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by The Library of Congress

In the early 1950s Roy Hall was a struggling songwriter in Nashville; he had cut a few records for small labels and sometimes made extra cash playing piano on sessions for country singers Webb Pierce and Marty Robbins. Hall opened a club called The Hideaway where he played piano; to fill in on nights he was on the road, Hall hired a cocky but unknown piano player for $ 15 a night named Jerry Lee Lewis.

Because Hall liked to play what he called “a cross between country and rhythm and blues,” he would spend a lot of time in Memphis, where this new sound, called rockabilly, was born at Sam Phillips‘ Sun Records. Lewis would also make his way to Sun, where he played piano on hits by Carl Perkins and Johnny Cash. But Lewis always knew he wasn’t a sideman, he was a star.

Fast forward to December 1956 and Sun Records is a huge success; that month, the Million Dollar Quartet–Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, Johnny Cash and Elvis Presley–recorded their famous impromptu jam session. But Sam Phillips also had million dollar problems.

A year earlier, Phillips had sold Elvis’ contract to RCA Records for $ 40,000–a princely sum then but in retrospect a disastrous decision. In March 1956, Carl Perkins suffered a serious car wreck, putting his career in jeopardy. And Jerry Lee Lewis, groomed by Phillips to replace Elvis in fans’ hearts, was still without his first hit record.

In early 1957, Jerry Lee went into the studio with drummer Jimmy Van Eaton and guitarist Roland James to record his new single, “It’ll Be Me,” a tune written by the session’s producer, Jack Clement. After a few takes, it was time to move on to the B-side. Lewis chose one he often performed to great audience response: “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On.” The track was recorded in one take. Lewis knew immediately that it was a hit. Lewis’ “Whole Lotta Shakin’,” which rocketed to number three on the Billboard charts, became a rock and roll classic–but his was not the first recording of the song.

“Whole Lotta Shakin’” was co-written in 1954 by singer Dave “Curlee” Williams and Roy Hall, that struggling songwriter from Nashville. Hall said he and Williams wrote the song together on a trip to Florida. The next year, Hall recorded the song for Decca Records with little success.

The songwriting credits for “Whole Lotta Shakin’” have been a source of controversy, as Hall’s Decca sample pressings listed Williams as the sole writer, as did a version by rhythm and blues great Big Maybelle, recorded six months before Hall’s. Hall later secured co-writing credit under the pseudonym Sonny David. Whether Hall came by his credit honestly or not, he maintained that he didn’t profit from it financially: “To tell the truth, I was trying to get out of paying the IRS any money, so I wrote it under the name of Sonny David. I might as well not have gone to the trouble. An ex-wife collected all of the royalties in a divorce settlement.”