“Susie Q” is a rockabilly song co-written and performed by American musician Dale Hawkins released in 1957. The song was a commercial success, and became a classic of the early rock and roll era being recorded by many other performers in subsequent years. Hawkins wrote the song with bandmate Robert Chaisson, but when released, Stan Lewis, the owner of Jewel/Paula Records and whose daughter Susan was the inspiration for the song, and Eleanor Broadwater, the wife of Nashville DJ Gene Nobles, were credited as co-writers to give them shares of the royalties.
Hawkins cut “Susie Q” at the KWKH Radio Station in Shreveport, Louisiana. “Susie Q” was a late rockabilly song which captured the spirit of Louisiana and featured guitar work by James Burton, who later worked with Elvis Presley, among others. Burton has stated on multiple occasions, including on a talk show hosted by former Governor of Arkansas Mike Huckabee, that he composed the music to “Susie Q,” initially as an instrumental, but was not given a co-writing credit or share of the publishing.
Sometime after the recording, the master tape of “Susie Q” was sold to Checker Records in Chicago, which released it as a 45 RPM single in May 1957. The single peaked at numbers 7 and 27 on Billboard magazine’s Hot R&B Sides and Hot 100 charts, respectively. In Canada, the song reached number 16 in the CHUM Charts. Hawkins’ original version is also included in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s “500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll” and in Robert Christgau’s “Basic Record Library” of 1950s and 1960s recordings, published in Christgau’s Record Guide: Rock Albums of the Seventies (1981).
Creedence Clearwater Revival released a version on their debut album in 1968. The band’s only Top 40 hit not written by John Fogerty, it peaked at number 11 for one week in November 1968. This song was their first big hit. The album version clocks in at 8:37. The single is split into parts one and two on its A and B sides, respectively. The jam session during the coda is omitted in part one. Instead, it fades out with the guitar solo right before the coda, which fades in with part two on the B-side. Fogerty plays the main riff from “Smokestack Lighning” after the second verse.
Fogerty told Rolling Stone magazine in 1993 that he recorded “Suzie Q” to get the song played on KMPX, a funky progressive-rock radio station in San Francisco, which is why it was extended to eight minutes. The CCR version of the song was first certified Gold by the RIAA in December 1990, for half a million copies shipped, and Platinum in May 2019, for a million copies in sales and streams.
