The Rolling Stones Top 75 Countdown (#51-49) & This Week's Statistics

The Rolling Stones' best songs were mostly original Jagger-Richards compositions, but there are some very good covers too. The song at #51 on the Rolling Stones Top 75 songs Countdown is a 1986 cover of a song that was first released in 1963.

Harlem Shuffle was recorded at 1963 by the duo of Bob & Earl and was co-arranged by (the famous) Barry White and Gene Page. The record peaked at #44 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. It was a commercial failure when first released in the UK in 1963, but on reissue in 1969, after George Harrison (The Beatles) called it his favourite record of all time, it peaked at #7.

The Rolling Stones' cover version, with Bobby Womack on backing vocals, appeared on their 1986 album Dirty Work, and went to #5 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, and #13 in the UK. Keith Richards had been looking for songs to possibly include on the album and had been working up songs with Ronnie Wood and Womack while waiting for Jagger to return to the studio in Paris after doing promo work on his solo album. To Richards's surprise, Jagger liked the feel and cut the vocals quickly. It became the first cover song the Stones had released as an opening single off a new studio album since 1965.

House of Pain sampled the song's opening horn line in their breakthrough single Jump Around in 1992.

In 2003, the original Bob & Earl version of the song was ranked #23 by the music critics of The Daily Telegraph on their list of the "50 Best Duets Ever".

We have now reached the Top 50: at #50 is an original Stones' song that comes with an interesting story. The Last Time was the band's first single (of those that were released in the UK) written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards. It was their third #1 in the UK, in early 1965. It was also #1 in Germany, the Netherlands and Norway, #2 in Ireland, #4 in Belgium, #7 in Austria, #8 in France, and #9 in the US and Canada. Here is a version live from Ireland.

Although The Last Time is credited to Jagger/Richards, the song's refrain is very close to This May Be The Last Time, a 1958 track by The Staple Singers. In 2003, Richards acknowledged this, saying: "we came up with The Last Time, which was basically re-adapting a traditional gospel song that had been sung by the Staple Singers, but luckily the song itself goes back into the mists of time." The Rolling Stones' song has a main melody and a hook (a distinctive guitar riff) that were both absent in the Staple Singers' version. Phil Spector assisted with the production. You can hear his "Wall of Sound" approach on the recording.

Here's the Staple Singers' This May be the Last Time:

... And here's the Stones' studio version:

In 1965, the Stones' producer, Andrew Loog Oldham, with his Andrew Oldham Orchestra recorded it for their album The Rolling Stones Songbook. The recording and its distinctive passage for strings was written and arranged by David Whitaker. This version would come into play more than 30 years later (see below).

In 1967, The Who covered it and released it as a single, with Under My Thumb as the B-Side. This was as a gesture of support to Jagger and Richards, and protest against the harsh sentences that had recently been imposed against them, following their drug bust.

The Verve were a band formed in 1990 in Wigan, UK. The band's frontman, Richard Ashcroft, broke up the band in the summer of 1995. In early 1997, Ashcroft decided to reunite the band, and with the original line-up back together, the group went through a "spiritual" recording process to finish their third album Urban Hymns which was completed by early summer.

For the first time in their career, the Verve experienced widespread commercial success with their new material. The album's first single Bitter Sweet Symphony, one of the best songs and best videos of the 90s, entered the UK charts at #2 in June 1997. It also peaked at #2 in Italy, #3 in Ireland, #5 in Canada, #6 in Finland, #9 in Norway, #10 in Sweden, #11 in Australia, #12 in the US, #15 in Austria, Switzerland and New Zealand, #16 in France, and #18 in Belgium.

Former Rolling Stones business manager Allen Klein, however, whose company ABKCO Records owns the rights to all Rolling Stones material from the 1960s, sued The Verve for using a sample of The Andrew Oldham Orchestra recording of The Last Time in Bitter Sweet Symphony. The Verve had obtained a licence to use the sample, but Klein successfully argued that the band used more than the licence covered. The Verve were required to relinquish their royalties to ABKCO and the songwriting credit was changed to Jagger/Richards/Ashcroft. This led to Andrew Loog Oldham, who owns the copyright on the orchestral rendition that was sampled, also suing The Verve. In spite of all of this, the Oldham recording and its distinctive passage for strings was written and arranged by David Whitaker. An unholy mess.

At #49 in our list is a song that carries a whole lot less baggage: Start Me Up.

The basic track Start Me Up was recorded between the January and March 1978 sessions for the Rolling Stones' album Some Girls. The song was at first cut as a reggae-rock track named Never Stop, but after dozens of takes the band stopped recording it and it was shelved. Start Me Up failed to make the cut for the album, being shelved into the vault. Of the song's history, Richards has commented:

"It was one of those things we cut a lot of times; one of those cuts that you can play forever and ever in the studio. Twenty minutes go by and you're still locked into those two chords... Sometimes you become conscious of the fact that, 'Oh, it's Brown Sugar again,' so you begin to explore other rhythmic possibilities. It's basically trial and error. As I said, that one was pretty locked into a reggae rhythm for quite a few weeks. We were cutting it for Emotional Rescue, but it was nowhere near coming through, and we put it aside and almost forgot about it."

In 1981, with the band looking to tour, engineer Chris Kimsey proposed to lead singer Mick Jagger that archived songs could comprise the set. While searching through the vaults, Kimsey found the two takes of the song with a more rock vibe among some fifty reggae versions. Overdubs were completed on the track in early 1981 in New York at the recording studios Electric Ladyland and the Hit Factory. On the band's recording style for this track in particular, Kimsey commented in 2004:

"Including run-throughs, Start Me Up took about six hours to record. You see, if they all played the right chords in the right time, went to the chorus at the right time and got to the middle eight together, that was a master. It was like, 'Oh, wow!' Don't forget, they would never sit down and work out a song. They would jam it and the song would evolve out of that. That's their magic..."

Start Me Up peaked at #2 in the US and Canada, #5 in the Netherlands and Switzerland, #7 in the UK and Belgium, #8 in Norway, #11 in Ireland, and #14 in Austria and Sweden.

As far as the answers to yesterday's quiz are concerned, good friend of the blog AFHI has responded that he knows some of the answers, but not all, and he's looking into the rest. Also good friend Record Man is still searching. So I have decided to allow for some more time for all of you to look for the right answers. Also, it's not all or nothing guys, if you know just one answer, why don't you give it in the comments' section?

Now, on to this week's statistics: this week, everybody came to visit, even Ireland, but not enough times to make an impression on the charts. The countries that had a very good week included "usual suspects" USA and Greece, steadfast Germany, and relative newcomer India. Once again this week, 9 of the week's Top 10 entrants are also all-time Top 10 entrants. Taking the place of Ireland in the weekly Top 10 is a country with rich history and culture: India. Welcome!

The full Top 10 is as follows (there are two a 2-way ties at the bottom end of the chart):

1. the United States

2. Greece

3. Germany

4. India

5. Russia

6. France

7. Canada

7. the United Kingdom

9. Cyprus

9. Portugal

Here are the other countries that graced us with their presence this week (alphabetically): Andorra, Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, China, Czech Republic, Denmark, French Polynesia, Ghana, Indonesia, Ireland, Italy, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Philippines, Serbia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Ukraine, and the United Arab Emirates. Happy to have you all!

As far as the all-time list is concerned, Canada is now in a tie with Ireland. There are very small differences for the rest of them.

1. the United States = 47.3%

2. Greece = 19.7%

3. Russia = 11.4%

4. Germany = 3.3%

5. France = 2.1%

6. the United Kingdom = 1.9%

7. Canada = 1.09%

7. Ireland = 1.09%

9. Cyprus = 0.6%

10. Portugal = 0.5%

That's all folks. I wish you all a healthy and happy new week!