The Rolling Stones Might Have Never Had This No. 1 Hit if It Weren’t for Sam Cooke

The Rolling Stones might have had The Beatles to thank for their first Top 20 hit, but they had American soul singer Sam Cooke to thank for their very first chart-topper. The British rock ‘n’ rollers hit No. 1 with a cover of Bobby Womack’s song, “It’s All Over Now”, which Womack released with The Valentinos in May 1964.

The next month, The Rolling Stones were in the States on their first North American tour, visiting DJ Murray the K out of New York City. Murray K, who helped spread the word about the band’s Slim Harpo cover of “King Bee”, showed the Stones the track by The Valentinos. They were immediately interested in covering it themselves.

Sam Cooke, who produced Womack’s song, was the one who broke the news to The Valentinos’ frontman. “Sam came to me and said, ‘Bobby, I got some good news and bad news,’” Womack later recalled, per Toby Creswell’s Rockwiz Decades. “‘The Rolling Stones want to cover your song.’”

To say Womack was less-than-enthused would be an understatement.

Sam Cooke Convinced Bobby Womack to Give The Rolling Stones Their First No. 1 Hit

Bobby Womack and Sam Cooke went back and forth multiple times about whether The Rolling Stones should cover “It’s All Over Now”. Womack was of the mind that the band should find their own songs. Indeed, he was uneager to relinquish the success of his own single to a rock band from the United Kingdom. But Cooke was playing the long game, and he knew that there were greater benefits to letting the Stones release their version of the song than Womack was fully realizing.

“Sam said, ‘Bobby, they’ll do more for your career than you’ll ever believe,’” Womack continued. “This group is gonna be huge, and the longer they live, the bigger they’re gonna get. It’s a new thing happening, man, and I can see it already. They sell tons of records. This is gonna be the first record that breaks for them in the States. You know what that means? You introduced ‘em.’”

With that, Cooke convinced Womack to cede the song to the Stones. It didn’t take long for their chart performance to prove Cooke right, either. The Rolling Stones’ version of “It’s All Over Now” hit No. 1 in their native U.K., marking the first time the band ever topped the charts. In the States, the song broke into the Top 40.

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