Who recorded it first

Time Is on My Side

Not a Rolling Stones original — first recorded by Kai Winding and His Orchestra, Verve, 1963

The Rolling Stones’ 1964 single was their first American top ten, and it is routinely heard as the song’s point of origin. It was already a cover twice over: the first recording was cut by jazz trombonist Kai Winding and his orchestra and issued by Verve on 3 October 1963, with Dionne Warwick, Dee Dee Warwick and Cissy Houston singing the refrain over Winding’s trombone. Jerry Ragovoy wrote it under the pen name “Norman Meade”; the verse lyrics that everyone now sings were added by session singer Jimmy Norman at Irma Thomas’s April 1964 session. Winding’s record got some radio play and never charted.

The record

Who recorded it first

Recording
Time Is on My Side
First recorded by
Kai Winding and His Orchestra
Released
3 October 1963 · Verve Records · VK-10307
Written by
Jerry Ragovoy, as “Norman Meade”; additional lyrics by Jimmy Norman (1964)

Released Issued by Verve Records in the US on 3 October 1963 as a 7-inch single, catalogue VK-10307, coupled with “Baby Don’t Come On with Me”. Produced by Creed Taylor; the refrain is sung by Dionne Warwick, Dee Dee Warwick and Cissy Houston over Kai Winding’s trombone. Running time 3:05.

Charted Did not chart. Wikipedia records that it received some radio coverage but made no chart.

How to check this yourself

The song’s Wikipedia article ↗ gives Winding’s single a release date of 3 October 1963 on Verve, a length of 3:05, and the note that it did not chart.

MusicBrainz ↗ holds the 1963 US Verve release under catalogue VK-10307, with the Winding recording timed at 3:05.

uDiscover’s profile of Jerry Ragovoy ↗ names the Winding recording as the original, produced by Creed Taylor with the Warwick sisters and Cissy Houston on backing vocals.

Wikipedia’s Kai Winding biography ↗ notes his 1963 release of the song predating the Irma Thomas and Rolling Stones versions.

The composition on MusicBrainz — the original work Winding recorded
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Fact-check

Setting the record straight

The Rolling Stones’ version is the famous one and the first American hit, but it is not the first recording — nor even the second.

The beliefPopular credit

The Rolling Stones, 1964

Their US single (London Records, 25 September 1964) hit No. 6 and became their first American top ten, which fixed it in memory as a Stones song.

The originalFirst recording

Kai Winding and His Orchestra, 1963

Verve issued it on 3 October 1963 (VK-10307), produced by Creed Taylor, with Dionne Warwick, Dee Dee Warwick and Cissy Houston on the refrain. It got some radio play and did not chart.

In betweenThe link

Irma Thomas, 1964

Thomas recorded it on 16 April 1964 for Imperial. Hers is the arrangement the Stones followed — spoken monologue and all.

The writerComposition

Jerry Ragovoy, as “Norman Meade”

Ragovoy wrote the song under a pseudonym; the additional verse lyrics were written by session singer Jimmy Norman at the Thomas session.

First recorded by Kai Winding and His Orchestra, Verve Records, 3 October 1963.

Context

Why the third version is the one you know

The Stones did not eclipse Kai Winding so much as bypass him. Winding’s record is a Verve pop-jazz side: trombone carries the tune, and a trio of session singers — Dionne Warwick, her sister Dee Dee, and Cissy Houston — supply the refrain in gospel style. There is no story in it, no narrator, nobody to root for. It got some radio coverage and did not chart, and even its billing is murky: Wikipedia has it as the flip of “Baby Don’t Come On with Me”, while the MusicBrainz release lists it as side A.

What turned it into a song was Irma Thomas. At her April 1964 session, H.B. Barnum brought the tune in and session singer Jimmy Norman wrote verse lyrics on the spot, giving the record a speaker with a grievance and a spoken monologue to deliver it. That is the version the Stones heard, and their arrangement carries Thomas’s fingerprints, not Winding’s. So the song people call a Rolling Stones original is a cover of a cover, and the words they sing were written by a man whose name is on neither label.

The chronology, step by step
  • 3 October 1963 — Verve issues the Kai Winding and His Orchestra recording (VK-10307), paired with “Baby Don’t Come On with Me”. Produced by Creed Taylor. It does not chart.
  • 16 April 1964 — Irma Thomas records her version, with additional verse lyrics written at the session by Jimmy Norman.
  • June 1964 — Imperial Records issues the Thomas single, coupled with “Anyone Who Knows What Love Is (Will Understand)”.
  • June 1964 — The Rolling Stones record the song in London, following Thomas’s arrangement.
  • 25 September 1964 — London Records issues the Stones’ US single, backed with “Congratulations”. It reaches No. 6 and becomes their first American top ten.
  • November 1964 — The Stones cut a second, differently arranged version, the one used for the UK release.
A cover of a cover — and the verses came from the session singer.

The original recording artist

Kai Winding

1922-1983 - Danish-American jazz trombonist, Verve Records

Winding was a bebop trombonist of real standing — a player on the 1949 Birth of the Cool sessions and one half of the celebrated two-trombone partnership with J.J. Johnson. By the early 1960s he was working at Verve with producer Creed Taylor on records aimed squarely at the pop charts; his instrumental theme from Mondo Cane reached No. 8 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1963, his only entry there. The Winding “Time Is on My Side” is essentially an instrumental with a gospel-styled vocal refrain draped over it, and it is the first version of the song on record.

Popularly credited as the original

The Rolling Stones

British rock band, formed London 1962 - London Records (US)

The Stones recorded the song in June 1964 and London Records issued it in the United States on 25 September 1964, backed with “Congratulations”. It reached No. 6 on the US pop chart — their first American top ten — and turned up on the American album 12 X 5. Their reading leans on Irma Thomas’s arrangement rather than Winding’s, spoken interjections and all, and it is a genuinely great record. The only error in the popular memory is chronological: they were third in line, not first.

The songwriter

Jerry Ragovoy

1930-2011 - American songwriter and producer, credited here as “Norman Meade”

Ragovoy was one of the great American soul songwriters, and he filed this one under the pseudonym “Norman Meade” — which is why the credit line on the Stones’ label does not carry his name. The song as most people know it is a two-stage object: Ragovoy’s composition, plus additional verse lyrics written by session singer Jimmy Norman at Irma Thomas’s New Orleans-to-Los Angeles session in April 1964. MusicBrainz still carries both a Ragovoy-only work entity and a Ragovoy/Norman one, which is a tidy record of that split.