Edit (rsg'65)(a very little bit edited) for headphones. This song was recorded on the British tv show "Ready Steady Go!" on the 15th January of 1965. I never heard this song before in a live performance, interesting recording. Not the best sound quality, but too interesting to let it lay around, isn't it?. The song is a Jagger/Richard composition.
The studio version was recorded on November 8, 1964 at the legendary Chess Records Studio in Chicago. Jewish quality = best quality... Released first in the US as B side to "Heart of Stone" on December 18, 1964. "What A Shame" was released on January 15, 1965 on the UK album "The Rolling Stones no. 2" by Decca Records, and February 13, 1965 on the US album "The Rolling Stones, Now!" by London Records.
The album "The Rolling Stones, Now!" is the third American studio album. The album mostly consists of songs released earlier in the United Kingdom.
The album reached number four on the Billboard 200 album chart and was certified "gold" by the Recording Industry Association of America. The liner notes on initial pressings contained producer Andrew Loog Oldham's advice to the record buying public:
(This is THE STONES new disc within. Cast deep in your pockets for loot to buy this disc of groovies and fancy words. If you don't have bread, see that blind man knock him on the head, steal his wallet and low and behold you have the loot, if you put in the boot, good, another one sold!)
This quote also appeared on some issues of the UK "Rolling Stones No.2" LP.
A month after the January 1965 release, the secretary of a British Blind Aid Association took offence to the suggestion that the blind might be a ready source of income for impoverished Stones fans who needed to raise cash to buy the album. The secretary was quoted in the press saying "They’re horrible. It’s putting ideas into people’s heads. I’m writing to Decca to ask them to change the cover."
The subject was even raised in the House of Lords – Lord Conesford asked the Director of Public Prosecutions whether the sleeve constituted "a deliberate incitement to criminal action".*
Sir Edward Lewis, Chairman of Decca Records played dumb. "I am told that this inscription was meant to be humorous, but I’m afraid this jargon does not make sense to me" he said, and recalled the offending album sleeves, or on some he arranged for a sticker to be placed over the offending paragraph.
On later releases of the sleeve the text between brackets only read:
(This is THE STONES new disc within. Cast deep in your pockets for loot to buy this disc of groovies and fancy words)."
Which, by the way, is a typing error, for the dot must be placed before the close parenthesis...
