If my Joel Whitburn book is to be believed, the Stones' move in doing the song was more savvy than underhanded. For "Time Is On My Side" by Irma Thomas was merely a B-side! Irma Thomas' follow-up to her biggest hit, "Wish Someone Would Care," was "Anyone Who Knows What Love Is (Will Understand)," which first charted on July 4, 1964 and peaked at 52 on the Hot 100. This was during the time that Billboard didn't publish an R&B chart, so it's hard to know how big it was on those stations. On the B-side of "Anyone Who Knows What Love Is" was -- "Time Is On My Side." It's not Irma's fault that it was relegated to a B-side. But it's not the Stones' fault that they saw the potential in the song and brought it to a wider audience, instead of keeping it buried as an obscure R&B classic.
Is it their fault it wasn't released a few months later? Might it have been more likely to be flipped and break onto the pop charts stronger for Irma if they had waited? As you know, it was not all that uncommon for a single deejay to flip a record and make a b-side the hit. I'm not calling them grave-robbers, and "under-handed" is your term, not mine. I'm just saying it would seem reasonable for them to have waited to let the song run its course for her before rushing it out as a Stones single. I've never looked that closely at where their covers of such r&b hits as Poison Ivy and Under the Boardwalk fall in relation to the original hits, but in this case they were you're really talking about a regional hit-maker struggling for momentum--not a big crossover act like the Coasters or the Drifters. Maybe she's not justified in her bitterness over the years (she's also expressed regrets about how labels handled her career), but like I've said from square one, it wouldn't have ham-strung Oldham and the boys to wait! Here's an interesting segment from her site: Imperial released nine singles and two albums from Irma during her three-year stay on the label, and although none of the later singles was as successful as the first one, they were all great records. The first follow-up single, "Anyone Who Knows What Love Is (Will Understand)"/"Time Is On My Side" was possibly the greatest of them all: "Anyone Who Knows..." is a magnificent uptown ballad, while the flip became better known as one of the Rolling Stones' early hits - although their cover version was only a bland note-for-note copy of Irma's recording. doug
I don't know all the timing and decision making that went into what songs were chosen as singles in the United States. I do know that "Time Is On My Side" was only a single in the U.S.; the followup to "It's All Over Now" in the UK was "Little Red Rooster," which never came out on 45 here. Though records sometimes got flipped to create a hit for the supposed B-side, it's hard to believe it could have happened in this case. Irma's record was, by 1964 standards, ancient history by the time the Stones' version came out; its last week on the charts was August 8, 1964 and the Stones' version didn't appear on the charts until October 17. That's more than two months -- an eternity in 1964 pop radio. I still think it's more a case of people in the business (Irma's management and especially her record company) not recognizing what was there. Irma's website can call the Stones' version "only a bland note-for-note copy," but it would be wrong. Copy? Perhaps. Note-for-note? Sort of. Bland? Not at all!
Two months in '64 pop terms is a good while, but it disregards the r&b/soul segment of the market. Was the single dead there? I can't find anything, Cash Box or otherwise, to give any indication. Of course, if a deejay had chosen to "break" the b-side, current position on the pop chart would've been irrelevant. Clearly, the biggest mistake was that it came out as a b-side, noat an a-, and I'm sure that's where some of Irma's ill feelings lay regarding how her career was handled. It may be heresy, but I think Irma's is the better version. doug
Well, regardless of how soon the Stones released it after Irma's version, it was the Stones that had the hit with it. As pointed out, the Stones were not yet a household name, so if all things were equal (record distribution, airplay, A-Side as opposed to B-Side) who knows who would have had the hit. None of Irma's singles before or after (please correct me if I am worng) had the same chart success of any Stones single. If you want to gripe about the Stones "stealing" songs, then turn your attention to all of the "public domain" (ie Robert Johnson) songs for which Jagger/Richards took credit.
Well, pardon me for livin'. javascript:smilie('') I like the Stones, and I'm not interested in turning my attention to digging up things for which they've taken undeserved credit. And I'm not so brain-dead that I need you to tell me the Stones had the biggest hit with the song. But after limp covers like Under the Boardwalk and It's All Over Now, I think they were wise to take Andrew's advise and get serious about writing original materal. doug
This is an interesting case where the original "organ intro" version of the single, even though a hit, kind of got eclipsed by the remake, which appeared on The Rolling Stones No. 2 and on hugely popular greatest hits compilations like Hot Rocks. In response to the OP's question, I'm not sure the "organ intro" version ever appeared on a Hot Rocks compilation in any country.
Organ intro version was on Hot Rocks 1964 -1971. It was the 1st pressing from 1986, West Germany for USA CD. Catalog number ABKCO 66672 or ABKCO 2CD 606/7. Matrices: Matrix / Runout (Disc 1): CD 606-1/1 2896 511 01 * Matrix / Runout (Disc 2): CD 607-1/2 2896 512 01 # Discs were pressed by PolyGram in West Germany, full silver CDs. Corresponding discogs release The Rolling Stones - Hot Rocks 1964-1971 This version is kind of rare and relatively hard to find. It contains the initial version of the compilation mastered by A.L. Oldham. This mastering is unique in terms of peaks and equalization, but is no good in any case. Later reissues came with 'secret remaster', or better to say, reworked version of the compilation. Thus, every other version came with 'guitar intro' TIOMS. I am not sure, when this 'rework' was done. In Europe 'reworked' version first appear in 1990, UK release Hot Rocks 1964-1971 [London 820 140-2]. These were 'black face/silver letters' PDO UK-made discs that are known for 'bronzing'.
The "organ" version is the song I heard on the radio in 1964. The "guitar" version is what I got when I bought my first Rolling Stones album "Big Hits". I was initially disappointed but the guitar version grew on me. The original hit single ("Organ") was raw and gritty, the vocals had a certain cadence (especially on the "You'll come running back" line). The "guitar" version is more refined. To me it sounds like a revisionist decision to swap this alternate take with the one that got released on the '64 single.
I was born in the 80’s and didn’t get into The Stones until the late 90’s when I bought Hot Rocks. I didn’t even know the organ version existed until I got the mono box a few years back.
