗
1954
I Got a WomanRay Charles
1959
Shout, Pts. 1 & 2Isley Brothers
listen forDrop the needle on Charles' "I Got a Woman" and then on the opening seconds of "Shout": the same drawn-out, moaned vowel cry launches both records in almost the same key, before each song breaks into its own call-and-response holler. It's the vocal entrance the Isleys borrowed whole from Charles, then built an entire hit single -- and its own new dance craze -- around.