'60s Flop Songs That Turned Into Smash Hits

The 1960s were the decade that the idea of bands writing and performing their own material really began to take on a life of its own. Prior to that, the majority of performers were vocalists and musicians who interpreted the work of dedicated songwriters; there was little expectation or appetite from the listening public for acts that wrote and performed their own tunes.

Though the 1950s saw artists like Chuck Berry and Buddy Holly composing as well as performing, huge sea change came with the arrival of Beatlemania, and the realization that the band, besides consisting of four charming lads who were exceptionally well-drilled pop and rock showmen, was, in John Lennon and Paul McCartney, home to one of the greatest songwriting partnerships in musical history. Though certainly, the Fab Four weren't the first band to feature its own songwriters, the concept of authenticity and artistic credibility being attached to writing your own material certainly became far more prevalent after such acts rose to stardom.

However, songs still changed hands throughout the decade, with releases that didn't make a ripple later becoming a commercial success for other artists. Here are five flops from the 1960s that gained new life thanks to successful cover versions.

Though the Beatles would eventually evolve into a band that exclusively performed original material, in the early days as a live act and in their early recording career, the Fab Four were mainly interpreters of other people's songs. The most successful of all the band's cover versions is undoubtedly "Twist and Shout," which it released in 1963 as its star was rising on both sides of the Atlantic.

The song, written by Phil Medley and Bert Russell, was first recorded by the little-known outfit The Top Notes, whose 1961 version failed to achieve any commercial traction. Produced by Phil Spector, the original is a Latin-leaning R&B single that bears little resemblance to the airy rocker it would become with The Beatles. The song is pleasing enough, but listening to it now, there is nothing notable  about it except perhaps the lead vocal's power by the song's climax. The following year, another version by The Isley Brothers proved to be a Top 20 chart success, with the call-and-response structure of the song just as infectious as the versions that would come after.

But nothing compares to The Beatles' blistering, danceable cover. The song had been well-practiced by the band, who played it often during their pre-fame residencies in Hamburg clubs, which explains the tightness of the recording, one of just two takes the band made of the song. "Twist and Shout" was recorded at the end of a marathon 12-hour recording session for The Beatles' debut U.K. album "Please Please Me," and Lennon's voice was at breaking point due to the demands of singing and a head cold. It was a happy accident, but is perhaps the most memorable aspect of the song, with John Lennon's scratchy vocal lending the song a new rawness that previous versions lack.

The best known version of "Tainted Love," by British pop duo Soft Cell, was released in 1981 and became a huge international smash, topping the charts in the U.K. and rising to No. 8 on the Billboard Hot 100, staying there for 43 weeks. The song remains a dancefloor favorite, with crossover appeal among pop and new wave fans, its seductive vocal and uber-80s synth lines both especially memorable.

The original, however, was a more obscure number by soul singer Gloria Jones, whose pumping 1964 version of the song, written by Ed Cobb, was a B-side that sank without a trace on its initial release. With catchy stabs of bass and brass that Soft Cell would later transpose to synth for their 1981 hit, Glen Campbell providing warm guitar tones, as well as a playful vocal performance from Jones, the original version was deserving of far more attention than it received. Thankfully, it eventually got it, thanks to being rediscovered by DJs in the U.K. Northern Soul scene who made the high tempo number a dance floor filler in the early 1970s.

Fleetwood Mac may have been a rock behemoth by the late 1970s — by which time the classic album "Rumours" had catapulted the band to megastardom — but its years spent toiling in the industry during the 1960s were far patchier. Back then, the British band was treading the boards as a pretty straightforward blues-rock outfit, as reflected in its 1968 single "Black Magic Woman." Written by guitarist Peter Green, this original is a simmering, expressive paean to a woman's irresistible charms, and was reportedly inspired by Green's girlfriend at the time, the model Sandra Elsdon.

Fleetwood Mac's "Black Magic Woman" still sounds fresh and edgy and features on several of the band's greatest hits compilations, though at the time of its release, it only peaked at No. 37 in the U.K. and made little impact elsewhere. But the song was to get a second life in 1970, when a new version of it was recorded by Latin rock band and Woodstock legend Santana. Infusing the blues song with segments of "Gypsy Queen" by Hungarian jazz guitarist Gábor Szabó, utterly transforming the song into a boisterous psychedelic jam that cracked the Top 5 of the Billboard Hot 100 and became one of Santana's signature recordings.

Neil Diamond's Billboard record speaks for itself. The singer-songwriter best known for mega hits "Song Sung Blue," "Cracklin' Rosie," and "Sweet Caroline" has had a total of 53 songs on the Billboard Hot 100. The greatest part of his chart success would arrive in the early 1970s, when he frequently made the Top 10, while many of the singles he released in the 1960s languished outside the Top 50.

One of these was "Red, Red Wine," which lasted just three weeks on the charts in 1968, peaking at No. 62. A sweet enough song, it is decidedly unremarkable, but nevertheless served as the basis for a successful reggae cover version the following year by Tony Tribe for Trojan Records, which charted in the U.K. It was this version that came to the attention of the British reggae outfit UB40, which decided to release a cover of the song in 1983. According to legend, UB40 had no idea that Diamond himself had released the original, assuming the song had always been a reggae number (in fact, they had assumed the "N. Diamond" listed on the record was a Jamaican songwriter named Negus Diamond).

Tony Tribe's cut of "Red, Red Wine" introduces a great deal of bounce to Diamond's original, which is less pronounced in the smoother, higher-budget UB40 classic. Their version has proven to be timeless; after topping the U.K. charts in 1983, it hit No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1988 after the band performed it at Nelson Mandela's birthday celebrations that year.

Originally written by Philadelphia songwriter and arranger Jerry Ragovoy in 1963, "Time Is On My Side" began life as a simple gospel-infused track to showcase the talents of jazz trombonist Kai Winding. With the now-iconic refrain sung by a gospel trio made up of sisters Dee-Dee and Dionne Warwick, along with Cissy Houston, the song is dominated by Winding's melodies, but still has the earworm quality that would later make it a hit.

The song was recorded again in 1964 by soul vocalist Irma Thomas, with new choruses featuring lyrics written in the studio by session singer Jimmy Norman that turned the otherwise quietly optimistic original into a song of defiance from a spurned lover. Though fully fleshed out and with obvious pop potential, the song was relegated to the B-side of Thomas' single "Anyone Who Knows What Love Is (will Understand)" which climbed only as far as No. 52 on the Billboard Hot 100.

The most famous version of "Time Is On My Side" was recorded by The Rolling Stones later the same year. The song was slower than many of the uptempo rockers the band would become known for, but it built on the success of "Tell Me," which had charted earlier that year, to cement the Stones as sellable balladeers. "Time Is On My Side" proved to be their biggest U.S. hit to date after its release, peaking at No. 6 in December.