Time Is On My Side

Although it's never been a hugely popular song, Time Is On My Side is a fairly well-known song that continues to be recorded by several people every decade. One of the more recent recordings I can recall was done by British singer Beverley Knight about five years ago. The best known recording is likely the one done by the Rolling Stones in November 1964, but it had a brief and interesting history up to that point.

Kai Winding was a jazz trombonist that played in the famed orchestra's of Benny Goodman and Stan Kenton in the late 1940's and as jazz began to split into different genres in the 50's he found success in the jazz-pop field as well as more experimental undertakings. Born in Denmark, he emigrated to New York City around the age of 12. In addition to playing the trombone, he also performed on the trombonium (similar to a valve trombone) and had a big hit in the summer of 1963 with the main theme from the movie Mondo Cane called More. That song featured the sound of the Ondioline, a new experimental electronic instrument played by Jean-Jacques Perrey. 

 That type of sound isn't even noticed these days, but 50 years ago anything like that jumped out of the radio and put the listener into a headlock. Songs like 1962's Telstar by Britain's The Tornados (brilliantly produced by Joe Meek) and Del Shannon's 1961 big hit Runaway, with the sound of the Musitron, had been massive international hits. With Winding's success with More, he and the people he worked with at Verve Records, were in search of more pop instrumental material to work with.

This led a Verve arranger, Gary Sherman, to contact a friend and fellow arranger, producer, songwriter Jerry Ragovoy. Ragovoy had composed a song called Time Is On My Side, but the only lyrics for it at that point was the title of the song and the repeated line "you'll come running back". That must have been good enough for Winding and the people at Verve as it was recorded "as is" and released in October 1963. Get this: the three singers doing the limited lyrics were sisters Dionne and Dee Dee Warwick and their aunt Cissy Houston.

 Jerry Ragovoy was a guy out of Philadelphia that worked as a songwriter, an arranger and producer and is credited with some amazing songs. Garnet Mimms & The Enchanters "Cry Baby" and "My Baby"in 1963, The Majors "A Wonderful Dream" in 1962, Howard Tate "Get It While You Can" in 1967, the awesome Stay With Me by Lorraine Ellison in 1966 as well as Lorraine's "Try (Just A Little Harder), Erma Franklin's (Aretha's sister) "Piece Of My Heart" in 1967, Miriam Makeba "Pata Pata" in 1967, Pat Thomas and later Baby Washington "I Can't Wait To See My Baby's Face" in 1964, and he also did some work with Irma Thomas. You'll notice a lot of these songs were later recorded by Janis Joplin. She knew a good thing when she heard it.   

New Orleans native Irma Thomas has been making records for some 53 years now and still has an international "cult" following and enjoys as much success today as she ever has. As a teen she sometimes sang with NOLA legend Tommy Ridgely's band and during the period 1964-1965, when she was with Imperial Records, she made some incredible records....not to put a damper on her other work by any means. Prior to Imperial she made some great records including such soul and pop classics as Ruler of My Heart, Breakaway (that was a hit for several other people), It's Raining, Look Up, Somebody Told You, Two Winters Long.
Shortly after Winding's recording of Time Is On My Side was released, Thomas was in the studio and her arranger, the writer-recording artist-producer H.B. Barnum, wanted her to record it, but felt it needed some lyrics and he recruited writer/recording artist Jimmy Norman to "complete" the song. The end result just may be the finest example of the link between Gospel music and Soul.

That's H.B. Barnum playing the sax on the left. Interesting to note the lady on the far left with the guitar. That's Carol Kaye, a jazz guitarist but more famous for the thousands of LA recordings she played electric bass on, as did the drummer in the photo, Holyoke, Massachusetts native Hal Blaine. On the right is Jimmy Norman in his later days, the singer/writer who wrote the lyrics to the song except for the title and "you'll come running back."                               

 

Well, as outstanding as the recording is, it sank without a trace in the mainstream market, but it did receive airplay on black radio stations in some of the major urban markets.

A few months later, June 1964, a group of 6 British musicians pay their first visit to the United States. They are basically unknown at that time in the USA, their first almost-a-hit record not coming until later that summer when "Tell Me" barely cracked the Top 30 for a couple weeks. The Rolling Stones, with keyboardist Ian Stewart, had been in both New York City and Los Angeles before reaching Chicago where they visited the Chess Studio to do some recording. Obviously, at one of those places before entering Chess, they had listened to some "black" radio and heard Irma's recording of Time Is On My Side. That day, June 10, they not only recorded "Time" but also Muddy Waters "I Can't Be Satisfied", Bobby Womack's "It's All Over Now" and an instrumental they called Stewed And Keefed. This version of "Time" was released as a single in the USA and is commonly called the "organ" version, referring to the opening of the song.

 

The next day they returned to Chess and recorded quite a few songs. Chuck Berry's "Around And Around" and "Reelin' And Rockin'", Wilson Pickett's "If You Need Me", Muddy Water's "Look What You've Done", the boogie-woogie standard "Down The Road Apiece" that had been done by so many in the 24 years prior to that, the Jay McShann-Walter Brown 40's classic "Confessin' The Blues", Howlin' Wolf's "Down In The Bottom", Tommy Tucker's "Hi-Heel Sneakers", Big Bill Broonzy's "Tell Me Baby" and a Stones original "Empty Heart". 

Later in that year of 1964, the Stones return to the USA a second time, now well-known. On November 8, en route from Providence, Rhode Island to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, the Stones again stopped in Chicago to make another trip to Chess Studio and recorded Buster Brown's "Fanny Mae", Don Covay's "Mercy, Mercy", Howlin' Wolf's "The Red Rooster", and Big Bill Broonzy's "Key To The Highway" (on which it is claimed Howlin' Wolf played guitar). They also recorded a song written by Bill Wyman called "Goodbye Girl", a Stones original "What A Shame" and also another version of Time Is On My Side. This recording would be their UK single and is often called the "guitar" version (referring to the opening) and for the next nearly 50 years has become the version you're going to hear on disc and the radio.

 

After that, quite a few people recorded the song, but it was usually a cover of the Rolling Stones "song" and the original Kai Winding and wonderful recording done by Irma Thomas are largely forgotten. To illustrate how the obscure first Stones recording of June 10 became the US single, when Paul Revere & The Raiders recorded it on May 6, 1965, their recording opened with an organ and not the now well-known guitar lick.

 

In the summer of 1965, the Moody Blues (two years before their change into a progressive art rock act) recorded the song that was definitely inspired by Irma Thomas's recording, as the 'big build up' intro clearly shows.

 

In 1967 Wilson Pickett brought the song back to it's soul roots.