Willie and the Hand Jive
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| "Willie and the Hand Jive" | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | ||||
| Single by Johnny Otis | ||||
| B-side | "Ring-a-Ling" | |||
| Released | 1958 | |||
| Recorded | 1958 | |||
| Genre | Rock and roll | |||
| Length | 2:32 | |||
| Label | Capitol | |||
| Songwriter | Johnny Otis | |||
| Producer | Tom “Tippy” Morgan | |||
| Johnny Otis singles chronology | ||||
| ||||
| "Willie and the Hand Jive" | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | ||||
| Single by Eric Clapton | ||||
| from the album 461 Ocean Boulevard | ||||
| B-side | "Mainline Florida" | |||
| Released | October 1974 | |||
| Recorded | 1974 | |||
| Genre | Blues, rock | |||
| Length | 3:31 | |||
| Label | RSO | |||
| Songwriter | Johnny Otis | |||
| Producer | Tom Dowd | |||
| Eric Clapton singles chronology | ||||
| ||||
| Official audio | ||||
| "Willie And The Hand Jive" on YouTube | ||||
"Willie and the Hand Jive" is a song written by Johnny Otis and originally released as a single in 1958 by Otis, reaching #9 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and #5 on the Billboard R&B chart.[1][2] The song has a Bo Diddley beat and was partly inspired by the music sung by a chain gang Otis heard while he was touring. The lyrics are about a man who became famous for doing a dance with his hands, but the song has been accused of glorifying masturbation,[2] though Otis always denied it.[3] It has since been covered by numerous artists, including The Crickets, The Strangeloves, Eric Clapton, Cliff Richard, Kim Carnes, George Thorogood, The Bunch, and in live performances by The Grateful Dead.[4][5] Clapton's 1974 version was released as a single and reached the Billboard Hot 100, peaking at No. 26. Thorogood's 1985 version reached No. 25 on the Billboard Rock Tracks chart.
The Johnny Otis original version of the song produced by Tom Morgan has an infectious Bo Diddley beat, similar to the hit "Bo Diddley" of Bo Diddley,[1][2] much of it provided by drummer Earl Palmer.[6] Johnny Otis biographer George Lipsitz describes Jimmy Nolen's guitar riff on the song as "unforgettable".[2] The music was based on a song Otis had heard a chain gang singing while touring, combined with work Otis did as a teenager when he was performing with Count Otis Matthews and the West Oakland House Stompers.[2]
The lyrics tell of a man named Willie who became famous for doing a hand jive dance.[1][2] In a sense, the story is similar to that of Chuck Berry's "Johnny B. Goode", which tells of someone who became famous for playing the guitar and was released two months before "Willie and the Hand Jive".[1] The origin of the song came when one of Otis' managers, Hal Ziegler, found out that rock'n'roll concert venues in England did not permit the teenagers to stand up and dance in the aisles, so they instead danced with their hands while remaining in their seats.[2][5] At Otis' concerts, performers would demonstrate Willie's "hand jive" dance to the audience, so the audience could dance along.[2] The dance consisted of clapping two fists together one on top of the other, followed by rolling the arms around each other.[2] Otis' label, Capitol Records, also provided diagrams showing how to do the hand jive dance.[5]
Despite the song's references to dancing, and despite the demonstrations of the dance during performances, would-be censors believed that the song was about masturbation.[2] As recently as 1992, an interviewer for NPR asked Otis "Is 'Hand Jive' really about masturbation?"[2][7] Otis was frustrated by this misinterpretation.[7]
