Words & Music:
Joe Morris
Just leave it to me
Don't ever be ashamed
Just give me a chance
I'll take care of everything
Your troubles I'll share
Let me know and I'll be there
I'll stay close to you
Anyplace and anywhere
Shake a hand, shake a hand
Shake a hand if you can
Be truthful to me,
I'll be truthful to you
I'm in love with you so
Till I don't know what to do
So, let's call it a day
I said all I have to say
Except don't forget to pray
And shake a hand ev'ry day
Shake a hand, shake a hand,
Shake a hand if you can
Recordingdate: 1975/03/11, first released on: Today (album)
Musicians
Musicians who contributed to the first recording of Shake a Hand:
(guitar)
(guitar)
(guitar)
(bass)
(drums)
(piano)
(vocals)
(vocals)
(vocals)
(vocals)
(clavinet)
Others*
(guitar)
(steel guitar)
(bass)
(vocals)
(vocals)
(vocals)
(vocals)
(percussion)
(baritone saxophone)
(sax)
(trombone)
(trumpet)
*Orchestra, overdubs
Availability
Find available albums with Shake a Hand.
One of the better songs from the mid-70s' but again Elvis needed a lot newer material than to just keep doing covers. Still a whole LP of R&B covers like this would have been a nice project.
Enjoyable song from the Today album. I just listened to one of the ultra live versions from the Asville 75 concerts and it sounded like a hell of a lot of fun live. A slightly different change of pace for the King on stage and he sounded like he was having a ball performing it. Strange why it never became a regular fixture in the setlist.
A good song from one of my top ten Elvis albums.
A strong, soulful track with Elvis in fine voice from the 1975 LP "Elvis Today". This LP would have been one of Elvis' best had the songs "Bringin' It Back" and "Fairytale" not been on it. BIB is very poorly written and Elvis' voice is poorly projected. On "Fairytale", Elvis tries to hard and sounds as if he is straining. His later live versions of this song were much better. SAH is a four star track and the album gets 3 1/2 stars.
Enjoyable album track, but nothing special.
To me, Shake A Hand is a nice bluesy delivery by Elvis. Good vocal and feel to the song. As with the album as a whole, I really like it. The Today album has always been a fav listen since I first heard it. To me it's one of the better 70's studio albums. It's simply a good listen imo!
loved the song and the vocalization by elvis and the lp was one of his best albums of the '70's.five stars for album and song.
This is one of my all time favorite Elvis albums. The mix is great! Especially with the way they brought out Ronniw Tutts drumming. They boom! I love the songs on there, especially "T-R-O-U-B-L-E" and "Pieces OF My Life".
My least favorite song on one of my favorite Elvis LPs, and the one I skip most often. For some reason this song never really clicked with me. While I can appreciate Elvis' performance, overall Shake A Hand ranks with a very, very few Elvis songs that I just don't listen to often.
This is the kind of song that Elvis understood from the inside out and easily could have milked out for another few minutes, similar to a song like I'll hold you in my heart. I've always liked the March 1975 studio recordings and this song. Four stars from me.
Not a song I actively seek out, but find it extremely enjoyable whenever I give it a spin. Love the barrel organ piano tinkling away and the laid back bluesy approach by Elvis. - 4 stars from me.
One of those songs I hardly ever listen to and tend to skip. Everything besides the chorus is worthwhile, but I just don't like the chorus.
A 4 stars song on a 5 stars album. Love this album.
Great song from a great album, and this is a good example of how stupid it is to wish that Elvis had retired in 71, or say that the 70' was a bad decade . Just because ones personal taste is R&b (the cool peoples choice), then it doesn't follow that other kinds of music is in bad taste. As I see it Elvis is Elvis because he did what he liked and you could never put him in a box, music vise. This song is a 4 star song, but Elvis was a 5 star performer throughout his entire carer !
Without a doubt, "Elvis Today" is a real good album. I have lots of favorites on this LP. And even though, the studio version of "Shake a hand" is good. This is one of those rare occasions, when the "live versions" of "Shake a Hand" were better ! Shame we didn't get this on a good quality "Live album".
This is such a stellar song and Elvis' rendition of it was excellent. It was such a magnificent addition to the "Today" album.
Elvis doesn't change the tempo off Faye Adams 1953 original. Still I wonder how this one would have sounded at Sun in 1954, 1955.
Powerful performance of a classic spiritual. Really one of Elvis's best efforts of the 70's.
Far from beeing a true highlight, this is a decent song, one of the better recordings from an acceptable but overall mediocre lp. 3 stars.
3 stars. An average album track for me.