Shake the Shack on KEXP Playlist

Well, hot dog and hallelujah, y'all better pull up a chair for this one.

The Show That Shook the Shack

Now lissen here — for over 30 good years, Shake the Shack had itself a home on KEXP right here in Seattle, and I'll tell you what, it was finer than a brand new pair of boots on a Saturday night. The whole shebang was cooked up by the one and only Doctor Leon Berman, a man who had the good sense and the gall to call himself "The Proctologist of Rock 'n' Roll." Now if that don't tell you somethin' about the kinda show this was, well pardner, I don't know what will. Later on, Mike Fuller picked up the reins and kept them horses runnin' straight and true, right up until April 2018 when Shake the Shack rode off into the sunset after three decades of pure, uncut, barnburning glory.

Every week since 2009, that blessed show'd send a playlist straight to my inbox like a postcard from a sweeter time. Rockabilly, boogie rhythm & blues, old style country, surf — the kinda music that gets into your boots before your brain even knows the record's spinnin'. I'd open that email like it was Christmas mornin' every single time.

The Music, Lord Have Mercy

We ain't talkin' about no watered-down, radio-friendly, rhinestone cowboy nonsense here, no sir. This here playlist is the genuine article — straight from the source, dug up from the roots. We got the whole congregation of founding saints: Chuck Berry duck-walkin' across the stage, Little Richard hollerin' like the church roof just caught fire, Buddy Holly makin' them thick-rimmed glasses look cool before anybody thought that was possible. Carl Perkins wrote the book on rockabilly and darlin', it's all in here. Bo Diddley and that rectangular guitar of his. The incomparable Queen of Rockabilly herself, Wanda Jackson, who could out-sing and out-wild just about anybody in the room. Bill Haley & His Comets knockin' the clock right off the wall. And of course Elvis Presley shakin' them hips.

But here's what made Shake the Shack something real special — Doctor Berman and Fuller never just played the hits and called it a day. No no no. Right after a big name legend they'd throw on some forgotten honky-tonk hellraiser or a deep-cut surf instrumental that'd make your jaw drop clean to the floor. You'd be tapping your boot to something you'd never heard before in your life, scrambling for a pen to write the name down before it slipped away. That was the magic of it, and ain't no algorithm in the world that can replicate it.

Keepin' the Flame Burnin', Darlin'

When that show signed off for the last time, I wasn't about to let all that good music gather dust. So I went back through every last one of them weekly playlist emails — every single one going back to 2009 — and I've been stitchin' this thing together track by track, 195 songs deep and still going. It ain't the same as hearin' Doctor Berman's voice come crackling through the radio on a Sunday morning, but it's the closest thing I got.

So crank it up real loud, kick them boots off, and let's shake this shack one more time.