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Wednesday, January 15, 2025

Today in Music (1965): The Rolling Stones No. 2 released

No. 2/Now!

The Rolling Stones

Released: 1/15/1965 (#2); 2/2/1965 (Now!)

Peak: 5 US, 1¹⁰ UK, -- CN, 2 AU Click for codes to charts.

Sales (in millions): 0.7 US, -- UK, 2.05 world (includes US and UK), 3.05 EAS

Genre: classic rock

Tracks (No. 2):

Click on a song title for more details.

Total Running Time: 36:58

Tracks (Now!):

Click on a song title for more details.

Everybody Needs Somebody to Love [3:00]
Down Home Girl [4:13]
You Can’t Catch Me [3:40]
Heart of Stone [2:49]
What a Shame [3:06]
Mona (I Need You Baby) [3:33]
Down the Road a Piece [2:56]
Off the Hook [2:35]
Pain in My Heart [2:12]
Oh Baby (We Got a Good Thing Goin’) [2:09]
Little Red Rooster [3:06]
Surprise, Surprise [2:31]

Total Running Time: 35:58

The Players:

Mick Jagger (vocals, tambourine, harmonica)
Keith Richards (guitar, backing vocals)
Brian Jones (guitar, backing vocals, harmonica, tambourine, maracas)
Bill Wyman (bass, backing vocals)
Charlie Watts (drums)
Ian Stewart (keyboards)

Rating (No. 2/Now!):

3.940 out of 5.00 (average of 27 ratings)

Awards (No. 2/Now!):

(Click on award to learn more).

About the Album

The U.S.-only album Now! pulls seven songs from The U.K. album (No. 2 (songs noted above). "Mona" was first released on the U.K. album The Rolling Stones while “Heart of Stone” and “Little Red Rooster” were originally released only as singles in the U.K.

At the onset of 1965, the Rolling Stones released their sophomore U.K. effort, an album simply called No. 2. “Recorded sporadically in the UK and US during 1964,” ^WK-2 the album “followed its predecessor's tendency to largely feature R&B covers…[but also added] compositions from the still-developing Mick Jagger/Keith Richard songwriting team.” ^WK-2 “While Eric Easton was co-credited as producer alongside Andrew Loog Oldham on The Rolling Stones' debut album, Oldham takes full production duties for …No. 2.” ^WK-2

“In the usual British Invasion tradition,” ^RU American albums were “patched together from a variety of sources.” ^RU The result is that Now! is the Stones’ “best early R&B-oriented effort. Most of the Stones' early albums suffer from three or four very weak cuts; Now! is almost uniformly strong start-to-finish.” ^RU

While four of the songs on No. 2 first saw release on the U.S.-only 12 x 5, seven of the songs from No. 2 show up on Now!, “the third US album…released…by their initial American distributor, London Records.” ^WK-N No. 2’s only remaining cut, the Stones’ “version of Muddy Waters' ‘I Can't Be Satisfied,’ which…features some killer slide playing by Brian Jones,” ^BE “wasn't released in America until 1973.” ^BE

The No. 2 cuts that show up on Now! are “all solid numbers.” ^BE Among the carry-overs are “covers of Down Home Girl [and] Otis Redding's Pain in My Heart.” ^RU

Sitting alongside those songs are “Barbara Lynn's Oh Baby” ^RU and “Bo Diddley's vibrating Mona,” ^RU which originally appeared on the UK album The Rolling Stones, but had been replaced by the single ‘Not Fade Away’ on the US counterpart England's Newest Hit Makers. They “are all among the group's best R&B interpretations” (Unterbeger).

“The best gem is Little Red Rooster, a pure blues with wonderful slide guitar from Brian Jones (and a #1 single in Britain, although it was only an album track in the U.S.).” ^RU

Also of note was the song "Surprise, Surprise [which] would not officially appear in the UK for several years.” ^WK-N

“Four of the songs on…Now! were penned by the songwriting team of Mick Jagger and Keith Richard (who dropped the "s" from his surname until 1978).” ^WK-N “As songwriters, [they] are still struggling, but they come up with one of their first winners (and an American Top 20 hit) with the yearning, soulful Heart of Stone.” ^RU

“Due to the preference towards the American albums, ABKCO Records has overlooked both The Rolling Stones and…No. 2 for CD release in 1986 and during its remastering series in 2002. Consequently, the album has been out of print for many years.” ^WK-2

The Songs

Here’s a breakdown of each of the individual songs.

Everybody Needs Somebody to Love

The Rolling Stones

Writer(s): Bert Berns, Solomon Burke, Jerry Wexler

Released: No. 2 (1965), Now! (1965)

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Wednesday, January 15, 2025

Today in Music (1965): The Rolling Stones No. 2 released

No. 2/Now!

The Rolling Stones

Tracks (No. 2):