Until the end of 1964, the Rolling Stones were straddling two parallel universes. On the one hand, they were an authentic blues band that pushed against the grain of populism, refusing to acknowledge that their performances played straight into the hands of the pop music market (which in itself was a dichotomy).

Meanwhile, Jagger and Richard were struggling to write their own songs, with limited success. That changed when a teen-aged Marianne Faithfull hit it big with her version of “As Tears Go By,” but that song was hardly representative of the blues music to which the songwriters professed allegiance. By late 1964, those two (or three) worlds finally collided. Their original material shoehorned neatly with their R&B covers, and a newfound confidence was on display with their latest material. The band would never look back.

This episode captures an important transitional phase in the career of the band, where their efforts to write good, authentic sounding material had finally started to hit pay dirt.

Featured tracks include:

1) Tell Me Baby, How Many Times

2) Meet Me in the Bottom

3) Time Is On My Side (45 version)

4) Little Red Rooster

5) Off the Hook

6) Heart of Stone

7) What a Shame

8) Everybody Needs Somebody to Love

9) Down Home Girl

10) You Can’t Catch Me