In the autumn of 1964, The Rolling Stones faced a problem that had nothing to do with music. Their British label Decca had released a five-song EP called Five by Five after the band's June sessions in Chicago, but American audiences had little use for the EP format. The solution came from London Records, the group's US distributor, which decided to spread those five tracks across a full-length album and add enough new material to justify the price of an LP. The Rolling Stones released 12 X 5 on October 17, 1964.
Twelve songs by five musicians
The result was 12 X 5, the second American studio album by The Rolling Stones, released on 17 October 1964 only in the United States. The title was simple arithmetic: twelve songs performed by five musicians. London Records took the five songs from Five by Five and added seven new recordings, turning a short British release into something American record buyers would actually pick up. The album followed the success of the band's American debut, England's Newest Hit Makers, and arrived while the group was still largely unknown as songwriters.
Most of 12 X 5 is built on R&B covers, just like the previous album. Among the seven added tracks was It's All Over Now, a cover of a Bobby Womack song that had already become the Rolling Stones' first number one single in Britain. The song had never appeared on a British album, so American fans got something their counterparts across the Atlantic could not buy on LP. That kind of exclusivity was exactly what London Records wanted when it stretched the EP into a full record.
The first Time Is on My Side
The album also contains an alternative version of Time Is on My Side, a song written by Jerry Ragovoy. This is the first, less famous version of the track, and it sounds noticeably different from the one most listeners know. Here the electric organ takes the lead instead of the electric guitar, giving the song a warmer, more church-like feel. For anyone who only knows the later hit version, hearing this 12 X 5 take is like finding an early draft of a familiar painting.
For anyone who only knows the later hit version, hearing this 12 X 5 take is like finding an early draft of a familiar painting.
The rest of the added material came from the band's recent singles. It's All Over Now and Time Is on My Side appear with their B-sides, filling out the track list to twelve songs. Three of the album's tracks later resurfaced on the British album The Rolling Stones No. 2, which Decca released in early 1965 using the same cover art without any text. That visual echo tied the two records together even though their contents were not identical.
Christgau and the album's growing reputation
The album's reputation grew slowly but steadily. Robert Christgau included 12 X 5 in his 'Basic Record Library' for recordings of the 1950s and 1960s, a list published in his 1981 book Christgau's Record Guide: Rock Albums of the Seventies. Being placed in that collection meant the record was considered essential listening for anyone trying to understand the era, not just a footnote in the Stones' early discography.
In August 2002, ABKCO Records reissued 12 X 5 as a remastered CD and SACD in a digipak. The reissue added stereo versions of several songs, including Around and Around, Confessin' the Blues, Empty Heart, and It's All Over Now. It also included a stereo version of If You Need Me and an extended version of 2120 South Michigan Avenue, the instrumental named after the address of the Chicago studio where the band had recorded earlier sessions.
What makes 12 X 5 worth hearing 62 years later is not just the hits. It captures The Rolling Stones at a moment when they were still primarily interpreters of American R&B, learning the music they would soon transform. The alternative Time Is on My Side, the Womack cover, and the Chicago instrumental all show a band absorbing its influences in real time, before Jagger and Richards became the songwriting force that would define the group's next chapter.