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The Rolling Stones · S1 E6
Andrew Loog Oldham
A nineteen-year-old hustler who used to work for Brian Epstein sees the Stones at the Crawdaddy and signs them on the spot. He decides they will be everything The Beatles are not
A teenager with no money, no experience, and no doubt walks into the Crawdaddy Club and watches the Rolling Stones play. Twenty minutes later, he has decided he will manage this band, and nothing anyone says will stop him.
The Rolling Stones, Doom and Gloom. Dark, provocative, dangerous. That is exactly the image Andrew Loog Oldham set out to create in 1963, and fifty years later, the Stones are still delivering on his vision.
The Teenage Hustler
Andrew Loog Oldham is nineteen years old, born in Paddington, raised by a single mother, and has already worked as a publicist for fashion designer Mary Quant and Beatles manager Brian Epstein. He has no money, no experience running a band, and no doubt whatsoever that the Rolling Stones are the biggest thing he has ever seen.
Sources
Oldham, Andrew Loog. "Stoned." Secker & Warburg, 2000.
Norman, Philip. "The Stones." Elm Tree Books, 1984.
“I knew what I was looking at. It was sex.”
— Andrew Loog Oldham, in Oldham, Andrew Loog. "Stoned." Secker & Warburg, 2000
TAP TO REVEAL: Which record label signed the Rolling Stones after famously rejecting The Beatles?
Doom and Gloom -- The Rolling Stones (2012)
Released as a single for the band's 50th anniversary, produced by Don Was. The guitars are dirtier than anything the Stones had recorded in decades, and Mick's vocal has a raw, sneering edge that channels the young man who first walked into the Crawdaddy. Listen for how the layered guitars pile up like a controlled demolition.
Sources
Rolling Stone magazine, "Doom and Gloom" review, 2012.
Oldham, Andrew Loog. "Stoned." Secker & Warburg, 2000.
Come On -- The Rolling Stones
The Rolling Stones' first single, released June 1963, a Chuck Berry cover produced by Oldham at Olympic Studios. The Stones hated it and thought it was too clean, but Oldham pushed it out anyway and it reached number 21 in the UK. This is where the recorded history of the Rolling Stones begins.
Andrew Loog Oldham: The File
What was the Rolling Stones' first single?
Oldham has the management deal, the record contract, and the image. Now he needs the press to play along, and the headline that will define the Rolling Stones for a decade is about to be written: "Would you let your daughter go with a Rolling Stone?"
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