Uncovered - the original version

I like Cream's version but Ross's is like the earliest glimmer of Rock & Roll...terrific tune

In my mind's timeline of Rock that's well after the birth of Rock n Roll.

In an interview given in 1982, Raitt would reveal that "Takin' My Time is one of my favorite records to listen to, although I started out with Lowell George producing it, and he and I got too close to be able to have any objectivity about it. That's the problem when you're a woman and you get involved with the people you work with - and I just don't just mean romantically. It becomes too emotional. It's hard to have a strong woman telling the man her ideas when, in fact, the man wants to take over the situation. So that album had a lot of heartache in it. At the time it was a difficult one to make, but now I like it."

Comparison of the Joe Turner and Bill Haley versions

Both recordings are considered classics. Haley's version is peppier and brighter. It fits the definition of rock and roll as a merger of country music and rhythm and blues. Haley had started his career in country music while Turner was a blues shouter.

Comparing the two versions illustrates the differences between blues and rock 'n' roll. A simple, stark instrumental backing is heard on the Turner version. Where the Turner version uses a walking bass line, the Comets version, produced by Milt Gabler of Decca Records, features an energetic slap bass. A subdued horn arrangement in the Turner recording can be contrasted with a honking sax riff that answers each line of verse in Haley's version, and the entire band shouts "Go!" as part of the vocal backing.[8]

Although musical revisionists and American media tried to paint Turner as a victim of the music industry due to Haley's covering of the song, in fact Haley's success helped Turner immensely although Turner was a well-established performer long before "Shake Rattle and Roll". Listeners who hear Haley's version sought out Turner's. The two men became close friends, and performed on tour together in Australia in 1957. In 1966, at a time when Turner's career was at a low ebb, Haley arranged for his Comets to back the elder musician for a series of recordings in Mexico, although apparently Haley and Turner did not record a duet version of "Shake Rattle and Roll".[9]

Haley acknowledged Turner's version in later years by incorporating more of the original lyrics into his live performances, including adding the verse with the lines "I've been over the hill and I've been way down underneath" which was omitted from Haley's original recording, when he recorded the song for Stuart Colman's BBC Radio program in October 1979. When he performed the song at the Bitter End club in New York City in 1969 for his Buddah Records album release Bill Haley's Scrapbook, Haley changed Turner's "I believe to my soul you're the devil in nylon hose" to "I believe you've been doin' me wrong and now I know". Both Turner's and Haley's versions contain the double entendre "I'm like a one-eyed cat peepin' in a seafood store." In Turner's version, the girl is ordered to "get out of that bed"; Haley changes it "get out in that kitchen", nonetheless, in his version she is directed to "roll my breakfast cause I'm a hungry man". In other words, she has spent the night with the singer in both versions. When Joe Turner performed the song in the 1955 film Rock 'n' Roll Revue, he chose to sing the Bill Haley version of the opening verse.

Both versions sold over one million copies, marking "Shake Rattle and Roll" the first giant rock'n'roll hit.[10]