Stones - In the Beginning
Published August 15, 2003
With the Stones running around conquering the world 40 years after their first tour, I thought it might be interesting to look back at the formative years when things were still fluid and an institution they were not. I talked to the Stones' original manager and producer, Andrew Loog Oldham, who has lived in Colombia for many years.
In early-'63 Oldham was hired by Beatles manager Brian Epstein to promote the Beatles and Gerry and the Pacemakers. After promoting "Please, Please Me" for the Beatles and "How Do You Do It?" for Gerry, Oldham was working on the Fab Four's "From Me To You" when destiny intervened:
"A journalist I was pitching, Peter Jones of Record Mirror, sent me off to see the Stones at the Crawdaddy Club in Richmond, probably to get me off his back. I saw them April 23, 1963, and then I knew what I had been training for. The main thing they had was passion, which has served them to this day," Oldham says.
At the time the Rollin' Stones (named for the Muddy Waters song, Oldham added the "g") - Brian Jones and Keith Richards on guitars, Mick Jagger on vocals and harmonica, Bill Wyman on bass, Charlie Watts on drums, and Ian Stewart on piano - were a ragged R&B cover band, but their run at the Crawdaddy had generated much attention, and with the Beatles on their way up, no one wanted to miss the next big thing.
The Stones took to Oldham's youth, confidence, and vision, and allowed themselves to be talked out of a verbal management agreement they had with Crawdaddy-owner Giorgio Gomelsky, who was in Switzerland attending his father's funeral at the time. Oldham's first act as manager was to demote the shambling Stewart (the "6th Stone," Stewart recorded with the band until his death in '85) from the band's live act for not keeping with Oldham's image of a lean-and-mean Stones.
"I took the Stones to Dick Rowe at Decca, and I knew he would sign them because he had turned down the Beatles. He had a great track record in the '50s, including Billy Fury, and he should be remembered not as the guy who turned down the Beatles, but as the guy who signed the Rolling Stones," says Oldham emphatically.
"In England at that time you had four record companies that controlled everything: EMI, Decca, Philips and Pye," he continues. 'The 9-to-5 mentality of the record companies would not have served the Rolling Stones. What I saw in the club, which had to be brought as much as possible onto record, could not have been done with shirts and ties, so I became a record producer to protect my vision of their image: there are always opposites and I saw the Rolling Stones as the anti-Beatles. I didn't have to be technically proficient. I didn't play an instrument, wasn't an engineer or a technician, but I had a vision," he says.
- Stones - In the Beginning
- Published: August 15, 2003
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- Section: Music
- Filed Under: Interviews, Music: Classic Rock and Oldies, Music: Rock
- Writer: Eric Olsen
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Comments on this articleComments
Thanks Ed! Yeah, he's about their age. He's been in Colombia for many years - married a Colombian woman. He produces some South American bands, hangs out, does this and that. He's been writing memoirs the last few years.
Thanks for an excellent interview. Andrew is indeed still in the music business, currently working with the Scottish group, V-Twin.
I am the editor of the first volume of ALO's "triography," "Stoned." You can read excerpts from the book at www.channeledbymodem.com I've also put up a number of rare video clips from Ready Steady Go, Shindig, and the TAMI show.
Ron Ross
stoned@channeledbymodem.com
Thanks very much Ron, I'm glad you liked the interview. Very nice to hear from you. I have seen the site and it is excellent. I, haven't talked to Andrew in a while, so I am very pleased he is doing some music work.
Your book is very fine, by the way.
There are a few inexactitudes here. After he missed out signing the
Beatles, Dick Rowe, head of Decca Records, had gone to Liverpool's
Cavern club (the hotspot at the time for all-the-rage "Mersey Beat")
to see what was going on (remember Liverpool was the "sticks" for
Londoners) and if he could pick up a few local acts. It was George
Harrison - who had actually come to the CrawDaddy with the rest
of the mop-heads, upon my invitation after they finished shooting
their first (#1 pop TV show) Thank Your Lucky Stars appearance
at nearby Twickenham Studios (my club was directly on the
road back to London) - was there that night, who pointed him to the
CrawDaddy and the Stones, I remember the night Dick showed up,
I was very surprised, I mean the man was not a blues fan after all,
and he looked rather flustered not knowing what to make of the Stones.
Andrew showed up quite a few weeks later - by that time Dick Rowe
was pretty desperate not to miss out on the new scene and the
coincidentality of George Harrison's observation and his own visit to
the club, must have greatly helped in making up his mind to sign the
band. Not exactly a great "pitching" achievement for Andrew :-) !
giorgio
I am looking to buy the instrumental version of Bitter Sweet Symphony. Can you tell me if this version was done by you. Or where i can get this, thanks.
it's the Andrew Loog Oldham Orchestra
Forgive my ignorance, but is this the same "Bittersweet Sympathy" as the song by The Verve from the 1990s that sampled a Stones riff (I think "The Last Time")?
Or is that another song by the same name?
That is all.
It's the same. I think what we're reading here is that The Verve sampled a symphonic version of "The Last Time" played by the the Andrew Loog Oldham Orchestra.
yes, good point, "Bittersweet Symphony" is the Verve title, the sample isn't actually from the Stones but from Oldham's orchestra doing Stones songs
The Verve didn't just sample the orchestral version of the Stones song: The Last Time, they took the whole piece from Andrew's Orchestra, in my view, and wrote some brilliant lyrics to it. Anythime I hear the orchestral version I sing the Verve's lyrics. Orchestral Version here:
hi i really want the intrumental to the verve bitter seewt symthany or the orchestral version by Oldham's orchestra were can i get no were on the net has it(that i can download!) thanks :)
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Eric,
I just saw this. Terrific interview--I didn't even know Oldham was still alive!
He can't be that much older than Mick, Keith and Charlie. Is he still active in the music business?
Ed