Fifty years ago on this day The Rolling Stones landed their second no. 1 track: "Little Red Rooster." As with the band's first no. 1 ("It's All Over Now"), the second time atop the charts was a cover of a previous blues track. A number of acts have made singles of the blues standard and Music Times will dare to rank the renditions of the single in terms of quality.
05) "The Red Rooster" by Willie Dixon
Our only hesitation on this list is ranking the original as the worst of the bunch. Surely Willie Dixon deserves a touch more credit for writing the song that every other performer here felt inspired to cover? It's an argument for sure but we're willing to bet that most of the other performers on the list were actually inspired by Howlin' Wolf's rendition of the track, not Dixon's. Plus, if you consider Dixon's original lyrics to more recent versions, you'll note that the message has gotten progressively edgier. Blues performers were noted for less-than-subtle sexual innuendos like the kind the Stones employed for the track but "Red Rooster" isn't: There's some indication that the titular rooster is a troublemaker based on his "prowling" but then again most of the song focuses on the bird's laziness and its unwillingness to crow in the morning. Mixed messages.
04) "Little Red Rooster" by Margie Day and The Griffin Brothers
Before we get to the version that Music Times would argue got "Little Red Rooster" to its current popularity, we'll take a look at the first version that made the track into a swinging single versus a relatively morose blues number (and came out far before Howlin' Wolf's version as well). It's a lot easier to find some degree of sexual shenanigans in Day's version because she is, after all, a woman and therefore it makes more sense for her to say something like "got a little red rooster and man how he can crow" rather than Dixon saying it. And don't tell us you didn't think of any synonyms for rooster that might make this track a tad more risqué. Day also boasts how although he's a little guy, he "sure can strut his stuff," warning her pals that if you ever land a rooster like hers, you better keep it away from the street "where those little hens like to roam."
03) "Little Red Rooster" by The Rolling Stones
It's tough to differentiate between the Stones' version of the track and Howlin' Wolf's, at least instrumentally (because Brian Jones and Keith Richards saw no reason to mess with Wolf's approach to the blues guitar, which was recorded only a few years earlier during 1961), hence it's only fair that we give the originator the benefit of the doubt in this case. Vocally is where the two songs depart dramatically, although the lyrics to both versions are almost identical but the styles of Wolf and Jagger can bring whole new meanings. The Jagger of the glory days was able to take literally any song and make it sound like a come-on, thanks to his smooth, laid back intonations. The fact that he introduces himself as the little red rooster right when the track opens is also somehow telling in how we perceive the rest of the narrative.
02) "The Red Rooster" by Howlin' Wolf
We mentioned before that Howlin' Wolf is the one who most likely led to the popularity of "Little Red Rooster" as mainstream fodder, as well as the man who created the guitar blueprint for bands such as the Stones to cop from. Indeed, Wolf's rendition is probably the only one where the instruments behind the track deserve more attention than the vocals (of course, the vocalist didn't rely on his trademark howls to sell his words), as all of our attention is on his equally great guitar work, bending strings and employing the slide like a champ. If you buy into the guitar as a phallic symbol, this version of "Red Rooster" is just as sexy as anything these other groups can whip up.
01) "Little Red Rooster" by Sam Cooke
R&B icon Sam Cooke didn't want to leave anything misunderstood when he covered this blues standard and thus he added his own verse: "I tell you he keeps all the hens, fighting among themselves...he don't want no hen in the barnyard latin' eggs for nobody else." Yes, Cooke is the Little Red Rooster and he's the one crowing all night long (as well as the morning). His interjections of "Lord have mercy" only makes things sweatier. He also takes a more upbeat approach in line with that of the Griffin Brothers, adding a Hammond organ to keep things soulful.
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