By early 1965 the Rolling Stones had had several #1 hits. But they were covers, extremely excellent covers mind you, of American blues artists.
In his autobiography “Life” Keith Richards recalls how he and Mick Jagger penned the first in a long line of Jaggers/Richards tunes.
“Mick and I knew by now that really our job was to write songs for the Stones. It took us eight, nine months before we came up with ‘The Last Time’ which is the first one that we felt we could give to the rest of the guys without being sent out of the room. If I’d gone to the Rolling Stones with ‘As Tears Go By’ it would have been, ‘Get out and don’t come back.’”
Richards, the guitar-playing half of the Glimmer Twins has come up with many great riffs in Stones songs. Interestingly, in the performance videos that exist of The Last Time they clearly demonstrate that it was Brian Jones who played the distinctive riff while Richards played rhythm.
Richards acknowledges he and Mick nicked the songs chorus from the Staple Singers’ This May Be The Last Time.
And a glimpse of George Best!! Nice to see Top of the Pops again as I remember it (when I was a child).
Oh you were lucky to have access to that program. This side of the Atlantic we had shows like Shindig, Hullabaloo and Hollywood A Go Go. I’d watch them every week.