1964 - British Musicians Invade North America! Quiz

Answer: I Want to Hold Your Hand

When 1964 dawned, there was but one British recording act with a song listed on Billboard's Hot 100. Languishing at Number 56 was Cliff Richard with his cover of Tommy Edwards' 1958 Number One hit "It's All in the Game". That was hardly an "invasion". Things would change quickly!

"I Want to Hold Your Hand" was released to the U.S. market on Dec. 26th, 1963, debuted in the Hot 100 at Number 45 three weeks later and two weeks after that hit Number One, a meteoric rise. The record would top the chart for seven weeks and was rated the biggest hit of 1964. Now "Beatlemania" was already the rage in Britain with a 1963 roster of three Number Ones, a Number Two and a Number 17 hit already in the bank. Three records of theirs were also released in North America in 1963; "Please Please Me" in February, "From Me to You" in May and "She Loves You" in September. They were released on subsidiary labels without promotion and the results were somewhat predictable. "From Me to You" performed best reaching Number 116 on the Bubbling Under chart. Then their manager, Brian Epstein, resolved the record label issues, kicked off a $40,000.00 promotion campaign with the help of a few American DJs, and the invasion began in earnest in January, 1964. The results spoke for themselves.

On April 4th, The Beatles held the top five spots of the Hot 100, a stranglehold not seen since September 13, 1941 when the Jimmy Dorsey Orchestra held spots One through Three and Number Five. They had 12 songs charting on the Hot 100 that week and other British recording acts chipped in another four. During the entire year, 30 different Beatles recordings made an appearance on the Hot 100 chart, virtually their entire song catalogue. To put things in perspective, when the 30th different song charted on the equivalent British chart, it was 1976 and the group had ceased to exist for six years! Now THAT'S an invasion!

Answer: Wishin' and Hopin'

Dusty Springfield, O.B.E., was a British entertainment icon regarded by many as the finest female, blue-eyed soul singer ever to grace the airwaves. Basically, she was a homebody and throughout most of the 1960s wasn't that keen on spending time in North America touring and promoting herself in that market. Consequently, she had double the charting hits in Britain than she had abroad. "Wishin' and Hopin'", rated as the 51st biggest Billboard hit of the year, was the aberration... it would prevail as her third biggest Billboard hit yet never charted at all in her homeland. Over her four decade career, her biggest hits were the Number Four "You Don't Have to Say You Love Me" in 1966 (Number One in Britain) and the 1988 hit "What Have I Done to Deserve This?", recorded with The Pet Shop Boys and Number Two in both markets.

Dusty had a rather tumultuous personal life. She was openly lesbian and perhaps this may have discouraged her from courting the American market which, at the time, was much more resistant to that sexual orientation than her homeland. She also battled drug and alcohol addictions for much of her adult life and occasionally displayed bizarre personal behavior consistent with bi-polar disorder. Finally, she was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1994 and the disease eventually claimed her in 1999 when she was just 59 and only ten days before she was to be inducted into the R&R Hall of Fame.

Answer: Because

The Dave Clark Five were pretty busy boys in 1964 and 1965 answering The Beatles' "Merseybeat" with their own "Tottenham Sound" of North London. "Glad All Over" got the ball rolling in February peaking at Number Six in late April. It was followed in roughly six week increments by the Number Four "Bits and Pieces", the Number Four "Can't You See That She's Mine" and finally, the Number Three "Because".

While the first three were definitive rockers, "Because" was a love ballad which displayed their versatility in the same way that "Yesterday" revealed a different side to The Beatles.

They had five more charting hits in 1965 culminating with the Number One "Over and Over" which peaked on Christmas day. During this period, they were far more popular abroad than they were at home and made a total of 18 appearances on the "Ed Sullivan Show", more than any other of their British Invasion colleagues. Things reversed themselves by the end of 1967 when they had several top ten hits in Britain through to 1970 while drawing a complete blank on Billboard. Clark disbanded the group in 1970 after a 13 year run and resisted thereafter the temptation to reform the band for lucrative nostalgia tour dates.

They were inducted into the R&R Hall of Fame in 2008.

Answer: Needles and Pins

The Searchers made a habit of recording cover versions. Besides "Needles and Pins", they did a cover of another Jackie DeShannon hit I listed as an alternative choice "When You Walk in the Room". They took it to Number 35 later in the year. Their follow up to "Needles and Pins" (a Sonny Bono/Jack Nietzsche composition by the way) was the Number 16 "Don't Throw Your Love Away" recorded by The Orlons in 1963. Then there was their biggest hit, the Number Three "Love Potion Number Nine", recorded by the Clovers in 1959. Ironically, "Needles and Pins" broke onto the Hot 100 on March 7th, the same day that another Liverpool based group, the fourth, had their debut release hit that chart. Remember The Swinging Blue Jeans and their Number 24 hit "Hippy Hippy Shake"?

The Searchers continued to record throughout the rest of the decade but nothing of any consequence charted after 1966. Personally, I found that rather disappointing. Their sound, anchored around an electric 12-string guitar, was unique and I thought their vocals and harmonizing were superb. In their heyday, I probably liked them more than any of the other British Invasion groups... including The Beatles. Like most short lived genre music, the Mersey Beat faded from popularity in 1966 and most of the bands that relied on it did likewise. Essentially, only the Beatles, who were in the vanguard of changing musical tastes during the late 1960s, successfully endured. The Searchers, meanwhile, soldiered on with varying personnel into the new millennium playing their old hits and some newer material on the British nostalgia circuit.

Answer: LIttle Children

Although "Do You Want to Know a Secret" was recorded by the group, it was never released in the U.S.A. The "Um Um..." hit was recorded by Major Lance while "Popsicles and Icicles" scored for The Murmaids. That leaves "Little Children" as the correct response.

Sometimes it's just karma, good fate, which leads one to become a rock star. Billy J. Kramer might be a case in point. While studying to become a locomotive engineer, he killed time and earned a few extra bucks singing in the pubs and clubs around Liverpool with a band called the Coasters. Kramer got his first lucky break in early 1963. Brian Epstein, manager of The Beatles, caught one of their performances and was impressed enough to offer them a contract. The Beatles were just starting to have some success but you never know and another group in his stable would be good insurance. Kramer was keen but the Coasters not so much. So he signed up Kramer and hooked him up with a Manchester based group, The Dakotas.

Lucky break number two was having access to material that otherwise might not have been easily attainable were it not for their association with Epstein. Lennon and McCartney had written a few songs that were never going to be released as singles by the Beatles. Epstein arranged for Kramer and The Dakotas to record three of them and they took full advantage! "Do You Want to Know a Secret", "Bad to Me" and "I'll Keep You Satisfied", the group's first recordings, went Number One, Two and Four on the British charts. "Little Children" had been written by the American team of Mort Shuman and J. Leslie McFarland and besides making their Hot 100 debut a Number Seven success, it topped the British charts for their second Number One there. Now known in the States, "Bad to Me" and "I'll Keep You Satisfied" were released in that market and charted at Number Nine and Number 30 on the Hot 100. Another Lennon/McCartney song,"From a Window", was released in both markets and did a bit better on the British charts as did a Bacharach/David number "Trains and Boats and Planes", the latter a 1965 release.

Fortune can run both ways and in early 1965 their luck ran out. The Beatles commanded virtually 100% of Epstein's attention and he cut Kramer and The Dakotas adrift. Losing Epstein's expertise as manager and promoter was bad enough but losing access to good material was fatal. Kramer went solo and the Dakotas followed the cabaret circuit where, ultimately, both acts were still performing with the new millennium.

Answer: World Without Love

June 27th marks the half way point of the year, 26 weeks, and with this chart topper British artists have claimed the top spot of the Hot 100 in 16 of them. Invasion indeed!

Peter Asher and Gordon Waller met some years earlier while attending the prestigious Westminster School for Boys and started singing together there. It's uncertain when they started performing professionally and it's also curious that little public information is available about Gordon Waller... it's as if he didn't exist until he was part of Peter and Gordon! We do know quite a bit about Peter Asher, however. His father was an eminent physician, his mother a musician and professor whose most famous student was George Martin, producer of most of The Beatles most famous albums. Asher's connection to The Beatles doesn't end there. His sister Jane was a noted actress and Paul McCartney's steady girlfriend during the mid-1960s and it was through their liaison that Peter and Gordon likely achieved the musical notoriety they enjoyed. Asher and McCartney became fast friends and the latter passed on several of his own compositions for Peter and Gordon to record, "World Without Love" being one of them. It really should have been recorded by The Beatles but Lennon thought very little of the lyric especially the line "Please lock me away" which he considered "laughable" according to Asher.

Peter and Gordon continued to record with mixed results until early 1967. They did pretty well with their next two releases, both McCartney compositions; "Nobody I Know" and "I Don't Want to See You Again" peaked at Numbers 12 and 16 on the Hot 100 in 1964. In 1965, they rounded out their list of successes with the Number Nine "I Go to Pieces" written by Del Shannon and Buddy Holly's "True Love Ways" which they steered to Number 14, the same position that the song "Woman" achieved. It, too, was a McCartney composition. Their last significant hit was in 1966 with the quasi-novelty number "Lady Godiva" which made it to Number Six but in between these hits, there were also plenty of misses. By 1967, the influence of British music was well on the wane in America and the relationship between Asher and Waller became somewhat fractious. Waller eventually retired to farming while Asher became a noted record producer for such acts as Linda Ronstadt, Bonnie Raitt and James Taylor. He took over management of Taylor's career in the late 1960s and Taylor gives him full credit for making him the star he became.

After nearly 40 years, Waller and Asher reconciled and made several guest appearances between 2005 and 2009 for a series of special events and more were planned before Waller suffered a massive coronary and passed away in July, 2009.

Answer: Don't Let the Sun Catch You Crying

Prior to assailing the Billboard charts, Gerry and the Pacemakers had four charting releases on the British charts and they peaked at One, One, One and Two. Those songs were "How Do You Do It", "I Like It", "You'll Never Walk Alone" and "I'm the One". Clearly, they were primed to have a Beatle-like blitz on the American music charts. Following the template established by The Beatles, the group followed this debut success with most of those songs that were smash hits at home but somehow they didn't quite have the same impact abroad. "How Do You Do It" barely eked into the Top Ten at Number Nine; "I Like It" stalled at Number 14; "I'm the One" was a disaster at Number 82; "I'll Never Walk Alone" wasn't released immediately but when it was a year later, it only peaked at Number 48. In fact, they would only have one more Top Ten Billboard Hot 100 hit, the Number Six "Ferry Cross the Mersey" early in 1965. What went wrong?

Gerry Marsden formed the group in the late 1950s and performed at many of the same venues that The Beatles did, both in Liverpool and in Hamburg in the early 1960s. As evidenced by their charting performances in Britain in the early days, they were on par with their Liverpudlian rivals but where The Beatles evolved musically, Gerry and the Pacemakers did not. Their style that was fresh and perky in 1962-3 was already becoming stale and passé just two years later. They either wouldn't or couldn't adapt to the changing tastes of the listener and as their popularity waned and reading the writing on the wall, they gracefully chose to disband in 1966.

Answer: The House of the Rising Sun

"The House of the Rising Sun" is a song of many controversies.

Most musicologists that have studied its history have concluded that its roots date back to 16th or 17th Century England but disagree as to which song is its most likely ancestor. Some nominate "The Unfortunate Rake" while others, most notably Alan Lomax, consider "Lord Barnard and Little Musgrave" a more likely candidate. These old ballads would have immigrated to North America with the earliest British settlers and many morphed into Appalachian "mountain ballads", the forerunner of today's country music. Negro slaves usurped many of these songs and altered them to reflect their own circumstances. By the turn of the 20th Century, a song entitled "House of the Rising Sun" or alternatively, "Rising Sun Blues", were well known in both the white "country" and the black "blues" circles. Some music historians have concluded that a white folk singer with Appalachian roots named Tom Ashley recorded the first version of the song in 1933. Others claim that a Texas born blues singer named Alger Alexander first recorded the same song with the title "Rising Sun Blues" in 1928 while those in the Ashley camp aver that Alexander's version was a different song altogether.

Regardless of that controversy, another one brewed when this song became such an enormous hit. Where was this "house of the rising sun" in New Orleans? It depended on how one interpreted the song. Most believed that it was a brothel while a few dissenters thought it was the Orleans Parish Women's Prison which had an image of the rising sun in its wrought iron gate. Researchers who were inclined to the brothel position uncovered five prospective candidates that were hotels, social clubs or rooming houses in the 1800s that may have had links to the trade. Interestingly, two of them were listed as being owned by a woman named Marianne LeSoleil Levant whose French name translates to "rising sun". Sometime after the song became a hit, the owner of one of these buildings invited Eric Burden, the lead singer of The Animals, to come for a visit. He claimed later that the "house talked to him". Eerie!

I like to regard this song as the first example of the fusion between "folk" music and "rock" music. Technically, the term "folk rock" didn't exist in 1964 but "The House of the Rising Sun" was an old folk song and The Animals were definitely a rock band, ergo...! The general consensus has been that the term was coined by the American press in reaction to The Byrds' cover of the Dylan composition "Mr. Tambourine Man" in June 1965. I guess such honours couldn't be recognized retroactively.

The Animals were formed in Newcastle-Upon-Tyne in Northern England in 1958 and were originally named the Alan Price Combo with Eric Burden the lead vocalist. Unlike many of the other British groups who were part of the British Invasion, they did not have a string of big hits on the British charts to back them up, just one minor Number 21 hit earlier in 1964. Essentially, this was their breakthrough hit, Number One on both sides of the pond. Price left the group in May of 1965 when Burden assumed leadership reins and when he departed to join War in 1968, the group disbanded entirely although there were brief reunions in 1976 and 1983. Needless to say, this was their signature hit although they did have a few charting successes in the ensuing years right until their demise in 1968. Among them were "Please Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood", Number 15 on the Hot 100; "We Gotta Get Out of This Place", Number 13; "Don't Bring Me Down", Number 12, "See See Rider", Number 10; "San Franciscan Nights", Number Nine; "Monterrey", Number 15; and, "Sky Pilot", Number 14.

Answer: Do Wah Diddy Diddy

"Do Wah Diddy Diddy" was composed by the song writing duo of Jeff Barry and Ellie Greenwich. They had just started working together in 1963 and already had achieved no small degree of accomplishment primarily with songs recorded by the girl groups prevalent in that era. Among them were "Be My Baby" and "Baby I Love You" by The Ronettes,"Chapel of Love" by The Dixie Cups,"Leader of the Pack" by The Shangri-Las and "Then He Kissed Me" and "Da Doo Ron Ron" by The Crystals. "Do Wah Diddy Diddy" had been recorded and released by The Exciters earlier in 1964 but when it performed poorly on the charts stalling at Number 74, Barry and Greenwich were going to record it themselves as The Raindrops. Those plans were shelved permanently when the Manfred Mann cover topped the British charts and was released in America with a similar charting performance. In fact, it would finish the year rated as the 14th biggest Billboard hit of 1964.

Manfred Mann (the artist) formed a band with Michael Hugg originally named the Mann-Hugg Blues Brothers in 1962. By 1964, they were simply called Manfred Mann and commenced to have quite a run in Britain with 13 Top Ten hits and three Number Ones before they finally threw in the towel in 1969. It's hard to pinpoint why they didn't have similar charting results on Billboard but with only four top 40 songs and just two top Tens, this one and the Number Ten "Mighty Quinn (Quinn the Eskimo)" in 1968, a Dylan composition, it's obvious that their brand of music didn't quite resonate with the North American audience in the same way. With a new group called Manfred Mann's Earth Band, Mann did have one last significant hit with the Number One "Blinded by the Light" in 1976 but later releases did not fare nearly so well. In 2016, that group was still touring Great Britain sometimes with Mann, sometimes without.

Answer: A Summer Song

Chad and Jeremy... Peter and Gordon... If you could sort out which duo did which song back in 1964-65, you certainly have my admiration. Both groups had broken up by 1968 but it was long after that when I was finally able to commit their respective hits to memory. On a personal level, this was easily one of my favorite songs of the era. It had a lovely, soft melody and the lyrics dealing with the ephemeral nature of summer and its charms struck home for someone living in Canada where summers are far too short. Whenever I hear it, I fall into a reminiscing swoon and if I'm feeling blue, it never fails to lift my spirits when I play it.

Chad Stuart and Jeremy Clyde broke onto the Billboard charts in June 1964 with the Number 21 "Yesterday's Gone" then followed it up with "A Summer Song" a couple of months later. Toward the end of the year, they had one more decent charting success with a cover of an old 1920s Paul Whiteman hit, "Willow Weep for Me", at Number 15. They would have four more top 40 songs but they all were minor hits before circumstances led to their disbandment in 1968. Almost immediately upon their initial Billboard successes, they became popular TV attractions not only appearing on such musical programs as "Shindig" and "Hullabaloo", but also as guests on programs like "The Dick Van Dyke Show", "The Patty Duke Show" and a couple of episodes of "Batman" in 1966. Ultimately, Jeremy Clyde was anxious to pursue his acting ambitions which he did primarily in England. Stuart remained in the music industry as a producer with A&M records and as music director for the Smothers Brothers. Eventually, they would reunite periodically in the 1970s and 1980s for musical projects then on a more or less permanent basis in 2003 for intermittent tours on the nostalgia circuit.

Answer: Have I the Right

Perhaps the only reason The Honeycombs remain in the consciousness of those who remember the band and this song was the unique presence of their drummer, a female, Honey Lantree. The band was only formed in November 1963 by Martin Murray. By day, he was the manager of a hair salon and he recruited his assistant, Lantree, to handle percussion. Her brother Joe was invited to play bass, Murray himself played rhythm guitar, Alan Ward played lead guitar and Dennis D'Ell was the vocalist. In a matter of months, they were performing three nights a week at a tavern in East End London. A songwriter named Alan Blaikley caught their act and thought they might be just the group to record a song he had written with a partner, Ken Howard, "Have I the Right". The last piece of the puzzle was producer Joe Meek who thought he could do something with the group and song. He had produced some hits in the past, most notably "Telstar" by The Tornadoes in 1962 which was a worldwide success. He had his own studio in an old converted house and often utilized novel approaches to create the "sound" he thought was necessary to create the hit. In order to focus on the band's most visual asset, Honey Lantree, he decided to emphasize the percussive element and had the group stand on the wooden stairwell and stamp their feet in unison at the right moments to augment Lantree's drumming. Voila, a hit was made! Up until then, the band was known as the Sheratons. It's unclear how the name change came to be but again the idea was to direct attention to the band's most unique member - "Honey", of course, and "comb" to link her to her previous vocation.

The song scurried up the British charts peaking at Number One in August and while not quite as big a hit abroad, stalling at Number Five on the Hot 100 in November, the future augured well for the group. Turns out they were mostly all hat, no cattle. Subsequent releases did not chart well, if at all, and within a year Murray decided to abandon the group he founded and start afresh with another band. Fortunately for the remaining members, their music seemed to strike the right chords in other regions, most notably in Northern Europe and in Japan. Their records still sold well in those markets and they toured there extensively until 1966 when further splintering of the band took place. Ultimately, the Lantrees pressed on with new sidemen right into the 2000s performing on the cabaret circuit as the New Honeycombs. Meanwhile, Murray revived the Honeycomb name in 2004 to compete with them in the same milieu.

Answer: You Really Got Me

"You Really Got Me" was the debut hit preceding "Tired of Waiting for You" by six months. Both were Number Seven hits. In between was the Number Six hit "All Day and All of the Night". Also peaking at Number Six was "Come Dancing", the group's last big hit of the choices given from 1983, while "Lola" charted in 1970 and was their only other Top Ten hit reaching Number Nine.

Ray Davies formed the band in 1962 with his younger brother by three years, Dave. By early 1964 and after a raft of name and personnel changes, the final line-up included Pete Quaife on bass, Mick Avory, drums, Ray on rhythm guitar and lead vocals with Dave on lead guitar and backup vocals. An acquaintance provided the name "The Kinks" since the way they behaved and dressed was, to him, kinky. Davies hated the name but it stuck.

After doing the usual pub and cabaret routine to garner exposure and a following, they were signed to a record contract by the Pye label but their first releases did not fare well at all and it was made apparent to them that their next record better be good or else! "You Really Got Me" was that record. The notable fuzzy guitar riff to begin the piece, which gave it the raunchy "edge" that Ray Davies was seeking, was provided by Dave who slashed his amp with a razor blade to create the desired effect. The release flew up the chart in Britain until it was Number One in September. Released in America a month later, it almost did as well finishing at Number Seven with a year ending rating of Number 50.

The band embarked on a whirlwind tour of Australia and New Zealand in early 1965 and was playing a few dates in the British Isles before they were to embark on a tour in North America. Tensions were high and Dave Davies snapped at Avory and kicked over his drum kit at a concert in Cardiff. Avory responded by hitting him over the head with a cymbal that opened a severe gash and required several stitches. Though the differences were later resolved, that outburst and their overall demeanor on stage resulted in the U.S. issuing a four year ban on any Kinks tours in that country. Without that access to promote their records, it's surprising they had any charting success at all in the States. Nevertheless, during that period they would have only four top ten hits on Billboard while those same releases yielded 11 top ten hits in Britain.

When the ban was lifted, the Kinks' popularity was already well on the decline, the song "Lola" being one of the few releases that performed well on the charts. By then Quaife had already departed and Avory left in the mid-1980s shortly after the band's last significant single "Come Dancing". Try as they might, they weren't able to recapture their groove from 1964 through 1966 and Davies finally disbanded the group in 1996.

Answer: She's Not There

The Zombies were a curious case indeed! Formed in 1962, the principle constituents were Rod Argent on keyboards and vocalist Colin Blunstone. They won a "battle of the bands" contest in early 1964, the prize being the opportunity to make a recording and Argent crafted "She's Not There" for that purpose. It rose to Number 12 on the British charts during the summer and, as noted in the question, peaked at Number Two on the Hot 100 in December. Their follow up, "Tell Her No", was a commendable Number Six in America but couldn't crack the top 40 in Britain. From 1965 to 1967, the group recorded a number of songs for release as singles but except for brief flirtations in the nether regions of the Hot 100 chart for a couple of them, they were largely totally ignored... especially in Britain! Apparently, they were just a little too experimental and esoteric for the average listener and particularly for radio stations of the day. They owed their record label one more LP which they dutifully recorded in 1967 and utterly discouraged, promptly broke up. Argent formed another eponymously named band while Blunstone went solo, both having some minor success in the early 1970s. In a most unusual turn of events, one of the songs recorded for that final album in 1967 was culled for release as a single and became a huge Hot 100 Number Three success in 1969 - "Time of the Season". True to form, it was completely disregarded in Britain.

Befitting the name, The Zombies arose from dead and were briefly reunited in 1990, then again in 1997. Finally, in 2001, Argent and Blunstone resumed their Zombie act with new sidemen, toured on a quasi-regular basis through 2016 and have even released a few CDs of new material.

Answer: I'm Into Something Good

"Something tells me I'm into something good" the song continues and truer words were rarely sung, especially as it pertained to the enormous success that would follow for this group in the ensuing years.

Originally known as The Heartbeats when they formed in Manchester in 1963, vocalist Peter Noone was the last to join when he filled in at a school dance when the usual singer failed to show. At that time, Noone was 16 but the oldest member of the band was just 18. They were babes in the woods and quite different from virtually all of their British Invasion peers, many of whom were grizzled veterans of many bands before they finally found the right combo that found success, even if they were only in their early twenties.

Record producer Mickie Most caught one of their gigs and saw potential in their fresh and youthful appearance. He would be instrumental in steering the band to stardom just as he would for other notables such as The Animals, Lulu and Donovan. Under his guidance, they would have two separate recording identities, at least in the initial phase of their career. In Britain, following this song which topped that chart in August, they were releasing cover versions of old American standards such as "Silhouettes" and "Wonderful World". Those were eventually successfully released in America as well, but Most cleverly had the band record some old British music hall standards such as "Mrs. Brown You've Got a Lovely Daughter" and "I'm Henry VIII (I Am)" which capitalized on the British theme concurrent with "The Invasion". Remarkably, both struck Number One pay dirt on the Hot 100, the only two Hermits songs to do so! Just as cleverly, Most didn't release those songs in Britain despite their American success fearing that the group would lose credibility as serious, though somewhat lightweight, contemporary pop song artists. It was in that genre that the group would continue to reap hit records at home and abroad for the next few years. By the time the group ceased to be a force in 1970 when Noone left to pursue other interests, the group would have ten Top Ten hits in their homeland, doing even better in America with 11 top Tens.

Technically, Herman's Hermits have never disbanded and as 2016 came to a close, the band was still touring albeit with only one original member. That would be drummer Barry Whitwam, the leader of the group as of 2016. Peter Noone moved to the U.S. many years ago and also was touring in 2016 as a solo musical act, no doubt performing old Hermits songs.

Answer: Time Is on My Side

Now if you know your Stones' songs, you'd be singing along and naturally segue right into "Time Is on My Side" for the winning response. But if that lyric was a little fuzzy to you, I fear that the obvious distractor of "Tell Me (You're Coming Back)" might have led you astray. Hope not!

This song was written by Jerry Ragovoy using the pseudonym Norman Meade. He would later gain his greatest fame for composing several Janis Joplin hits including "Piece of My Heart". "Time Is on My Side" was first recorded in 1963 by jazz great Kai Winding. It was primarily an instrumental although the title words were repeatedly sung in the chorus by The Gospelaires. They often sang back-up for other recording artists and consisted of the Warwick sisters, Dionne and DeeDee, and their aunt Cissy Houston, Whitney's mom. Then earlier in 1964, the song, with full lyrics, was recorded by Irma Thomas as the "B" side to "Anyone Who Knows What Love Is". The "A" side was a middling Number 56 hit so one assumes that this song was fairly obscure before being recorded by The Rolling Stones. Of those first four songs in the question, only "Tell Me" was an original Jagger/Richards composition but I would guess that virtually every one of their remaining Hot 100 charting songs up to 2003 (54 of them) would have been one of their compositions. Obviously that would categorize them as one of the all-time great song writing teams in the history of pop/rock music.

What else could be said about The Rolling Stones? Since they first hit the charts in 1964, they've been a four or five man group and three of them (Jagger, Richards and drummer Charlie Watts) have been continuous members for over fifty years. That sort of longevity in the world of rock and roll is unparalleled. This is especially true when you consider that the band was notorious for their carousing and penchant for consuming copious amounts of alcohol and narcotics (except for Watts, who was an abstainer except for a brief period in the mid-to-late 1960s, a period he said almost cost him his family, and perhaps his life). If you have a couple of hours to kill, Google the group, those three and the other principal members that wove the fabric of the band over the years... Brian Jones, Mick Taylor, Bill Wyman and Ron Wood. It's quite a documentary!