A rock ’n’ roll shout-out
ROCK ’n’ roll staples don’t come much bigger than “Twist and Shout.”
More than half a century since it was first penned by Bronx-born songwriter Bert Berns (and his occasional partner Phil Medley), it can be heard everywhere from cable reruns of “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” to encores at Bruce Springsteen concerts. It’s even been adopted as the unofficial fan anthem of Coventry City FC — a once-elite English soccer team.
But, as explored in the new documentary “Bang! The Bert Berns Story” (at the IFC Center now), it was a song that went through some changes. Here’s how the classic came about.
The Top Notes (1961)
Berns (also known as Bert Russell) wrote “Twist and Shout” with a slight Afro-Cuban swing to it. Atlantic Records honcho Jerry Wexler heard it and presented it to a struggling R&B duo called the Top Notes. A young Phil Spector produced this version, adding rewrites and a changed tempo — much to Berns’ fury. It flopped.
The Isley Brothers (1962)
Berns, then a producer, presented the song to the Isley Brothers, who recorded it quickly at the end of a session. Now closer to Berns’ original vision, it became a massive hit on both the R&B and pop charts, and it established Berns as a major music-business player.
The Beatles (1963)
Once the Fabs got hold of “Twist and Shout,” music was never the same. The group’s raucous version of the Berns/ Medley track became a signature for them, and they even performed it on one of their legendary appearances on the Ed Sullivan Show in 1964. “A lot of people think we wrote it,” says Paul McCartney in the documentary. “I must say, we didn’t know about Bert, because we thought the Isleys had written it!”