Song sharing and reproduction are practices as old as music itself. But in the world of commercial recordings, it\u2019s hard to ignore the professional damage that can occur from one artist\u2019s version of a song overpowering and overshadowing another. For Irma Thomas, watching The Rolling Stones in the 1960s, she didn\u2019t have the luxury of ignoring it. It was happening to her in real time.<\/p>\n
Because when you get right down to it, time isn\u2019t really on anyone\u2019s side in the ever-changing, short-attention-spanned music industry.<\/p>\n
The Rolling Stones Scored a Hit With This Cover in 1964<\/p>\n
The Rolling Stones put themselves on the map in November 1963 with their first No. 1 single in the United Kingdom, \u201cI Wanna Be Your Man\u201d, a gift from The Beatles<\/a>. One year later, the English rock \u2018n\u2019 roll band would break into the American scene with their Top 10 hit, \u201cTime Is On My Side\u201d. Just like their first hit in their home country, \u201cTime Is On My Side\u201d came from a different artist first. But unlike The Beatles, who could hold their own as The Stones\u2019 star rose, The Rolling Stones\u2019 cover proved to be disastrous for Irma Thomas.<\/p>\n Thomas was the first performer to record a version of \u201cTime Is On My Side\u201d with lyrics (a previous version by trombonist Kai Winding was instrumental). It was the B-side track to \u201cAnyone Who Knows What Love Is (Will Understand)\u201d, which broke into the Billboard Hot 100 in 1964. Consequently, Thomas had developed a professional association with \u201cTime Is On My Side\u201d. Even when The Rolling Stones began performing the track<\/a>, they were pulling directly from Thomas\u2019 version, including her vocal ad-libs.<\/p>\n But after The Stones released their version of Thomas\u2019 B-side three months later, the world began thinking of the track as a Stones song, not an Irma Thomas song. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t their fault that the general public decided it was their song,\u201d Thomas later told Off Beat<\/a>. \u201cBut it pushed my version to the side.\u201d And in that way, Thomas couldn\u2019t help but have a few hard feelings about the whole situation.<\/p>\n Irma Thomas Stopped Singing the Song Altogether<\/p>\n \u201cMy career was just beginning to climb a little bit before the British Invasion came along and killed it,\u201d Irma Thomas said. \u201cI didn\u2019t get a lot of major work after those groups came to the United States. It was really quite difficult. That\u2019s life.\u201d<\/p>\n Adding salt to the wound was the fact that when The Rolling Stones toured the U.S., the band invited Tina Turner to open for them, not Irma Thomas. \u201cShe was more of a rocker than I was,\u201d Thomas said. \u201cShe used to dress a lot more risqu\u00e9 than I would, so that might\u2019ve been what did it.\u201d (To Turner\u2019s credit, she was a massive influence on Mick Jagger\u2019s<\/a> on-stage performance style, risqu\u00e9 outfits aside.)<\/p>\n In any case, Thomas stopped performing the song live until 1992. That year, Bonnie Raitt hosted a New Year\u2019s Eve show in New Orleans and invited Thomas to perform. \u201cShe said that time had been on our side, and I should start singing the song again. I sang it with her, and now I do it again. It had been a long time.\u201d<\/p>\n Photo by Michael Ochs Archives\/Getty Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Song sharing and reproduction are practices as old as music itself. But in the world of commercial recordings,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":681011,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[88,216,2156,1735],"class_list":["post-681010","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-entertainment","tag-music","tag-rock-music","tag-the-rolling-stones"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/681010","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=681010"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/681010\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/681011"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=681010"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=681010"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=681010"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}