Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome to the Bob Left Sets podcast. My
Speaker 1: guest today is literally the legendary. They say legendary about
Speaker 1: a lot of people, but this guy is legendary. Andrew
Speaker 1: Luke Oldham. I remember getting email the first time about
Speaker 1: the turn of the century, said Andrew Luke Oldham. Saw
Speaker 1: him on the back of all those Stones album covers.
Speaker 1: It's like, great to have you here, you a thank you,
Speaker 1: good to be with you again a second round. Right, Well,
Speaker 1: as I say, I went to bo Guitar in September
Speaker 1: of thirteen and I knew that Andrew was there and
Speaker 1: we connected. That was the best place certainly I've been
Speaker 1: to this century, maybe ever in that you really feel
Speaker 1: vibrantly alive in Bogata. Tell the audience how you ended
Speaker 1: up in bo Gutar. I went in at the end
Speaker 1: of nineteen seventy four in London to Saister that was
Speaker 1: showing a musical comedy called John Paul, George Ringo and
Speaker 1: Bert written by a guy called William Willie Russell. I
Speaker 1: had no idea what it was about. One probably because
Speaker 1: the condition I arrived in at the theater, and too
Speaker 1: that the condition was accelerated by they're being this lady
Speaker 1: in front of me in the theater who had now
Speaker 1: been married to forty one years. But I was just
Speaker 1: all I can tell you about that show was her
Speaker 1: neck and we spent time together. I was living in
Speaker 1: New York at the time, and she came to visit
Speaker 1: me in New York. She went back to Columbia and
Speaker 1: I followed her. Okay, and since we're on Columbia, what
Speaker 1: is the situation with the fark. Supposedly peace was made
Speaker 1: in Colombia? Is it really peace? But those don't know.
Speaker 1: There's been decades of a revolutionary army terrorizing, closing her
Speaker 1: unrest in Colombia, but supposedly piece has been made. I
Speaker 1: wouldn't call them revolutionary. They're basically businessmen and fatigues because
Speaker 1: their main business over the last thirty years was drugs.
Speaker 1: They took over the drug business once Escobar really was
Speaker 1: killed and the other towns couldn't stand up to the
Speaker 1: pressure of the FARC and the e l N, the
Speaker 1: other ones who they've still no peace with, and kidnapping
Speaker 1: and drug expectation was their main business for the last
Speaker 1: thirty years. The president that we that we have Santos
Speaker 1: once he got his Nobel Prize. Man, you know he's
Speaker 1: just left Columbia. He will just leave Columbia to sort
Speaker 1: it out. So you've got um anywhere from twelve to
Speaker 1: twenty thousand men or kids. I would think the kids
Speaker 1: are more the danger because if you've just been raised
Speaker 1: that you don't know much more about life than to
Speaker 1: rape and pillage. What are you going to be an
Speaker 1: uber driver? So they've got that that's going to take
Speaker 1: and the amount of money that has been put aside
Speaker 1: in a country that is just it's the fifth world now, Bob,
Speaker 1: It's as simple as that. It's not the third world anymore.
Speaker 1: So it's gotten worse where the rest of us have
Speaker 1: pulled ahead. You think you've pulled ahead, Well, this is
Speaker 1: another conversation. I'd be glad to have another podcast what's
Speaker 1: going on in our country. But my point is for
Speaker 1: those most people have not been to Columbia, never might
Speaker 1: have been to South America. You know, we're Americans. We're
Speaker 1: gonna have passports. So the question would become is now,
Speaker 1: in the last twenty years and now with peace with
Speaker 1: the FARC, generally speaking, is the economy better or worse?
Speaker 1: I think that's the one thing that's common with the
Speaker 1: rest of the world is the the middle classes being
Speaker 1: suppressed out of any remaining pesto or dollar they've got,
Speaker 1: which is going on everywhere. So it's got better for
Speaker 1: those who had it better anyway. So it's literally just
Speaker 1: like the rest of the world exactly. I mean, we
Speaker 1: looked better because you know, we we were for a
Speaker 1: while until your recent change, Donny, Donny, um it, we
Speaker 1: were the only friend that North America had with I mean,
Speaker 1: we were the only everything else was, you know. I mean,
Speaker 1: but Better's waiter at one time changed his clock half
Speaker 1: an hour, so it wasn't But they're all we we
Speaker 1: were the one that America was going to because you
Speaker 1: can all spend so much money and give us so
Speaker 1: much money for supposed to be eradicating drugs. I've never voted,
Speaker 1: so I'm pretty cynical about the whole system. Well, then
Speaker 1: I have to ask this, as they said, we're talking
Speaker 1: all these political things, but what is your view of
Speaker 1: Brexit in the European Union. Um again, you've got David
Speaker 1: Cameron behaved exactly the way that our president. Okay, I've
Speaker 1: done it, I got my Nobel Prize. I'm off he
Speaker 1: did the Brexit thing. He left and isn't that to
Speaker 1: two years ago at least? Um, it's uh, it's a
Speaker 1: trrendous mess. I think it would be better if they
Speaker 1: didn't do it. And I think that could that could happen.
Speaker 1: It would be interesting. I was actually heying with Billy Bragg,
Speaker 1: who's very political. He thought, might I want to read
Speaker 1: his book? Full book? Yeah exactly, he sent it to me. Um,
Speaker 1: But before our audience, I don't want to know who
Speaker 1: you are, okay, okay, your most legendary for the Rolling
Speaker 1: Stones immediate records, and it goes on for Tony Calder recently.
Speaker 1: Yes he did. He was your partner in the media,
Speaker 1: Yes he was. Okay, But as I say, you are
Speaker 1: born in what yearto so through the fifties whereas music
Speaker 1: your focus or did you? Were you an opportunist? How
Speaker 1: did you end up getting into the music scene in
Speaker 1: the early sixties through fashion? Because I mean, I mean
Speaker 1: I left school to sixteen. The first job was at sixteen. Um,
Speaker 1: and I wish Sony more kids could leave school to sixteen.
Speaker 1: You know, education as a crime. But we won't go there.
Speaker 1: Oh I would like to go there. I think you know,
Speaker 1: education is basically to keep people in line as opposed
Speaker 1: to be creative exactly exactly, you know, to go it's
Speaker 1: not going to work at six is criminal. But then
Speaker 1: not all as blessed as we who were kicked out
Speaker 1: and had to get on with right. But when I
Speaker 1: did that in the first place, I wanted to work
Speaker 1: where the carpets were thick and the teacups were thin.
Speaker 1: And I landed up with a lady called Mary Quant,
Speaker 1: legendary fashion designer who had a sort of karmas such
Speaker 1: or redbird records of fashion that worked in that her
Speaker 1: husband was the hustler. She cut and did the clothes,
Speaker 1: the husband hustled and sold. And they also had an
Speaker 1: old school friend who made surely utpaid old school interesting euphemism. Anyway,
Speaker 1: it worked, and I had a great education. The pop
Speaker 1: that the fashion business was the book what was your
Speaker 1: gig with? And you just showed up and say I'll
Speaker 1: do anything that you hired you. I mean, I just
Speaker 1: that's the place. I don't want to knock on one door.
Speaker 1: I don't like this committee business even now. I think
Speaker 1: you've got to pick where you want to go and
Speaker 1: go there. Okay, Well, what was your spiel. That's such
Speaker 1: that she hired you. You know, I can never remember
Speaker 1: the actual moments of because I'm so fucking nervous going
Speaker 1: in like that. I know it works, but I can't.
Speaker 1: Somebody else in the room would have to tell you
Speaker 1: what my picture. Okay, you go into a zone when
Speaker 1: the whole situations. In any event, she does hire, she
Speaker 1: hires me. I last there for eight or nine months
Speaker 1: because uh, and we're in what year? This is sixty one?
Speaker 1: And I then start taking a job in the nights
Speaker 1: working at the original Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club, and my
Speaker 1: job there was hanged. Was that another thing where you
Speaker 1: said I have to work at Ronnie Scott's. Oh, yes,
Speaker 1: because I've been given a great education of music when
Speaker 1: I was about eleven by a guy next door. During
Speaker 1: the years where you could sit for a guy next
Speaker 1: door and not get molested. Is that because the it
Speaker 1: is because they didn't molest you, or the cops weren't there.
Speaker 1: You didn't have the we're all stars, even though we're
Speaker 1: a star molester or we'll start you know, the rights
Speaker 1: of entitlement, where you think you've got the right to
Speaker 1: intrude on somebody else. There was less of that. Although
Speaker 1: the other thing, of course is I mean, we know
Speaker 1: that's against the law, but being gay was against the
Speaker 1: law anyway, right, but you can't even touch another kid
Speaker 1: if you put it, you know, it's it's amazing world
Speaker 1: we live in, but any even you're with your next
Speaker 1: door neighbor. And I and so when I was eleven,
Speaker 1: he ran me through everything from U uh a'ma jamal
Speaker 1: to Bob Crosby and the you know, the Brother of
Speaker 1: Being Crossed, the Bobcats, the the Red Novo Um. The
Speaker 1: one thing that really made a dent on my mind
Speaker 1: and on Lou Adler because he used it as the
Speaker 1: prototype for Carol King was George Sharing with Peggy Lee
Speaker 1: live in Chicago. It's really I mean, I don't know
Speaker 1: that record. I certainly know those people, beauty and the beat. Okay.
Speaker 1: If I tracked that record down, I'm gonna hear Tapestry. Okay,
Speaker 1: sound it's there, Okay, it's there. Um great, especially with
Speaker 1: the instrumental Sat and Sat and Doll on it, which
Speaker 1: I think it's George Sharing, Quintant and Peggy. Um. So
Speaker 1: I went to work for Ronnie Scott's on the Coats,
Speaker 1: I got the Pakistani food from over the road as
Speaker 1: they didn't have a food license. Uh. Then I kind
Speaker 1: of got greedy and I went to work the midnight
Speaker 1: to five am shift at the Flamingo Club, which was
Speaker 1: owned by a guy called Jeff Krueger who had Amberg records,
Speaker 1: but he rented the place out that night to the
Speaker 1: Gunnell brothers, who might have heard of from Chris Farlows
Speaker 1: money and all those kind of pis And I served
Speaker 1: the whiskey and the coat bottles because if the cops
Speaker 1: came in and he looked innocent and looked like he
Speaker 1: wouldn't be serving scotch um, And so I did that.
Speaker 1: Then basically I had my first nervous breakdown. Um, the
Speaker 1: others don't count. The first one is the most important. Okay,
Speaker 1: So your how old when you have your first nervous breakdown?
Speaker 1: Sixty one? I'm seventeen. And how do you know you're
Speaker 1: having a nervous break Were you've taken on too much?
Speaker 1: Too much? Three jobs in a week is And do
Speaker 1: you feel building you're building up to it or you
Speaker 1: just freak out it point building up? Then I wouldn't
Speaker 1: call it freak out. Then you decide travel will be
Speaker 1: the cure. So I went to the south of France
Speaker 1: and it's interesting, kind of like the Rod Stewart's song,
Speaker 1: you know, every picture tells the story. Oh yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: and I kind of I ended up there, and it's
Speaker 1: interesting being back in this location because in a restaurant
Speaker 1: up there this past spring, I was able to say
Speaker 1: hello for the first time to Johnny Halldy really before
Speaker 1: he passed. Yes, because when I was seventeen it was
Speaker 1: a very good year and I worked in Jouan Lapin
Speaker 1: at an English tea room, serving tea of course um
Speaker 1: and at the end of the block he was already
Speaker 1: in a white tux playing the casino and he was
Speaker 1: only nine months or eight eight months older than me,
Speaker 1: and I went, wow, ye first you go you don't
Speaker 1: go something's wrong, but you go, well, there's hope man,
Speaker 1: you know. I mean, the other rockers like Eddie Mitchell
Speaker 1: and Dick Rivers were playing cafes and I was attracted
Speaker 1: to all. As bad as French rock is, I was
Speaker 1: attracted to it because it wasn't as personally bad as
Speaker 1: English rock was at the time. Cliff Cliff, Richard, Billy
Speaker 1: Fury right, you know, they were only they only had
Speaker 1: an American accent when they sung um, and so I
Speaker 1: preferred the French New Wave in the movies, I preferred
Speaker 1: their new rook you know, and all that with Johnny Hallity,
Speaker 1: and I'd seen him a couple of times in the
Speaker 1: two thousand's in Marseille, which was a town that when
Speaker 1: I was seventeen I couldn't go to. It was too rough.
Speaker 1: Then well, in my job, I didn't have a job,
Speaker 1: I was begging off English tourists literally begging, oh yeah,
Speaker 1: begging in that the pitch went into okay. Mainly the
Speaker 1: ones who ended up in those areas and south of
Speaker 1: France were the Jewish world to do out of London,
Speaker 1: who knew how to get money out for the holiday
Speaker 1: because you're only allowed to take fifty pounds away. And
Speaker 1: so you remember when News to pay As or magazine
Speaker 1: used to arrive rolled up. Of course, well the money
Speaker 1: would go in there and it would actually turn up
Speaker 1: at your hotel. Wow, okay, and I would put on
Speaker 1: an accent that appealed to them, which I'm moving into now.
Speaker 1: And I would excuse me, but my allowance hasn't arrived
Speaker 1: from my mother. And I wonder if you could lend
Speaker 1: me if I could borrow ten or twenty francs, and
Speaker 1: if you tell me which hotel you're in, And I did,
Speaker 1: depended on whether I thought they were worth paying back,
Speaker 1: but the rest of it went to my water skiing lessons. Okay,
Speaker 1: so you're in the south of France and you meet
Speaker 1: Johnny Holiday. No, I don't meet him. I saw him
Speaker 1: from Afar and you got inspired. And then how long
Speaker 1: are you in France before you return to the island
Speaker 1: until the season runs up? And I'm now I got
Speaker 1: involved in a slight Mickey Mouse type of kidnapping there
Speaker 1: where I ran into a photographer who recently passed a
Speaker 1: great guy called Philip Town's End, and he said, look ah,
Speaker 1: if you will keep this heiress locked up, she's still around.
Speaker 1: I can't remember his lady something right. We can sell
Speaker 1: the stories to the stringers of the newspapers like the
Speaker 1: Daily Mail stringer and the Express stringer and things like that.
Speaker 1: And the girl was willing, so it wasn't really It's
Speaker 1: all scared, of course, but unfortunately her father had the
Speaker 1: powers to install a scheduled d notice on the newspapers,
Speaker 1: which was is the English way of of Uh, a
Speaker 1: newspaper can't print something it's against the public interest. At
Speaker 1: that time it was used for government thing, but he
Speaker 1: used it so we couldn't say let the girl go
Speaker 1: or she We said it's over. And by November with
Speaker 1: the season, I'm going around knocking on the doors of
Speaker 1: the stringers who didn't buy the stories, getting cash from them,
Speaker 1: and then from an English vicar, I let the English
Speaker 1: take my passport away pay for me to go back home,
Speaker 1: and I started again. Mary quant said I can't give
Speaker 1: you your job back and drew, but I'll tell you
Speaker 1: where you can get a job. And she sent me
Speaker 1: to a guy called Peter Hope Lumley, whose mother had
Speaker 1: been a lady in waiting for the queen, and he
Speaker 1: represented doing pr all of the guy who made the
Speaker 1: shoes for the Queen, Edward Rain, Norman Hartnell, who made
Speaker 1: the dresses, Hardy Amy's who made prince and stuff. So
Speaker 1: I had a very good education there and then fell
Speaker 1: into pr It was not something you said, um well,
Speaker 1: the sweet smell of success helped me right, and then
Speaker 1: pop was I got my first I was I got
Speaker 1: to how to get a job to please my mother.
Speaker 1: That was real pr as opposed to the pansy royal
Speaker 1: type of stuff that very I mean, that was her opinion.
Speaker 1: So I took a job at a regular place to
Speaker 1: please my mother, who did things like the British as were.
Speaker 1: Guild hated it, and I started taking pop clients on
Speaker 1: the first were like Mark Winter who covered the venus
Speaker 1: and blue jeans and go with a little girl, Kenny
Speaker 1: Lynch who covered up on the roof. Um. And then
Speaker 1: in the way, how did you get connected with them?
Speaker 1: You just knock on the door man, you know, I mean, um,
Speaker 1: and yeah, I mean it's time. It was a simpler time.
Speaker 1: You find out that Bob Dylan is staying in the
Speaker 1: Cumberland Hotel in January, either December of sixty January brought
Speaker 1: to England and the freakish or circumstances the television director
Speaker 1: nobody really knew who he was. Then goes on holiday
Speaker 1: to New York, sees him in the village is doing
Speaker 1: a Jack London play for for the BBC. The BBC
Speaker 1: and says, look, there's this folks singer I saw. I'd
Speaker 1: like him to be doing the Mad House of Carroll
Speaker 1: Street or something like that. Um and says, I think
Speaker 1: he would be good in the background, um singing in
Speaker 1: the background. The tapes are wiped. They don't exist anymore. Wow,
Speaker 1: I don't even know this story, okay. And so he
Speaker 1: turns up in England with Albert Grossman, and that's the
Speaker 1: manager for the listeners, for the listeners who were not
Speaker 1: steeped in sixties history. Okay, Well he's the manager, right,
Speaker 1: And well, I mean, you know the genius of it,
Speaker 1: the that without Peter, I mean Peter, Paul and Mary. Well,
Speaker 1: let's go back to the thing without Albert Grossman. Does
Speaker 1: Bob Dylan make it? No? Right? Of course, not, no, no.
Speaker 1: And I threw a guy at the Melody Maker, which
Speaker 1: was one of our four musical papers which came out
Speaker 1: every week. Yes it did, but it was the most
Speaker 1: jazz and folk of the elders were basically pop, right,
Speaker 1: And I went knocked on the door and I got
Speaker 1: the gig. I got the gig for ten the ten
Speaker 1: days they were there, probably I got You were the
Speaker 1: pr guy for Bob Dylan? Now was he? So he
Speaker 1: was in that musical? Well, it's a television play. And
Speaker 1: and while the plays it's a Jack London thing. And
Speaker 1: while the play is going on at certain parts during it,
Speaker 1: he's playing the guitar in the background, so the actors
Speaker 1: got you know, where you and I are talking, he's
Speaker 1: at the corner playing the time. But he's not doing
Speaker 1: any independent gigs or is he? No, not took him
Speaker 1: around London. He got to places like the jazz stores,
Speaker 1: the record stores, Dobell's Jazz and things like that. But
Speaker 1: the only gig was the television show. And you one
Speaker 1: has to ask was he is enigmatic or was he
Speaker 1: you know, wet behind the years at that point they
Speaker 1: never are man Otherwise he wouldn't have been with Albert Gross, right,
Speaker 1: I mean the the I spent twenty minutes with him
Speaker 1: in the hotel um and that Bob Dylan is the
Speaker 1: Bob Dylan you got now fully formed, fully formed. Okay,
Speaker 1: so you do the gig with Dylan and yeah, But
Speaker 1: the point is that when I'm in the room with
Speaker 1: them and I'm watching this celestial marriage between the two
Speaker 1: of them, you know, you've you know, when you've been there,
Speaker 1: when it's worked, and I'm going for whatever this is,
Speaker 1: I want it, okay, because there's no don't don't come
Speaker 1: out and go. I've got to find an act that
Speaker 1: never came into it. I just carried on what I
Speaker 1: was doing, and in that beginning of sixty three, so
Speaker 1: I had Bob Dylan for ten days. Then through one
Speaker 1: of my more pop clients, I was in a television
Speaker 1: show with Mark Winter and he was promoting Go with
Speaker 1: a Little Girl, his second single, the Steve Lawrence Thing
Speaker 1: here and the Beatles were doing their second record Please
Speaker 1: Please Me, and so um I walked up to John
Speaker 1: Lennam and said who handles you? And he said, oh,
Speaker 1: the guy at the Paisley Scarf and the corn and
Speaker 1: I went over and got the gig to do their
Speaker 1: pr in London because the Beatles or Brian Epstein's operation
Speaker 1: was still based in Liverpool, and in the beginning of
Speaker 1: ninety three you didn't make long distance phone calls selling
Speaker 1: a crew. I still remember that when you used to
Speaker 1: pay by the minute, right, so you might over a funeral,
Speaker 1: a birth would be a letter. And I got the gig.
Speaker 1: Somebody else had a guy called Tony Barrow. Have you
Speaker 1: heard of him. Yeah, he had a very oppressive version
Speaker 1: of the gig because he worked at Decca, which is
Speaker 1: you know that, not the Beatles record company. And when
Speaker 1: Decca closed at five o'clock. He would use the printers,
Speaker 1: the stamps and the envelopes to mail out Beatles stuff
Speaker 1: to people. He never got on the blower, never got
Speaker 1: on the phone. I did all of that. And in fact,
Speaker 1: when Paul McCartney was in Guitar about four years ago,
Speaker 1: and I was in the room with him, and he
Speaker 1: introduced me to his wife as this is Andrew, our
Speaker 1: first press agent. And I thought it might be a
Speaker 1: trick British question, and I said, well, what about Tony Barry?
Speaker 1: He said, well, that's another story, and that I was
Speaker 1: the first one who was able to go on the
Speaker 1: street for them. I would have them during the four
Speaker 1: months I was with them. I would have them like
Speaker 1: for a day every ten days. And because of the
Speaker 1: roller decks of fashion that I had walked away with
Speaker 1: from Mary Quant and Peter Hope Lumley, I could get
Speaker 1: them in a wider range of places than exactly. So
Speaker 1: one has to ask is you know, of course, because
Speaker 1: it was literally an invasion in America. When you're working
Speaker 1: with the Beatles, do you sense that this is a
Speaker 1: turning point for them and it's going to be a
Speaker 1: revolution or it's just another popular there's a night in
Speaker 1: the in those days the same way as you had
Speaker 1: the Dick Clark, and that what we had was different promoters,
Speaker 1: including the Fire the Rosharon Osborne and other people like
Speaker 1: Garth House and Tito Burns put on um shows that
Speaker 1: were touring England. The cinemas would close for the night
Speaker 1: and you as they were all old theaters who have
Speaker 1: been considered have been converted to cinemas. They do two
Speaker 1: shows a night. And the Beatles started out on a
Speaker 1: bill in February of nine six, three of which top
Speaker 1: of the bill was Chris Montez, Tommy Row and a
Speaker 1: British singer of the straight version of Amy Winehouse Helen Shapiro.
Speaker 1: Same thing comes, same town of town, mustache, you know,
Speaker 1: nice Jewish girl from North London but without the smack right,
Speaker 1: and had hits like six huge top ten records walking
Speaker 1: back to Happiness in the sixty two that were huge,
Speaker 1: and the beginning of the tour, the Beatles were bottom
Speaker 1: of the bill and by the time and it moved
Speaker 1: north to the tour, and by the time he got
Speaker 1: north over the top of the bill that with because
Speaker 1: of the span and the effect of please please Me
Speaker 1: and in answer to your question. There was one night
Speaker 1: in the Granada, Bedford where the fans were starting to
Speaker 1: break the windows from the outside. And that didn't even
Speaker 1: really go on for even Johnny Ray, who was a
Speaker 1: huge influence. I mean he was before Elvis for all
Speaker 1: of us. But that night I stood at the back
Speaker 1: of the theater with Brian Epstein and Okay, there may
Speaker 1: have been kids or eight hundred whatever it was, but
Speaker 1: we both heard the whole world. You knew that was
Speaker 1: the moment. Yeah, okay, so you work with them for
Speaker 1: a number of months until the Rolling Stones. Okay, so
Speaker 1: very slowly. How do you end up connecting with the
Speaker 1: Rolling Stars? Very slowly? Um? I used to go and
Speaker 1: to hustle journalists at the Record Mirror at a pub
Speaker 1: called d MS Offshore Spree Avenue. That was a great guy,
Speaker 1: and he recently passed called Peter Jones, and he said
Speaker 1: to me, when I'm trying to house Slim and christ
Speaker 1: I did. I was doing Chris Montez as well, American
Speaker 1: who came through Sam Cooke, Little Richard all this right, Um,
Speaker 1: I just didn't want a regular job. You wanted to
Speaker 1: continue My mother was wrong, right, and I, um, uh, listen,
Speaker 1: he says. Andrew said, you know our musical papers called
Speaker 1: Record Mirror, which means we only write about people who
Speaker 1: have records. But there's this young R and B fan
Speaker 1: writer who works for us called Norman Joplin, and he's
Speaker 1: so enthusiastic about this band in Richmond that we're actually
Speaker 1: going to publish a piece in a couple of weeks,
Speaker 1: a small piece, but nonetheless a piece or a group
Speaker 1: that doesn't have a record, called the Rolling Stones. He said,
Speaker 1: I think should go and see him. And I thought,
Speaker 1: is he trying to get rid of me? Or does
Speaker 1: he have my best interest? And even though I'd been
Speaker 1: in the room with Dylan and Grossman, I didn't actually
Speaker 1: want to be a manager. I was fine. And I
Speaker 1: then thought, and then on Sunday nights we would have
Speaker 1: our equivalent of the At Sullivan show, the Sunday night
Speaker 1: of the London Palladium. And Sunday was stay at home.
Speaker 1: You know my mother on my shirts better than I did.
Speaker 1: And so you paid lip service while that process, and
Speaker 1: the trousers and your Chelsea boots got polished, and you
Speaker 1: eet and then you watched the Yeah right, And that
Speaker 1: was Sunday right, And I was. I thought, well, if
Speaker 1: I don't go, how can I turn up the next
Speaker 1: Tuesday and hustle him? Right? So manners it was that
Speaker 1: had me and I found out I could. I didn't
Speaker 1: have to step all the way into town. I could
Speaker 1: go out on the override trains to Richmond and I
Speaker 1: got to Richmond station. It was Georgia Gamelski who promoted
Speaker 1: these gigs, also died just a couple of years ago,
Speaker 1: and he thought he managed them. Um. But then in
Speaker 1: the world where you know, there are no accidents, um,
Speaker 1: his father died in Switzerland, and so he nobody was
Speaker 1: mining the shot at the store. These gigs he put
Speaker 1: on in the back of the station hotel. So I
Speaker 1: went in and I kind of, um fell in love. Um.
Speaker 1: One of the great ah parts of it was that
Speaker 1: I really had no real affinity for your actual rhythm
Speaker 1: and blues. I mean, libra and stella was my you know,
Speaker 1: the drifters was my. UM. So I didn't walk in
Speaker 1: there as others might have and go, oh god, they
Speaker 1: don't do that Willie Dixson thing. Very well, it was
Speaker 1: all fucking magic to you know. This wave came over
Speaker 1: me and I knew that that's why coming up with
Speaker 1: an expression they are a way of life was It
Speaker 1: was easy because they had already been saturated with it,
Speaker 1: um and you know they were sitting down really performing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they were all but because it gave you if you've
Speaker 1: got the sweater with the holes in it and you're
Speaker 1: that left wing that you're left slightly socialist for you're
Speaker 1: lining yourselves up with sharecroppers, which I've always found a
Speaker 1: little difficult for white middle class boys going to art
Speaker 1: school or university. Um. But nonetheless, so to make it
Speaker 1: look more authentic, didn't have enough movements to to go
Speaker 1: through an actual show standing up as yet, but there
Speaker 1: was on stools like rhythm and blues people and and
Speaker 1: or jazz's or whatever, and so you had that which
Speaker 1: people forget as the revisionism changes or time changes everything.
Speaker 1: You had a front line of Brian, Mick and Keith
Speaker 1: and it was just so visually, which was always top
Speaker 1: of my list anyway, because coming out of fashion, and
Speaker 1: I mean when we started this conversation, he said, clothes
Speaker 1: went with the music. What's the point of listening to
Speaker 1: the music if, um, somebody doesn't know what you like?
Speaker 1: I mean, you must have had your own equivalent of that.
Speaker 1: What you liked and how you look, told everybody who
Speaker 1: you were, of course, I mean in the early sixties
Speaker 1: it was Ganondeine and the Beach Boys, no matter where
Speaker 1: you lived. I mean, you have the striped shirts and
Speaker 1: the blue sneakers, and before these English bands hit the
Speaker 1: shores and then we all grew are here. Happened in
Speaker 1: Europe too, I mean they were like every country except
Speaker 1: France had its own version of the South America too,
Speaker 1: his own version of the Stones and the Beatles. It
Speaker 1: became It's finished in sixty when nobody had rolls royces
Speaker 1: or six months in every road to make a record.
Speaker 1: But while they were like banging out studio records, in fact,
Speaker 1: the people who were the local, to say, the Swedish
Speaker 1: Stones would be on the shows with us. Would they
Speaker 1: be basically imitating your material? Yes, that's very strange. Let's
Speaker 1: go back to his club. So you're in the club,
Speaker 1: you go to see him the first time, you have
Speaker 1: the epiphany the first time, Yes, and you go and
Speaker 1: talk to the bank. Yes, I do, And what do
Speaker 1: you say, um again, I don't remember. Well, did you
Speaker 1: pitch him as a pr person? And I pitched him
Speaker 1: as a manager. I know I pitched them without stating
Speaker 1: what I was pitching them about. They say, I want
Speaker 1: to work with you. And were they receptive? Why do
Speaker 1: you think they were receptive because of you or because
Speaker 1: no one had approached him or Gomeshi was all of
Speaker 1: those reasons. And I'm good at you know, I mean
Speaker 1: I was younger than them somewhat. Um uh, you know
Speaker 1: did they think at the time this was it? Was
Speaker 1: this a lark? Was this a lifetime employment? Nothing was
Speaker 1: a lifetime then, man, Nothing was a lifetime Until February
Speaker 1: the eighth, or whatever the day is, the Beatles appeared
Speaker 1: on it sell of them. So now you're also talking
Speaker 1: about to the era certainly pre internet, but also pre calling.
Speaker 1: So they're not playing again to the following Sunday night, right, No,
Speaker 1: they would play in on Wednesday nights and another at
Speaker 1: a different place. Um. I didn't see them again though,
Speaker 1: till the next Sunday. And at that stage I had
Speaker 1: a huge dilemma. I mean, a week was a wonderful
Speaker 1: amount of time. You know. Then right now he's just
Speaker 1: waiting for somebody to call you back, right. Um. In
Speaker 1: that manners decreed that I would offer them to Brian
Speaker 1: Epstein because I was still working for him, and I
Speaker 1: was not only the Beatles, I was doing the beginning
Speaker 1: of Billy J. Kramer still a blank was going to
Speaker 1: be in a month I've done. I had been up
Speaker 1: to um another Paul and met his next find who
Speaker 1: he has short told me, and this was true, they
Speaker 1: would have a number one record during the Placemakers. And
Speaker 1: I looked at these scruffs man, you know, like the
Speaker 1: coats looked like they were made out of lino um.
Speaker 1: And he was right because of the song that the
Speaker 1: song that the Beatles had to central, We're not doing
Speaker 1: it right, the Mitch Murray song how do You? So
Speaker 1: I went, you know, I knew it wouldn't work with
Speaker 1: Brian Epstein because he was already getting a bit right
Speaker 1: um obsessed. So I probably went like, well, Brian not
Speaker 1: like Mick doing much and he passed and a guy
Speaker 1: who Ago. But you actually got to the point where
Speaker 1: you said, I have this if you're interested, can we
Speaker 1: share it? Right? Yeah? Oh yeah, you do wonder sold
Speaker 1: it so much you said I'm not interested. I don't
Speaker 1: know if he was listening, but I still did what
Speaker 1: I would go about yourself. You said, I gave was shot.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't use those words. I did the right thing, right, okay, um.
Speaker 1: And though that then the editor of the Melody Maker,
Speaker 1: guy called Jack Hutton, said, had already said to me
Speaker 1: about a month afloat when you need an office. Andrew,
Speaker 1: I know this, uh failed organist didn't say that. If
Speaker 1: a guy used to be play organ and the Blackpool
Speaker 1: Tower and then you know it changed his name to
Speaker 1: Eric Easton. He was another actually another Epstein east one
Speaker 1: of those the names. Because you're now dealing with the
Speaker 1: wonderful as with my mother's boy with the last generation
Speaker 1: of Jews in England who manicured up and became British,
Speaker 1: you know, so they didn't there, you know, you wanted
Speaker 1: to belong. So he was now Eric Easton. He was
Speaker 1: an agent and he managed a guitarist called Bert Weeden,
Speaker 1: a disc jockey. It was very level c but I
Speaker 1: got an office from him for four pounds a week
Speaker 1: and all no Andrew the long distance ohn calls. All
Speaker 1: of the country was all about the long distance phone calls.
Speaker 1: And because he was an agent and I just did
Speaker 1: mouth um. I actually probably would not have got the
Speaker 1: rolling stones if I hadn't made him. The first partner
Speaker 1: I had in it before the Towers of Babel in America,
Speaker 1: and he was became their agent. He became the co
Speaker 1: manager with me and the Age Soult when they were playing.
Speaker 1: The club didn't have an agent, Okay, somebody was. You've
Speaker 1: got those two structures of England trad jazz is poor
Speaker 1: relative skiffle. I mean, you know from the Billy Brag book,
Speaker 1: the history of how the Lonnie Donegan records came out
Speaker 1: of all of that stuff, and how the people who
Speaker 1: controlled the club circuits. I mean, either the promoters like
Speaker 1: Harold Pendleton Georgia with his sort of left wing oasis
Speaker 1: that he would run um frowned on rhythm and blues.
Speaker 1: It was a poor relative. It did seem to be
Speaker 1: attracting younger people than the traditional jazz bands like Humphrey
Speaker 1: Littleton and Chris barber Head. So it's a week later
Speaker 1: and you show up with at the gig and you
Speaker 1: tell the Stones what I now, show up with Eric Houston,
Speaker 1: and then we signed them and because of mine, and
Speaker 1: when you sign them you literally have a piece of paper. No,
Speaker 1: they came in the office. Brian was the leader and
Speaker 1: so Brian would come in for the negotiations, and Charlie
Speaker 1: and Bill had jobs. Um McKeith didn't good and they
Speaker 1: would sit at Lyon's corner house on the corner of
Speaker 1: a couple of black teas and wait for what Brian
Speaker 1: had determined with Eric and me. And and because of
Speaker 1: my knowledge of America through mainly Jim Lee who had
Speaker 1: Chris Montez, but then Bob Crew and my knowledge of
Speaker 1: Phil Specter, we signed them for the management and the records.
Speaker 1: Okay for those people who don't know, And this is
Speaker 1: becomes very important, especially in the history of the Role Stones.
Speaker 1: It was licensed to the label, you owned the records.
Speaker 1: Anybody else in the UK have that deal at that time?
Speaker 1: They did so it was not incredibly uncommon. No, but
Speaker 1: because it was incredibly uncommon, but because I was younger
Speaker 1: than all the rest, it would get noticed. All the rest.
Speaker 1: You had a pecking order of Joe Meek, who did
Speaker 1: tellstar Um who you could call, and he cut acts
Speaker 1: for Robert Stigwood like John Layton and things like that.
Speaker 1: They did it, but they had actually learned it from
Speaker 1: a guy called Dennis Preston who had He'll be in
Speaker 1: that book Landsdown Studios, who did Chris Barbera, therefore Lonnie Donegan.
Speaker 1: They were all independent records. So once again you became
Speaker 1: a student of the business. How did you know this
Speaker 1: When I would be doing pr for anybody from like
Speaker 1: Johnny Tillottson or Brian Highland or Ah Sam Cook and
Speaker 1: little Richard. I wanted him the managers man, because they
Speaker 1: would travel with the acts and you just you know,
Speaker 1: I mean America was it for me? From soul Bass
Speaker 1: the posters for those awful out of Parmager films. The
Speaker 1: posters were better than the films. And you know, I
Speaker 1: mean anything ammunition and the knowledge that comes in or
Speaker 1: the instinct that gets developed by studying these things. You
Speaker 1: don't don't actually have to look at a book and
Speaker 1: read it and get what's in the book. You just
Speaker 1: have to hold it and well, this is very well articulated.
Speaker 1: This is what people don't understand. They go to music schools,
Speaker 1: they think they can learn it. It's more about your
Speaker 1: sensibility matched with a passion and eyes wide open you
Speaker 1: can feel something. Especially all the greats in the music
Speaker 1: business are not educated people. There are people who operate
Speaker 1: on field. So in any event, you make a deal
Speaker 1: with the Stones, Yes, and how long is that deal
Speaker 1: is supposed to run? Oh? Three or five years? Three?
Speaker 1: Two three or thing? You have a lawyer who are
Speaker 1: or murky? Didn't It just takes out the usual piece
Speaker 1: of take out a piece of paper, man, and they
Speaker 1: say they're in okay, and you say you're gonna make them,
Speaker 1: and what is the next step. The next step is
Speaker 1: that the pub called the weather be Arms. They used
Speaker 1: to rehearse and I just said to me, listen, pick
Speaker 1: out the five things that you think are the most commercial.
Speaker 1: Play them to me, and then we'll pick three and
Speaker 1: we'll go and record them. And so there was Come On,
Speaker 1: which was a Chuck Berry b side Willie Dixon thing
Speaker 1: I want to be Loved And I can't remember the
Speaker 1: third thing. And so we went to Olympic Studios, which
Speaker 1: at that time was near Marble Arch and it was
Speaker 1: a four track studio with whose money? Eric's yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: you don't have any money. I don't have any money,
Speaker 1: dare And if I did it, I'd be wearing it.
Speaker 1: But but let's be clear. You were the producer, for
Speaker 1: want of a better word, Okay, Well, what would you
Speaker 1: consider your role to be at those No, I do
Speaker 1: concern I am the only one if they had gone
Speaker 1: through the system. Where As you know from the pictures
Speaker 1: you've seen from Abbey Row, you everybody gets what they deserved.
Speaker 1: The Beatles got what they should have. In other words,
Speaker 1: they've got a very competent George Martin who had a
Speaker 1: musical experience as well. The engineer Norman Smith knew about
Speaker 1: another kind of music, so all those elements could come
Speaker 1: into the Beatles when they needed it. What we had
Speaker 1: to get away from was the fact that acts before us,
Speaker 1: the English Rockers and things like that, you'd have a
Speaker 1: three hour session. They wouldn't even let them listen back
Speaker 1: to what they've done. You know. It was just run
Speaker 1: like a shop steward, like a union thing um. And
Speaker 1: the engineer was a guy called Roger's Avage. They give
Speaker 1: me the kid an olympic um. We had the forty
Speaker 1: quid three hours five three hours, were up at five
Speaker 1: to six and got no more money. Right. Recordings weren't
Speaker 1: that good? Right? I mean, but they weren't. They were
Speaker 1: less terrified with me than they would have been with
Speaker 1: a guy who might have been seven years older, who
Speaker 1: would have felt like fifty years old. Did you give
Speaker 1: them any direction? No? Interestingly, when I eventually listened to
Speaker 1: the Chuck Berry record, the vocals a spot on. I
Speaker 1: mean you know, I mean they you think almost think
Speaker 1: that Mick was on the Chuck Berry record sing in
Speaker 1: the backup right five six. I went, all right, that's it.
Speaker 1: Engineers says, well, we got to mix it, and I said,
Speaker 1: what's that? And he explained to me about the four
Speaker 1: channels or the four tracks it was on. And my
Speaker 1: attitude was if I'm not here, I don't have to
Speaker 1: pay for it. So I said, you do it. I'll
Speaker 1: come back in the morning. Um the and that was
Speaker 1: the first single. Then then Decker tried to put me okay, well, well,
Speaker 1: well a little bit slower. So you cut these three
Speaker 1: tracks and then how does it become a single? What's
Speaker 1: the deal? Okay? We had gone to Decca because they
Speaker 1: turned down the Beatles. An actual fact, one of the
Speaker 1: A and R men, as you know, picked Brian Paul
Speaker 1: and the Trammelers because it was nearer. It was Daggingham,
Speaker 1: it was it was nearer than the Beatles being in Liverpool.
Speaker 1: But anyway, Dick Roe was a very bright man. Then R. Man.
Speaker 1: There was no no, He just said, yeah, I'll take
Speaker 1: it right on the least deal. But they tried, as
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, for the sake of your viewers.
Speaker 1: The least deal is, you know, you've got to get
Speaker 1: ten points or eight points to play with us, opposed
Speaker 1: to three or four or two or three. And but
Speaker 1: he wanted to try and get them signed as a
Speaker 1: direct act, so he said, yeah, yeah, but the recording
Speaker 1: is not that good. We want to let one of
Speaker 1: our producers have a crank at it. And they picked
Speaker 1: a guy who they were giving the gold Watch two
Speaker 1: because he delivered a couple of pop things to them
Speaker 1: from sixty two. Guy called Michael Barker, you've done Eden Cane,
Speaker 1: and oh god, I was I'm going, I mean you.
Speaker 1: I couldn't turn around to the stones and say play badly.
Speaker 1: But my version was marginally better enough that they then
Speaker 1: accepted the least deal and we were off to the races.
Speaker 1: In the first track, does how well in the marketplace,
Speaker 1: it would have only gone to thirty eight, But I
Speaker 1: bought it from thirty eight to eighteen because you had
Speaker 1: forty five shops. It wasn't as company, it wasn't a
Speaker 1: simple and complicated as American Paola, you had forty five
Speaker 1: You don't you weren't greasing DJs. You had forty five
Speaker 1: shops that reported to the four musical newspapers, and all
Speaker 1: you had to do was go in and buy three
Speaker 1: to five singles at five shillings and sevenpence each um
Speaker 1: in those shops on a Friday or Saturday. You know,
Speaker 1: it's basically the trick is making the record company fall
Speaker 1: in love with you once when you signed with them,
Speaker 1: and twice when they shipped the record, and so the
Speaker 1: factories would go wow. We sold three records in Wellingborough,
Speaker 1: we sold three records in nor Willing Garden City and
Speaker 1: the Rolling the Rolling Stones fans, the small volume that
Speaker 1: they were at the time, was still so devoted that
Speaker 1: they knew we didn't have the money anyway to beat.
Speaker 1: Don't worry about and we'll send you a postluder. No,
Speaker 1: don't worry about it. We'll buy the records. And so
Speaker 1: a record it going to got to eighteen for one week.
Speaker 1: But that was the first dent. That was the beginning,
Speaker 1: and DECA was happy, yeah, and so then what what
Speaker 1: happens after that? Then we have to find a follow up,
Speaker 1: and the R and B basket of potential songs is
Speaker 1: getting smaller as people like the Searchers are doing Sweets
Speaker 1: for My Sweet or the B side of the Orance thing,
Speaker 1: which was amazing, you know, I mean in where you're
Speaker 1: finding your songs, Don't throw your Love Away. It was
Speaker 1: a B side by the Orans, and we had nothing
Speaker 1: to record, and one song that I suggested to them,
Speaker 1: which they never got to actually working on, was the
Speaker 1: James Ray thing if you've got to make a fool
Speaker 1: of somebody, but somebody said no. Andrew Freddie and the
Speaker 1: Dreamers did that last week, right, So that was gone
Speaker 1: and it was getting and we were at a rehearsal
Speaker 1: studio in Great Newport Street off Leicester Square, and I
Speaker 1: just kind of think, if you're not contributing to the
Speaker 1: energy of the room, leave and go to the bathroom
Speaker 1: and you're gonna cup of tea do something like that.
Speaker 1: So I leave, I turn right as opposed to the left,
Speaker 1: and I end up outside Leicester Square tube station and
Speaker 1: getting out of a cab is John and Paul John
Speaker 1: Lennon and Paul McCartney, and as they knew me slightly
Speaker 1: from the months that we've been together. It was like,
Speaker 1: what's wrong, Andy? And I said, I'm gonna fucking side
Speaker 1: to record with the Rolling Stones. Oh, no problem. They
Speaker 1: were great hustlers. And in those early, very early days,
Speaker 1: let's go backstop for a second with the Beatles have
Speaker 1: made it without Brian Epstein. Okay, I mean look at
Speaker 1: the pattern? What will They were backing Johnny Gentle for
Speaker 1: the guy called Larry Pans who was the gay Colonel
Speaker 1: Tom Parker, with Billy Fury, Marty Wild, Joe Brown and
Speaker 1: all these acts. How would they've made it? If if
Speaker 1: I mean what would if Ed Sullivan hadn't been on
Speaker 1: holiday in Europe? Would he have known what anybody was
Speaker 1: talking about when he was offered the Beatles for the
Speaker 1: Ed Sullivan Show. But he had experienced it because on
Speaker 1: a holiday with his wife, they'd stopped in an airport
Speaker 1: and what is this pandemonium? Oh it's a group called
Speaker 1: the Beatles who are playing there. So these things are
Speaker 1: all destiny, right, So in any event you're seeing they're
Speaker 1: great hustlers. Yeah, but hustlers for what it's like. As
Speaker 1: we were still getting out of the trap that had
Speaker 1: set for us by losing or winning World War two,
Speaker 1: the future if you're not if you weren't part of
Speaker 1: the elite anyway, right, um, you're any day you stay
Speaker 1: you know, oh this is still working, and it was right.
Speaker 1: You know, America changed it. But to see then because
Speaker 1: of our we all idolized America. And you know, I
Speaker 1: could sit and look at a forty five record and
Speaker 1: the credits or the nat hntoff notes for Dylan or whatever,
Speaker 1: and just this could this would just go on forever.
Speaker 1: You know, it would just inspire you. So they hustled
Speaker 1: to see their names on records as writers that of
Speaker 1: records that wouldn't They weren't necessarily going to pay the rent.
Speaker 1: That was not the point. I mean, as you know
Speaker 1: and have said often, if you come in into this
Speaker 1: for the money, right, that's not quite enough. If you
Speaker 1: turn out to be good at money, God bless you, right.
Speaker 1: And so they come down I the moment I Brian
Speaker 1: Jones play the bottleneck on this. I want to be
Speaker 1: a man. I just fucking died when we got to
Speaker 1: hit right, Okay, a little bit slour. You run into
Speaker 1: them at the Lusts. So they're getting out of a cab.
Speaker 1: They have just won their first songwriting on it. So
Speaker 1: they're clairvoyant, lely tipsy, okay, and they literally come straight
Speaker 1: to the straight to the studio, not oh, I'll be
Speaker 1: there and tomorrow. No, no, then and then they got
Speaker 1: an Iva Novello Award, which is yours. They demonstrate the
Speaker 1: song and they pretend that, ah, they're finishing it in
Speaker 1: front of us. Ringo had recorded it ten days before, right, um,
Speaker 1: and I, oh, lordy, you know, I mean it was
Speaker 1: the next apparition after having heard them for the first time.
Speaker 1: So I didn't even bother to produce the record. I
Speaker 1: led Eric. I went to Paris. This is my second
Speaker 1: nervous breakdown because I wanted a pair of forty pound
Speaker 1: utter leather boots from Pierre Cardin. That would solve my problem.
Speaker 1: I had had. You see, when I worked from Mary
Speaker 1: quant I had had a photographer who was about fifteen
Speaker 1: years older than me. When I was seventeen at Mary
Speaker 1: quants say you know, Andrew, you're an alcoholic, right, And
Speaker 1: I said, Terry, I don't even don't know them. The photographer,
Speaker 1: I said, I don't even drink. He said no, but
Speaker 1: you've got the isms, okay, um, and forty five pound
Speaker 1: boots are part of the isms. Okay, but you disappear
Speaker 1: just when the record is being made. Yeah, there's gonna
Speaker 1: be no problem, man, you know, I mean Eric could
Speaker 1: hear the Feliciano could have done it. Oh, he could
Speaker 1: have done He could have done Feliciano could have done
Speaker 1: the video. It was that much of a breeze. I
Speaker 1: mean I heard it in the rehearsal room, um, and
Speaker 1: it was just magic. And how long did you go
Speaker 1: to France for four days? Okay? So you come back
Speaker 1: ready to work, ready to work, and Decca, here's the tracks.
Speaker 1: Excited they put it out and what Decca. The same
Speaker 1: way as when they tried to shaft me out of
Speaker 1: the licensing deal, they would have meetings at ten thirty
Speaker 1: every Tuesday morning where they would decide what they were taking,
Speaker 1: what they were putting out. So even it's still, you
Speaker 1: couldn't call something I got a hit. No, you would
Speaker 1: submit it and it would go into the Tuesday morning
Speaker 1: A and R meeting and then they would call you back.
Speaker 1: It was all very corporate. I didn't see Recau still,
Speaker 1: I saw the boot of Sonny Bono's car, or Red
Speaker 1: or Buddha. Those people not put are the ones with Conversutra,
Speaker 1: but and then they would say we're releasing it on November.
Speaker 1: It was all very but just because this is interesting,
Speaker 1: how long afterwards cut did it come out? See cut
Speaker 1: in August? Six weeks? So it comes out? You buy
Speaker 1: a hit or is it an immediate hit? Um? We
Speaker 1: buy it. He goes to douneb the ten. You're on
Speaker 1: the way from eighteen to ten. Let's right, Yes, indeed,
Speaker 1: Hi everyone, this is Bob left Sets. If you stumbled
Speaker 1: upon this podcast on iTunes or tune in, you may
Speaker 1: be wondering who is this guy. Well, my story of
Speaker 1: the story of my blog, The Left Sets Letter was
Speaker 1: told in episode one. Please check it out. If you
Speaker 1: like what you hear, subscribe to the podcast today and
Speaker 1: you'll hear my interviews with songwriters, performers, music industry and
Speaker 1: tech executives. First, also, I'm a what a feedback? What
Speaker 1: do you like? What do you hate? Email me at
Speaker 1: Bob and left sets dot com and now more with
Speaker 1: Andrew lou Goldham. Welcome, Welcome, Welcome to the Bob Left
Speaker 1: Sets Podcast. My guest today is literally the legendary. They
Speaker 1: say legendary about a lot of people, but this guy
Speaker 1: is legendary Andrew Luke Oldham. I remember getting email the
Speaker 1: first time about the turn of the century, said Andrew
Speaker 1: Luke Goldham, saw him on the back of all those
Speaker 1: Stones album covers. It's like great to have you here here,
Speaker 1: Thank you, Bob. Good to be with you again our
Speaker 1: second round. Right. Well, as I say, I went to
Speaker 1: bow Guitar in September often and I knew that Andrew
Speaker 1: was there and we connected. That was the best place,
Speaker 1: certainly I've been to this century, maybe ever, in that
Speaker 1: you really feel vibrantly alive in bo guitar. Tell the
Speaker 1: audience how you ended up in bow guitar. I went
Speaker 1: in at the end of nineteen four in London to
Speaker 1: a theater that was showing a musical comedy called John Paul, George,
Speaker 1: Ringo and Bert, written by a guy called William Willie Russell.
Speaker 1: I had no idea what it was about. One probably
Speaker 1: because the condition I arrived in at the theater, and
Speaker 1: two that the condition was accelerated by there being this
Speaker 1: lady m in front of me in the theater who
Speaker 1: had now been married to forty one years. But I
Speaker 1: was just all I can tell you about that show
Speaker 1: was her neck and we spent time together. I was
Speaker 1: living in New York at the time, and she came
Speaker 1: to visit me in New York. She went back to
Speaker 1: Columbia and I followed her. Okay, and since we're on Columbia,
Speaker 1: what is the situation with the fark. Supposedly peace was
Speaker 1: made in Colombia. Is it really peace? For those don't know,
Speaker 1: there's been decades of a revolutionary army terrorizing clausing her
Speaker 1: unrest in Columbia, but supposedly piece has been made. I
Speaker 1: wouldn't call them revolutionary. They're basically businessmen and fatigues because
Speaker 1: their main business over the last thirty years was drugs.
Speaker 1: They took over the drug business once Escobar was killed
Speaker 1: and the other towns couldn't stand up to the pressure
Speaker 1: of the FARC and the e l N, the other
Speaker 1: ones who they've still no peace with. UM and kidnapping
Speaker 1: and drug expectation was their main business for the last
Speaker 1: thirty years. The president that we that we have Santos
Speaker 1: once he got his Nobel prize. Man, you know he's
Speaker 1: just left Columbia. He will just leave Columbia to sort
Speaker 1: it out. So you've got UM anywhere from twelve to
Speaker 1: twenty thousand men or kids. I would think the kids
Speaker 1: are more the danger because if you've just been raised
Speaker 1: that you don't know much more about life than to
Speaker 1: rape and pillage. What are you going to be an
Speaker 1: uber driver? So they've got that that's going to take
Speaker 1: the amount of money that has been put aside in
Speaker 1: a country that is just it's the fifth world now, Bob,
Speaker 1: It's as simple as that. It's not the third world anymore.
Speaker 1: So it's gotten worse where the rest of us have
Speaker 1: pulled ahead. You think you've pulled ahead. Oh well, this
Speaker 1: is another conversation. I'd be glad to have another podcast,
Speaker 1: but what's going on in our country? But my point
Speaker 1: is for those most people have not been to Columbia,
Speaker 1: never might have been to South America. We're Americans, have passports.
Speaker 1: So the question would become is now, in the last
Speaker 1: twenty years and now with peace with the farc generally speaking,
Speaker 1: is the economy better or worse? I think that's the
Speaker 1: one thing that's common with the rest of the world
Speaker 1: is the the middle class is being suppressed out of
Speaker 1: any remaining pesto or dollar they've got, which is going
Speaker 1: on everywhere. So it's got better for those who had
Speaker 1: it better anyway. So it's literally just like the rest
Speaker 1: of the world exactly. I mean, we looked better because
Speaker 1: you know, we we were for a while until your
Speaker 1: recent change, Donny, Donny it we were the only friend
Speaker 1: that North America had with I mean, we were the
Speaker 1: only everything else was, you know. I mean, but Venezuela
Speaker 1: at one time changed his clock half an hour, so
Speaker 1: it wasn't. But they're all we we were the one
Speaker 1: that America was going to because you can all spend
Speaker 1: so much money and give us so much money for
Speaker 1: supposedly eradicating drugs. I've never voted, so I'm pretty cynical
Speaker 1: about the whole um system. Well, then I have to
Speaker 1: ask his as they said, we're talking all these political things,
Speaker 1: but what is your view of Brexit in the European Union. Um, again,
Speaker 1: you've got David Cameron behaved exactly the way that our president. Okay,
Speaker 1: I've done it, I got my Nobel Prize. I'm off
Speaker 1: he did the Brexit thing. He left and isn't that
Speaker 1: too to two years ago at least? Um, it's uh,
Speaker 1: it's a horrendous mess. I think it would be better
Speaker 1: if they didn't do it. And I think that could
Speaker 1: that could happen. It'd be interesting. I was actually was
Speaker 1: hanging with Billy Bragg, who's very political. He thought it
Speaker 1: might I want to read his book, right, skiffle book?
Speaker 1: Yeah exactly, he sent it to me. Um, but before
Speaker 1: our audience, I don't want to know who you are, okay, okay,
Speaker 1: your most legendary for the Rolling Stones Immediate records. And
Speaker 1: it goes on for Tony Calder recently, Yes he did,
Speaker 1: he was a partner in the media, and yes he was. Okay,
Speaker 1: but as I say, you are born in what year?
Speaker 1: So through the fifties, whereas music your focus or did you?
Speaker 1: Were you an opportunist? How did you end up getting
Speaker 1: into the music scene in the early sixties through fashion?
Speaker 1: Because I mean, I mean I left school at sixteen.
Speaker 1: The first job was at sixteen. Um, and I wish
Speaker 1: so many more kids could leave school of sixteen. You know,
Speaker 1: education as a crime, but we won't go there. I
Speaker 1: would like to go there. I think. You know, education
Speaker 1: is basically to keep people in line as supposed to
Speaker 1: be creative exactly exactly. You know, to it's not going
Speaker 1: to work at six is criminal? But um, then on
Speaker 1: all was blessed as we who were kicked out and
Speaker 1: had to get on with it right. But when I
Speaker 1: did that in the first place, I wanted to work
Speaker 1: where the carpets were thick and the teacups were thin.
Speaker 1: I landed up with a lady called Mary Kwant, legendary
Speaker 1: fashion design who had a sort of karma such or
Speaker 1: redbird records of fashion that worked in that her husband
Speaker 1: was the hustler. She cut and did the clothes, the
Speaker 1: husband hustled and sold. And they also had an old
Speaker 1: school friend who made sure they got paid school interesting euphemism. Anyway,
Speaker 1: it worked and I had a great education. The pop
Speaker 1: that the fashion business was THEO what was your gig with?
Speaker 1: And you just showed up and say I'll do anything
Speaker 1: that you hired you? I mean, I just that's the place.
Speaker 1: I don't want to knock on one door. I don't
Speaker 1: like this committee business even now. I think you've got
Speaker 1: to pick where you want to go and go there. Okay, well,
Speaker 1: what was your spiel? There's such that she hired you.
Speaker 1: You know, I can never remember the actual moments of
Speaker 1: because I'm so fucking nervous going in like that. I
Speaker 1: know it works, but I can't somebody else in the
Speaker 1: room would have to tell you what my picture. Okay,
Speaker 1: you go into a zone when the whole situation exactly
Speaker 1: In any event, she does hire, she has me. I
Speaker 1: last there for eight or nine months because uh, and
Speaker 1: we're in what year? This is sixty one, And I
Speaker 1: then start taking a job in the nights working at
Speaker 1: the original Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club, and my job there
Speaker 1: was hanged. Was that another thing where you said I
Speaker 1: have to work at Ronnie Scott's. Oh, yes, because I've
Speaker 1: been given a great education of music when I was
Speaker 1: about eleven by a guy next door. During the years
Speaker 1: where you could sit for a guy next door and
Speaker 1: not get molested. Is that because the it's because they
Speaker 1: didn't molest you, or the cops weren't there. You didn't
Speaker 1: have the we're all stars even though we're a star
Speaker 1: molester or were start you know, the rights of entitlement
Speaker 1: where you think you've got the right to intrude on
Speaker 1: somebody else. There was less of that. Although the other thing,
Speaker 1: of course is I mean, we know that's against the law,
Speaker 1: but being gay was against the law anyway, right, But
Speaker 1: you can't even touch another kid if you put it.
Speaker 1: You know, it's it's amazing world we live in, but
Speaker 1: any even you're with your next door neighbor. And so
Speaker 1: when I was eleven, he ran me through everything from
Speaker 1: uh Anna Jamal to Bob Crosby and the you know,
Speaker 1: the Brother of Being Crossed, the Bobcats, the the Red
Speaker 1: Novo Um. The one thing that really made a dent
Speaker 1: on my mind and on Lou Adler because he used
Speaker 1: it as the prototype for Carol King was George Sharing
Speaker 1: with Peggy Lee live in Chicago. It's really I mean,
Speaker 1: I don't know that record. I certainly know those people,
Speaker 1: beauty and the beat. Okay, if I track that record down,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna hear Tapestry. Okay, sound it's there. It's there.
Speaker 1: Um great, especially with the instrumental Sat and Sat and
Speaker 1: Doll on it, which I think it's George Sharing Quintint
Speaker 1: and Peggy. Um. So I went to work for Ronnie Scott's.
Speaker 1: I hung the coats, I got the Pakistani food from
Speaker 1: over the road as they didn't have a food license. Uh.
Speaker 1: Then I kind of got greedy and I went to
Speaker 1: work the midnight to five am shift at the Flamingo Club,
Speaker 1: which was owned by a guy called Jeff Krueger who
Speaker 1: had Amberg records, but he rented the place out that
Speaker 1: night to the Gunnell brothers, who might have heard of
Speaker 1: from Chris Farlows money and all this kind of And
Speaker 1: I served the whiskey and the coat bottles because if
Speaker 1: the cops came in and he looked innocent and looked
Speaker 1: like he wouldn't be serving scotch um. And so I
Speaker 1: did that. Then basically I had my first nervous breakdown. Um,
Speaker 1: the others don't count. The first one is the most important. Okay,
Speaker 1: So your how old when you have your first nervous
Speaker 1: break sixty one? I'm seventeen. And how do you know
Speaker 1: you're having a nervous break Were you've taken on too much?
Speaker 1: Too much? Three jobs in a week is And do
Speaker 1: you feel building you're building up to it or you
Speaker 1: just freak out at one point building up? Then I
Speaker 1: wouldn't call it freak out. Then you decide travel will
Speaker 1: be the cure. So I went to the south of France.
Speaker 1: And it's interesting, kind of like the Rod Stewart's song.
Speaker 1: You know, every picture tells the story, Oh yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: and I kind of, Um, I ended up there and
Speaker 1: It's interesting being back in this location because in a
Speaker 1: restaurant up there this past spring, I was able to
Speaker 1: say hello for the first time to Johnny Hallity really
Speaker 1: before he passed. Yes, Because when I was seventeen, it
Speaker 1: was a very good year and I worked in Joan
Speaker 1: Lapin at an English tea room, serving tea of course um.
Speaker 1: And at the end of the block he was already
Speaker 1: in a white tux playing the casino and he was
Speaker 1: only nine months or eight eight months older than me,
Speaker 1: and I went, wow, yeah, first of you go, you
Speaker 1: don't go something's wrong, but you go, well, there's hope, man,
Speaker 1: you know. I mean the other rockers like Eddie Mitchell
Speaker 1: and Dick Rivers were playing cafes, and I was attracted
Speaker 1: to all. As bad as French rock is, I was
Speaker 1: attracted to it because it wasn't as personally bad as
Speaker 1: English rock was at the time. Cliff Cliff, Richard, Billy
Speaker 1: Fury right, you know, they were only they only had
Speaker 1: an American accent when they sung um. And so I
Speaker 1: preferred the French New Wave in the movies. I preferred
Speaker 1: their rook you know, and all that. With Johnny Hallity,
Speaker 1: and I'd seen him a couple of times in the
Speaker 1: two thousands in Marseilles, which was a town that when
Speaker 1: I was seventeen I couldn't go to it was too rough.
Speaker 1: Then well, in my job, I didn't have a job,
Speaker 1: I was begging off English tourists literally begging, oh yeah,
Speaker 1: begging in that the pitch went into Okay. Mainly the
Speaker 1: ones who ended up in those areas of south of
Speaker 1: France were the Jewish world to do out of London,
Speaker 1: who knew how to get money out for the holiday
Speaker 1: because you're only allowed to take fifty pounds away. And
Speaker 1: so you remember when newspapers or magazine used to arrive
Speaker 1: rolled up, of course the money would go in there
Speaker 1: and it would actually turn up at your hotel. Wow, okay,
Speaker 1: and I would put on an accent that appealed to them,
Speaker 1: which I'm moving into now, and I would excuse me,
Speaker 1: but my allowance hasn't arrived from my mother, and I
Speaker 1: wonder if you could lend me, if I could borrow
Speaker 1: ten or twenty francs, and if you tell me which
Speaker 1: hotel you're in, And I did, depended on whether I
Speaker 1: thought they were worth paying back. But the rest of
Speaker 1: it went to my water skiing lessons. Okay, so you're
Speaker 1: in the south of France and you meet Johnny Holliday.
Speaker 1: No I don't meet him. I saw him from Afar
Speaker 1: and you got inspired. And then how long are you
Speaker 1: in France before you return to the island until the
Speaker 1: season runs up? And I'm now I got involved in
Speaker 1: slight Mickey mouse type of kidnapping there where I ran
Speaker 1: into a photographer who recently passed, a great guy called
Speaker 1: Philip Town's End and he said, look, if you will
Speaker 1: keep this heiress locked up, she's still around. I can't
Speaker 1: remember his lady something right. We can sell the stories
Speaker 1: to the stringers of the newspapers like the Daily Mail stringer,
Speaker 1: the Express string and things like that. And the girl
Speaker 1: was willing, so it wasn't really it's alway scared, of course,
Speaker 1: but unfortunately her father had the powers to install a
Speaker 1: scheduled de notice on the newspapers, which was is the
Speaker 1: English way of of a newspaper, can't print something it's
Speaker 1: against the public interest. At that time it was used
Speaker 1: for government thing, but he used it so we couldn't
Speaker 1: say let the girl go or she We said it's over.
Speaker 1: And by November, with the season, I'm going around knocking
Speaker 1: on the doors of the stringers who didn't buy the stories,
Speaker 1: getting cash from them, and then from an English vicar.
Speaker 1: I let the English take my passport away pay for
Speaker 1: me to go home. When I started again, Mary quant
Speaker 1: said I can't give you your job back and drew,
Speaker 1: but I'll tell you where you can get a job.
Speaker 1: And she sent me to a guy called Peter Hope Lumley,
Speaker 1: whose mother had been a lady in waiting for the Queen,
Speaker 1: and he represented doing pr all of the guy who
Speaker 1: made the shoes for the Queen, Edward Rain Norman Hartnell,
Speaker 1: who made the dresses, hardy amies who made prince and stuff.
Speaker 1: So I had a very good education there and then
Speaker 1: fell into pr It was not something you said, um well,
Speaker 1: the sweet smell of success helped me, you know, right,
Speaker 1: And then pop was I got my first I was
Speaker 1: I gotta. I had to get a job to please
Speaker 1: my mother that was real pr as opposed to the
Speaker 1: pansy royal type of stuff that very I mean, that
Speaker 1: was her opinion. So I took a job at a
Speaker 1: regular place to please my mother, who did things like
Speaker 1: the British Men's Work Guild hated it, and I started
Speaker 1: taking pop. Clients on the first were like Mark Wynter
Speaker 1: who covered the venus and blue jeans and go with
Speaker 1: a little girl, Kenny Lynch who covered up on the roof. Um.
Speaker 1: And then in the way, how did you get connected
Speaker 1: with them? You just knock on the door man, you know,
Speaker 1: I mean, um, and yeah, I mean it's it was
Speaker 1: a simpler time. You find out that Bob Dylan is
Speaker 1: staying in the Cumberland hotel in January, either December of
Speaker 1: sixty January brought to England and the freakish or circumstances.
Speaker 1: The television director nobody really knew who he was. Then
Speaker 1: goes on holiday to New York, sees him in the
Speaker 1: village is doing a Jack London play for for the BBC.
Speaker 1: The BBC and says, look, there's this folks singer I saw.
Speaker 1: I'd like him to be doing the Mad House of
Speaker 1: Carroll Street or something like that, right, Um, and says
Speaker 1: I think he would be good in the background, singing
Speaker 1: in the background. The tapes are wiped, they don't exist anymore. Wow,
Speaker 1: I don't even know this story, okay. And so he
Speaker 1: turns up in England with Albert Grossman and that's the
Speaker 1: manager for the listeners, for the listeners who were not
Speaker 1: steeped in sixties history. Okay, well he's the manager, right,
Speaker 1: and well, I mean, you know the genius of it,
Speaker 1: the that without Peter, I mean Peter Paul and Mary. Well,
Speaker 1: let's go back to the thing without Albert Grossman. Does
Speaker 1: Bob Dylan make it? No? Right? Of course? Not, no, no.
Speaker 1: And I threw a guy at the Melody Maker, which
Speaker 1: was one of our four musical papers which came out
Speaker 1: every week. Yes it did, but it was the most
Speaker 1: jazz and folk of the elders were basically pop, right,
Speaker 1: And I went and knocked on the door, and I
Speaker 1: got the gig. I got the gig for ten the
Speaker 1: ten days they were there, probably I got You were
Speaker 1: the pr guy for Bob Don't now? Was he? So
Speaker 1: he was in that musical? Well, it's a television play,
Speaker 1: and and while the plays it's a Jack London thing.
Speaker 1: And while the play is going on at certain parts
Speaker 1: during yet he's playing the guitar in the background. So
Speaker 1: the actors got you know, where you and I are talking,
Speaker 1: he's at the corner playing. But he's not doing any
Speaker 1: independent gigs or is He took him around London. He
Speaker 1: got to places like the jazz stores, the record stores,
Speaker 1: Dobell's Jazz and things like that. But the only gig
Speaker 1: was the television show. And one has to ask was
Speaker 1: he is enigmatic or was he you know, wet behind
Speaker 1: the years at that point they never are man Otherwise
Speaker 1: he wouldn't have been with Albert Gross, right, I mean
Speaker 1: the the I spent twenty minutes with him in the hotel. Um,
Speaker 1: and that Bob Dylan is the Bob Dylan you've got
Speaker 1: now fully formed, fully formed, Okay, so you do the
Speaker 1: gig with Dylan and yeah. But the point is that
Speaker 1: when I'm in the room with them and I'm watching
Speaker 1: this celestial marriage between the two of them, you know,
Speaker 1: you've you know, when you've been there, when it's worked. Um,
Speaker 1: and I'm going for whatever this is, I want it, okay,
Speaker 1: because there's no don't don't come out and go. I've
Speaker 1: got to find an act that never came into it.
Speaker 1: I just carried on what I was doing and at
Speaker 1: that beginning of sixty three, so I had Bob Dylan
Speaker 1: for ten days. Then through one of my more pop clients,
Speaker 1: I was in a television show with Mark Winter and
Speaker 1: he was promoting go Away a Little Girl, his second single,
Speaker 1: the Steve Lawrence Thing here and the Beatles were doing
Speaker 1: their second record Please Please Me, and so um I
Speaker 1: walked up to John Lennam and said who handles you?
Speaker 1: And he said, oh, the guy at the Paisley Scarf
Speaker 1: in the corner. And I went over and got the
Speaker 1: gig to do their pr in London because the Beatles
Speaker 1: or Brian Epstein's operation was still based in Liverpool and
Speaker 1: in the beginning of three you didn't make long distance
Speaker 1: phone calls selling a crew. I still remember that when
Speaker 1: you used to pay by the minute, right, so you
Speaker 1: might over a funeral. A bus would be a letter,
Speaker 1: you know. And I got the gig. Somebody else had
Speaker 1: a guy called Tony Barrow. Have you heard of him. Yeah.
Speaker 1: He had a very oppressive version of the gig because
Speaker 1: he worked at Decca, which is you know, was that
Speaker 1: not the Beatles record prompody? And when Decca closed at
Speaker 1: five o'clock he would use the printers, the stamps and
Speaker 1: the envelopes to mail out Beatles stuff to people. He
Speaker 1: never got on the blower, never got on the phone.
Speaker 1: I did all of that, and in fact, when Paul
Speaker 1: McCartney was in Boguitar about four years ago and I
Speaker 1: was in the room with him and he introduced me
Speaker 1: to his wife as this is Andrew, our first press agent.
Speaker 1: And I thought it might be a trick British question,
Speaker 1: and I said, well, what about Tony Barry? He said, well,
Speaker 1: that's another story, and that I was the first one
Speaker 1: who was able to go on the street for them.
Speaker 1: I would have them during the four months I was
Speaker 1: with them. I would have them like for a day
Speaker 1: every ten days. And because of the roller decks of
Speaker 1: fashion that I had walked away with from Mary Quant
Speaker 1: and Peter Hope Lumley, I could get them in a
Speaker 1: wider range of places than exactly. So one has to
Speaker 1: ask is you know, of course, because it was literally
Speaker 1: an invasion in America, when you're working with the Beatles,
Speaker 1: do you sense that this is a turning point for
Speaker 1: them and it's going to be a revolution or it's
Speaker 1: just another popular there's a night in the in those days,
Speaker 1: the same way as you had the Dick Clark and
Speaker 1: that what we had was different promoters, including the father
Speaker 1: of Sharon Osborne and other people like other House and
Speaker 1: Tito Burns, put On um shows that were touring England,
Speaker 1: the cinemas would close for the night and you as
Speaker 1: they were all old theaters who have been considered to
Speaker 1: being converted to cinemas. Ah, they do two shows a night.
Speaker 1: And the Beatles started out on a bill in February
Speaker 1: of nine, three of which top of the bill was
Speaker 1: Chris Montez, Tommy Row and a British singer the straight
Speaker 1: version of Amy Winehouse Helen Shapiro, Same thing comes, same
Speaker 1: town of town, mustache, you know, nice Jewish girl from
Speaker 1: North London but without the smack right, and had hits
Speaker 1: like six huge top ten records walking back to Happiness
Speaker 1: in the sixty that were huge, and the beginning of
Speaker 1: the tour, the Beatles were bottom of the bill and
Speaker 1: by the time and it moved north to the tour,
Speaker 1: and by the time he got north, they the top
Speaker 1: of the bill that with because of the span and
Speaker 1: the effect of please please me. And in answer to
Speaker 1: your question, there was one night in the Granada, Bedford
Speaker 1: where the fans were starting to break the windows from
Speaker 1: the outside and that didn't even really go on. For
Speaker 1: even Johnny Ray, who was a huge influence, I mean
Speaker 1: he was before Elvis for all of us. But that
Speaker 1: night I stood at the back of the theater with
Speaker 1: Brian Epstein and Okay, there may have been hundred kids
Speaker 1: or eight hundred, whatever it was, but we both heard
Speaker 1: the whole world. You knew that was the moment. Okay.
Speaker 1: So you work with them for a number of months
Speaker 1: until the Rolling Stones. Okay, so very slowly. How do
Speaker 1: you end up connecting with the Rolling Stones? Very slowly? Um?
Speaker 1: I used to go to hustle journalists at the Record
Speaker 1: Mirror at a pub called d MS off Shaftesbury Avenue.
Speaker 1: That was a great guy, and he recently passed, called
Speaker 1: Peter Jones, and he said to me, when I'm joying hustling,
Speaker 1: and christ I did was doing Chris Montez as well.
Speaker 1: Americans came through, Sam Cooke, little Richard, all this right, Um,
Speaker 1: I just didn't want a regular job. He wanted to continue.
Speaker 1: My mother was wrong, you know, right? And I um, uh, listen,
Speaker 1: he says. Andrew said, you know our musical papers called
Speaker 1: Record Mirror, which means we only write about people who
Speaker 1: have records. But there's this young R and B fan
Speaker 1: writer who works for us called Norman Jopling, and he's
Speaker 1: so enthusiastic about this band in Richmond, that we're actually
Speaker 1: going to publish a piece in a couple of weeks,
Speaker 1: a small piece, but nonetheless a piece or a group
Speaker 1: that doesn't have a record, called the Rolling Stones. He said,
Speaker 1: I think you should go and see him, And I thought,
Speaker 1: is he trying to get rid of me? Or does
Speaker 1: he have my best interests? And I, even though I'd
Speaker 1: been in the room with Dylan and Grossman, I didn't
Speaker 1: actually want to be a manager. I was fine. And
Speaker 1: I then thought, and then on Sunday nights we would
Speaker 1: have our equivalent of the At Sullivan Show, the Sunday
Speaker 1: night of the London Palladium. And Sunday was staying at home.
Speaker 1: You know, my mother on my shirts better than I did,
Speaker 1: and so you paid lip service while that process of
Speaker 1: the trousers and your Chelsea boots got polished, and you
Speaker 1: at and then you watched the Yeah right, And that
Speaker 1: was Sunday right, and I was I thought, well, if
Speaker 1: I don't go, how can I turn up the next
Speaker 1: Tuesday and hustling? Right? So manners it was that had
Speaker 1: me and I found out I could. I didn't have
Speaker 1: to step all the way into town. I could go
Speaker 1: out on the override trains to Richmond, and I got
Speaker 1: to Richmond station. It was Georgia Gamelski who promoted these gigs,
Speaker 1: who also died just a couple of years ago, that's right,
Speaker 1: and he thought he managed them. Um. But then in
Speaker 1: the world where you know, there are no accidents. Um,
Speaker 1: his father died in Switzerland and so he nobody was
Speaker 1: minding the short at the store. These gigs he put
Speaker 1: on in the back of the station hotel. So I
Speaker 1: went in and I kind of um fell in love. Um.
Speaker 1: One of the great ah parts of it was that
Speaker 1: I really had no real affinity for your actual rhythm
Speaker 1: and blues. I mean, Libra and Stollar was my you know,
Speaker 1: the drifters was my you know. Um. So I didn't
Speaker 1: walk in there as others might have and go, oh god,
Speaker 1: they don't do that Willie Dixson thing. Very well, it
Speaker 1: was all fucking magic to you know. This wave came
Speaker 1: over me and I knew that. That's why coming up
Speaker 1: with an ext pressure there a way of life was
Speaker 1: it was easy because they had already been saturated with it. Um,
Speaker 1: and you know they were sitting down really performing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they were, but welcome because it gave you if you've
Speaker 1: got the sweater with the holes in it and you're
Speaker 1: that left wing that you're left slightly socialist for you're
Speaker 1: lining yourselves up with sharecroppers, which I've always found a
Speaker 1: little difficult for white middle class boys going to art
Speaker 1: school or university. Um. But nonetheless, so to make it
Speaker 1: look more authentic, didn't have enough movements to lot to
Speaker 1: go through that Actu's show standing up as yet, but
Speaker 1: there was on stools like rhythm and blues people and
Speaker 1: and or jazzes or whatever, and so you had that
Speaker 1: which people forget as the revisionism changes or time changes everything.
Speaker 1: You had a front line of Brian, Mick and Keith
Speaker 1: and it was just so visually, which was always top
Speaker 1: of my list anyway, because coming out of fashion, and
Speaker 1: I mean when we started this conversation, he said, clothes
Speaker 1: went with the music. What's the point of listening to
Speaker 1: the music if, um, somebody doesn't know what you like?
Speaker 1: I mean, you must have had your own equivalent of that.
Speaker 1: What you liked and how you looked told everybody who
Speaker 1: you were, of course. I mean in the early sixties
Speaker 1: was gen indeed, and the Beach Boys, no matter where
Speaker 1: you lived. I mean you have the striped shirts and
Speaker 1: the blue sneakers, and before these English bands hit the
Speaker 1: shores and then we all grew are here. Happened in
Speaker 1: Europe too, I mean there were like every country except
Speaker 1: France had its own version of the South America to
Speaker 1: his own version of the Stones and the Beatles. It
Speaker 1: became It's finished in sixty when nobody had rolls Royces
Speaker 1: or six months in Ebbey Road to make a record.
Speaker 1: But while they were like banging out studio records, in fact,
Speaker 1: the people who were the locals, say the Wehedish Stones
Speaker 1: would be on the shows with us, would they be
Speaker 1: basically imitating your material? Yes, that's very strange. Let's go
Speaker 1: back to his club. So you're in the club, you
Speaker 1: go to see him the first time, you have the
Speaker 1: epiphany the first time. Yes, and you go and talk
Speaker 1: to the band. Yes, I do, And what do you say?
Speaker 1: Um again? I don't remember. Well, did you pitch him
Speaker 1: as a pr person and I pitched him as a manager.
Speaker 1: I know I pitched them without stating what I was
Speaker 1: pitching them about, to say I want to work with you.
Speaker 1: And were they receptive? Why do you think they were
Speaker 1: receptive because of you, or because no one had approached him,
Speaker 1: or Gomeshi was right all of those reasons. And I'm
Speaker 1: gonna you know, I mean I was younger than them somewhat.
Speaker 1: Um uh. You know, did they think at the time
Speaker 1: this was it? Was this a lark? Or was this
Speaker 1: a lifetime employment? Nothing was a lifetime? Then, nothing was
Speaker 1: a lifetime until February the eighth or whatever the day is.
Speaker 1: The beat was a beard on that sell of them. Right.
Speaker 1: So now you're also talking about to the era certainly
Speaker 1: pre internet but also pre calling. So they're not playing
Speaker 1: again to the following Sunday night, right, No, they would
Speaker 1: play in on Wednesday nights and another at a different place. Um.
Speaker 1: I didn't see them again though, until the next Sunday.
Speaker 1: And at that stage I had a huge dilemma. I mean,
Speaker 1: a week was a wonderful amount of time. You know.
Speaker 1: Then right now, he's just waiting for somebody to call
Speaker 1: you back, right. Um. In that manners decreed that I
Speaker 1: would offer them to Brian Epstein because I was still
Speaker 1: working for him, and I was not only the Beatles.
Speaker 1: I was doing the beginning of Billy J. Kramer Stilla
Speaker 1: Black was going to be in a month I've done.
Speaker 1: I had been up to um Liverpool and met his
Speaker 1: next find who he is sure told me, and this
Speaker 1: was true, They're gonna have a number one record during
Speaker 1: the placemakers And I looked at these scrafts, man, you know,
Speaker 1: the coats looked like they were made out of liner um.
Speaker 1: And he was right because of the song that the
Speaker 1: song that the Beatles had to central We're not doing
Speaker 1: it right, the Mitch Murray's song how do you? How
Speaker 1: do you do it? So I went, you know, I
Speaker 1: knew it wouldn't work with Ryan Empstein because he was
Speaker 1: already getting a bit right um obsessed. So I probably
Speaker 1: went like, well, Bron not like Mick doing much and
Speaker 1: he passed and a guy who Ago. But you actually
Speaker 1: got to the point where you said, I have this,
Speaker 1: if you're interested, can we share it? Right? Yeah? Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: you do. Wonder sold it so much you said I'm
Speaker 1: not interested. I don't know if he was listening, but
Speaker 1: I still did what I wouldn't about yourself, he said,
Speaker 1: I gave him a shot. I wouldn't use those words.
Speaker 1: I did the right thing, right, okay? Um? And that
Speaker 1: then the editor of the melody maker. Guy called Jack
Speaker 1: Hutton said, had already said to me about am before
Speaker 1: when you need an office, Andrew, I know this, uh
Speaker 1: failed organist didn't say that. The guy used to be
Speaker 1: play organ and the Blackpool tre and then you know
Speaker 1: it changed his name to Eric Easton. He was another
Speaker 1: actually another Epstein Eastman, one of those the names. Because
Speaker 1: you're now dealing with the wonderful as with my mother's
Speaker 1: boy with the last generation of Jews in England who
Speaker 1: manicured up and became British, you know, so they didn't
Speaker 1: there were you know, you wanted to belong. So he
Speaker 1: was now Eric Easton. He was an agent and he
Speaker 1: managed a guitarist called Bert Weeden, a disc jockey. It
Speaker 1: was very level c but I got an office from
Speaker 1: him for four pounds a week and all no Andrew
Speaker 1: the long distance phone calls. All of the country was
Speaker 1: all about the long distance phone calls. And because he
Speaker 1: was an agent and I just did mouth um, I
Speaker 1: actually probably would not have got the Rolling Stones if
Speaker 1: I hadn't made him the first partner I had in
Speaker 1: it before the Towers of Babel in America. Um, and
Speaker 1: he was became their agent. He became the co manager
Speaker 1: with me and the age. So when they were playing
Speaker 1: the club, they didn't have an agent. Okay, somebody was.
Speaker 1: You've got those two structures of England trad jazz is
Speaker 1: poor relative skiffle. I mean, you know from the Billy
Speaker 1: Brag book, the history of how the Lonnie Donegan records
Speaker 1: came out of all of that stuff, and how the
Speaker 1: people who controlled the club circuits. I mean either the
Speaker 1: promoters like Harold Pendleton Georgia with his sort of left
Speaker 1: wing oasis that he would run um frowned on rhythm
Speaker 1: and blues. It was a poor relative, but it did
Speaker 1: seem to be attracting younger people than the traditional jazz
Speaker 1: bands like Humphrey Littleton and Chris barber Head. So it's
Speaker 1: a week later and you show up with at the
Speaker 1: gig and you tell the Stones what I now, show
Speaker 1: up with Eric Houston, and then we signed them and
Speaker 1: because of mine, and when you signed them, you literally
Speaker 1: have a piece of paper. No, they came in the office.
Speaker 1: Brian was the leader, and so Brian would come in
Speaker 1: for the negotiations and Charlie and Bill had jobs. Um
Speaker 1: Mcinkeith didn't good and they would sit at Lion's Corner
Speaker 1: house on the corner of a couple of black teas,
Speaker 1: and wait for what Brian had determined with Eric and me,
Speaker 1: and and because of my knowledge of America through mainly
Speaker 1: Jim Lee who had Chris Montez, but then Bob Crew
Speaker 1: and my knowledge of Phil Specter, we signed them for
Speaker 1: the management and the records. Okay for those people who
Speaker 1: don't know, And this is becomes very important, especially in
Speaker 1: the history of the Rolling Stones. It was licensed to
Speaker 1: the label. You owned the records. Anybody else in the
Speaker 1: UK have that deal at that time they did, so
Speaker 1: it was not incredibly uncommon. No, but because it was
Speaker 1: incredibly uncommon, but because I was younger than all the rest,
Speaker 1: it would get noticed. All the rest. You had a
Speaker 1: pecking order of Joe Meek, who did tell star Um
Speaker 1: who you could call, and he cut acts for Robert
Speaker 1: Stigwood like John Layton and things like that. They did it,
Speaker 1: but they had actually learned it from a guy called
Speaker 1: Dennis Preston who had He'll be in that book Landsdown Studios,
Speaker 1: who did Chris Barber. Therefore Lonnie Donegan. They were all
Speaker 1: independent records. So once again you became a student of
Speaker 1: the business. How did you know this? When I would
Speaker 1: be doing pr for anybody from like Johnny Tillottson or
Speaker 1: Brian Highland or ah Sam Cook and little Richard. I
Speaker 1: wanted to meet the managers man because they would travel
Speaker 1: with the acts and you just you know, I mean
Speaker 1: America was it for me from Saul Bass? The posters
Speaker 1: for those awful out of Parmeger films. The posters were
Speaker 1: better than the films. And you know, I mean anything
Speaker 1: ammunition and the knowledge that comes in all the instinct
Speaker 1: that gets developed by studying these things. You don't don't
Speaker 1: actually have to look at a book and read it
Speaker 1: and get what's in the book. You just have to
Speaker 1: hold it and well, this is very well articulated. This
Speaker 1: is what people don't understand. They go to music schools,
Speaker 1: they think they can learn it. It's more about your sensibility.
Speaker 1: Match with a passion and eyes wide open, you can
Speaker 1: feel something. Especially all the greats in the music business
Speaker 1: are not educated people. There are people who operate on field.
Speaker 1: So in any event, you make a deal with the stones,
Speaker 1: and how long is that deal is supposed to run? Oh,
Speaker 1: three or five years? Three to three? You have a
Speaker 1: lawyer who are or Easton just takes out the usual
Speaker 1: piece of and they say they're in okay, and you
Speaker 1: say you're gonna make them and what is the next step.
Speaker 1: The next step is the pub called the weather be Arms.
Speaker 1: They used to rehearse. And I just said to me, listen,
Speaker 1: pick out five things that you think of the most commercial.
Speaker 1: Plays them to me, and then we'll pick three and
Speaker 1: we'll go and record them. And so there was Come On,
Speaker 1: which was a Chuck Berry b side Willie Dixon thing
Speaker 1: I want to be Loved. I can't remember the third thing.
Speaker 1: And so we went to Olympic Studios, which at that
Speaker 1: time was near Marble Arch and it was a four
Speaker 1: track studio with whose money? Eric's, yeah, you don't have
Speaker 1: any I don't have any money, Dar, And if I
Speaker 1: did it, I'd be wearing it. But let's be clear.
Speaker 1: You were the producer, for want of a better word, Okay, Well,
Speaker 1: what would you consider your role to be at those No,
Speaker 1: I do concern I am the only one if they
Speaker 1: had gone through the system. Where As you know from
Speaker 1: the pictures you've seen from Abbey Row, you everybody gets
Speaker 1: what they deserved. The Beatles got what they should have
Speaker 1: In other words, they've got a very competent George Martin,
Speaker 1: who had a musical experience as well. The engineer, Norman
Speaker 1: Smith knew about another kind of music, so all those
Speaker 1: elements could come into the Beatles when they needed it.
Speaker 1: What we had to get away from was the fact
Speaker 1: that acts before us, the English rockers and things like that,
Speaker 1: you'd have a three hour session. They wouldn't even let
Speaker 1: him listen back to what they've done. You know. It
Speaker 1: was just run like a shop steward, like a union
Speaker 1: thing um. And the engineer was a guy called Roger Savage.
Speaker 1: They give me the kid an olympic um. We had
Speaker 1: the forty quid three hours, three hours are up at
Speaker 1: five to six, and I got no more money. Right?
Speaker 1: Recordings weren't that good? Right? I mean, but they weren't.
Speaker 1: They were less terrified with me than they would have
Speaker 1: been with a guy who might have been seven years older,
Speaker 1: who would have felt like fifty years old. Did you
Speaker 1: give them any direction? No? Interestingly, when I eventually listened
Speaker 1: to the chuck Berry record, the vocals a spot, I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, I mean they you think, almost think that
Speaker 1: Mick was on the chuck Berry record sing in the
Speaker 1: backup right five six. I went, all right, that's it.
Speaker 1: Engineers says, well, we got to mix it, and I said,
Speaker 1: what's that And he explained to me about the four
Speaker 1: channels or the four tracks it was on. And my
Speaker 1: attitude was if I'm not here, I don't have to
Speaker 1: pay for it. So I said, you do it. I'll
Speaker 1: come back in the morning. Um the and that was
Speaker 1: the first single. Then then Decker tried to fund me. Okay, well, well,
Speaker 1: well a little bit slower. So you cut these three
Speaker 1: tracks and then how does it become a single? What's
Speaker 1: the deal? Okay, we had gone to Decca because they
Speaker 1: turned down the Beatles and actually fact one of the
Speaker 1: A and R men, as you know, picked brian Pool
Speaker 1: and the Trammelas because it was nearer. It was Daggingham,
Speaker 1: it was it was nearer than the Beatles being in Liverpool.
Speaker 1: But anyway, Dick Roe was a very bright man, the
Speaker 1: R man. There was no no He just said, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'll take it right on the least deal. But they tried,
Speaker 1: as you know what I mean, for the sake of
Speaker 1: your viewers. The least deal is you know, you're got
Speaker 1: to get ten points or eight points to play with
Speaker 1: us opposed to three or four or two or three,
Speaker 1: and but he wanted to try and get them signed
Speaker 1: as a direct act, so he said, yeah, yeah, but
Speaker 1: the recording is not that good. We want to let
Speaker 1: one of our producers have a crank at it. And
Speaker 1: they picked a guy who they were giving the gold
Speaker 1: Watch two because he delivered a couple of pop things
Speaker 1: to them from sixty two. Guy called Michael Barkley, who
Speaker 1: done Eden Kane, and oh god, I was at I'm going,
Speaker 1: I mean you. I couldn't turn around to the Stones
Speaker 1: and say play badly. But my version was marginally better
Speaker 1: enough that they then accepted the least deal and we
Speaker 1: were off to the races. In the first track, does
Speaker 1: how well? In the marketplace, it would have only gone
Speaker 1: to thirty eight, But I bought it from thirty eight
Speaker 1: to eighteen because you had forty five shops. It wasn't
Speaker 1: as company. It wasn't a simple and complicated as American Paola.
Speaker 1: You had forty five. You didn't you weren't greasing DJs.
Speaker 1: You had forty five shops that reported to the four
Speaker 1: musical newspapers, and all you had to do was go
Speaker 1: in and buy three to five singles at five shillings
Speaker 1: and sevenpence each um in those shops on a Friday
Speaker 1: or Saturday. You know, it's basically the trick is making
Speaker 1: the record company fall in love with you once when
Speaker 1: you signed with them, and twice when they shipped the record,
Speaker 1: and so the factories would go wow. We sold three
Speaker 1: records in Wellingborough, we sold three records in nor Willing
Speaker 1: Garden City and the Rolling the Rolling Stones fans, the
Speaker 1: small volume that they were at the time, were still
Speaker 1: so devoted that they knew we didn't have the money
Speaker 1: anyway to beat. They don't worry about and we'll send
Speaker 1: you a postluder, No, don't worry about it. We'll buy
Speaker 1: the records and so um a record. It goingly got
Speaker 1: to eighteen for one week. But that was the first dent.
Speaker 1: That was the beginning and DECA was happy, yeah, and
Speaker 1: so then what what happens after that? Then we have
Speaker 1: to find a follow up, And the R and B
Speaker 1: basket of potential songs is getting smaller as people like
Speaker 1: the Searchers are doing sweets for My Sweet or the
Speaker 1: B side of the or once thing, which was amazing,
Speaker 1: you know, I mean in where you're finding your songs,
Speaker 1: Don't throw your Love Away. It was a b side
Speaker 1: by the or once and we had nothing to record,
Speaker 1: and one song that I suggested to them, which they
Speaker 1: never got to actually working on, was the James Ray
Speaker 1: thing if you've got to make a fool of somebody,
Speaker 1: but somebody said no. Andrew Freddie and the Dreamers did
Speaker 1: that last week, so that was gone and it was
Speaker 1: getting and we were at a rehearsal studio in Great
Speaker 1: Newport Street off Leicester Square, and I just kind of think,
Speaker 1: if you're not contributing to the energy of the room,
Speaker 1: leave and go to the bathroom and you're gonna cup
Speaker 1: of tea, do something like that. So I leave, I
Speaker 1: turn right as opposed to left, and I end up
Speaker 1: outside Leicester Square Tube station and getting out of a
Speaker 1: cab is John and Paul, John Lennon and Paul McCartney,
Speaker 1: and as they knew me slightly from the months that
Speaker 1: we've been together, it was what's wrong, Andy, And I said,
Speaker 1: I haven't got a fucking song too record. With the
Speaker 1: Rolling Stones, Oh no problem. They were great hustlers and
Speaker 1: in those early, very early days, let's go backstop for
Speaker 1: a second. With the Beatles, have made it without Brian Epstein. No,
Speaker 1: I mean, look at the pattern. What will they be?
Speaker 1: They were backing Johnny Gentle for the guy called Larry
Speaker 1: Pans who was the gay Colonel Tom Parker, with Billy Fury,
Speaker 1: Marty Wild, Joe Brown and all these acts. How would
Speaker 1: they've made it? If? I mean, what would if Ed
Speaker 1: Sullivan hadn't been on holiday in Europe? Would he have
Speaker 1: known what anybody was talking about when he was offered
Speaker 1: the Beatles for the Ed Sullivan Show. But he had
Speaker 1: experienced it because on a holiday with his wife, they'd
Speaker 1: stopped in an airport and what is this pandemonium? Oh
Speaker 1: it's a group called the Beatles who are playing there.
Speaker 1: So these things are all destiny, right, So in anything
Speaker 1: you're saying they're greed hustlers, Yeah, but hustlers for what
Speaker 1: it's like as we were still getting out of the
Speaker 1: trap that had been set for us by losing or
Speaker 1: winning World War two. The future if you're not if
Speaker 1: you weren't part of the elite anyway, right, um, you're
Speaker 1: any day you stay you know, Oh this is still
Speaker 1: working and it was right in America changed it. But
Speaker 1: to see then, because of our we all idolized America.
Speaker 1: And you know, I could sit and look at a
Speaker 1: forty five record and the credits or the nat ntoff
Speaker 1: notes for Dylan or whatever, and just this could this
Speaker 1: would just go on forever. You know, it would just
Speaker 1: inspire you. So they hustled to see their names on
Speaker 1: records as writers of records. That wouldn't They weren't necessarily
Speaker 1: going to pay the rent. That was not the point.
Speaker 1: I mean, as you know and have said often, if
Speaker 1: you come in into this for the money, right, that's
Speaker 1: not quite enough. If you turn out to be good
Speaker 1: at money, God bless you, right. And so they come down.
Speaker 1: I the moment I heard Brian Jones play the Bottleneck
Speaker 1: on this, I want to be a man. I just
Speaker 1: fucking died when we got to hit right, Okay, A
Speaker 1: little bit slo You run into them at the Lusts.
Speaker 1: So they're getting out of a cab. They have just
Speaker 1: won their first song writing so they're clairvoyantly tipsy, okay,
Speaker 1: and they literally come straight to the straight to the studio,
Speaker 1: not oh I'll be there and tomorrow, No, no, then,
Speaker 1: and then they got a Nivea Novello Award, which is yours.
Speaker 1: They demonstrate the song and they pretend that, ah, they're
Speaker 1: finishing it in front of us. Ringo had recorded it
Speaker 1: ten days before, right, um, and I, oh, lordy, you know,
Speaker 1: I mean it was the next apparition after having heard
Speaker 1: them for the first time. So I didn't even bother
Speaker 1: to produce the record. I led Eric, I went to Paris.
Speaker 1: This is my second nervous breakdown because I wanted a
Speaker 1: pair of forty five pound butter leather boots from Pierre Cardin.
Speaker 1: That would solve my problem. I had had. You see,
Speaker 1: when I worked from Mary quant I had had a
Speaker 1: photographer who was about fifteen years older than me. When
Speaker 1: I was seventeen at Mary quants say you know, Andrew,
Speaker 1: you're an acoholic, right, And I said, Terry, I don't
Speaker 1: even don't know them. The photographer, I said, I don't
Speaker 1: even drink. He said no, but you've got the isms. Okay, um,
Speaker 1: and forty five pound boots are part of the isms. Okay,
Speaker 1: but you disappear just when the record is being made. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's gonna be no problem, man, you know, I mean,
Speaker 1: Eric could heard Feliciano could have done it. Oh, he
Speaker 1: could have done he could have done Feliciano could have
Speaker 1: done the video. It was that much of a breeze.
Speaker 1: I mean I heard it in the rehearsal room, um,
Speaker 1: and it was just magic. And how long did you
Speaker 1: go to France for four days? Okay, so you come
Speaker 1: back ready to work, ready to work, and Decca, here's
Speaker 1: the tracks. Excited they put it out and what Decca.
Speaker 1: The same way as when they tried to shaft me
Speaker 1: out of the licensing deal, they would have meetings at
Speaker 1: ten thirty every Tuesday morning where they would decide what
Speaker 1: they were taking, what they were putting out. So even
Speaker 1: it's still you couldn't call something I got a hit. No,
Speaker 1: you would submit it and it would go into the
Speaker 1: Tuesday morning A and R meeting and then they would
Speaker 1: call you back. It was all very corporate. I didn't
Speaker 1: see record untill I saw the boot of Sonny Bono's
Speaker 1: car or Red or Buddha. Those people not put it
Speaker 1: the ones with Comma Sutra. But and then they would
Speaker 1: say we're releasing it on November. It was all very
Speaker 1: but just because this is interesting, how long afterwards cut
Speaker 1: did it come out? See cut in um August six
Speaker 1: weeks so it comes out you buy a hit? Or
Speaker 1: is it an immediate hit. Um, we buy it. It
Speaker 1: goes to number ten. You're on the way from eighteen
Speaker 1: to ten. That's right, Yes, indeed, Hi everyone, this is
Speaker 1: Bob Lefts. If you stumbled upon this podcast on iTunes
Speaker 1: or tune in, you may be wondering who is this guy. Well,
Speaker 1: my story of the story of my blog, The left
Speaker 1: Sets Letter, was told in episode one. Please check it out.
Speaker 1: If you like what you hear, subscribe to the podcast
Speaker 1: today and you'll hear my interviews with songwriters, performers, music
Speaker 1: industry and tech executives. First, also, I'm over the feedback.
Speaker 1: What do you like? What do you het? Email me
Speaker 1: at Bob at left sets dot com. And now more
Speaker 1: with Andrew lou Goldham. Now, in today's business, it's all
Speaker 1: about the live business. So as a result of selling
Speaker 1: those records, does that increase the gigs? Does that change nothing?
Speaker 1: It's all about the record back then, it's all about
Speaker 1: Remember we have only ten twelve years out of where
Speaker 1: the big sales thing of them is still sheet music. Wow, yeah,
Speaker 1: I got you right. I mean, you know we're only
Speaker 1: fifteen years from the Moses with a piano on the back.
Speaker 1: Not I was raised, but where some of our other friends,
Speaker 1: whether Who the Who and people like that, where the
Speaker 1: guys would go down the street with an upright piano
Speaker 1: on the back of the truck and be selling sheet
Speaker 1: music because the family entertainment we hadn't reached the time.
Speaker 1: What we were reaching the time of the home entertainment
Speaker 1: with the record player with that dropped the records and
Speaker 1: was like a piece of furniture exactly living room of consol.
Speaker 1: But that was only middle class people who could afford those. Um.
Speaker 1: Poor people were still the pubs, the pianos and let's
Speaker 1: get drunk singing this. So but in answer to the
Speaker 1: sheet music was the one way to increase your gig
Speaker 1: money in that as as you know in England, there
Speaker 1: was an American hit like Unchained Melody, there would be
Speaker 1: the American L. L. Hibbler version, then there will be
Speaker 1: probably two English cover versions. And it's the one who
Speaker 1: got on the sheet music who could probably get five
Speaker 1: pounds more for a gig. Okay, okay, So I want
Speaker 1: to be your man is out It has a level
Speaker 1: of success. Yes, do you know where you're going from there?
Speaker 1: No idea? So what do you end up doing? I
Speaker 1: by then, by that time um sharing rooms with the
Speaker 1: Mecan Keith and living with them, and um he Keith
Speaker 1: one day, Oh, now I know we need songs, right,
Speaker 1: so you know you have to write. And my attitude was, well,
Speaker 1: if Mick Jagger can write postcards to his girlfriend and
Speaker 1: his mother when they're doing the book because they burned
Speaker 1: out to playing ballrooms as opposed to just R and
Speaker 1: B clubs and ballrooms are on your way to being
Speaker 1: booked on a cinema tour. And the first cinema tour
Speaker 1: that they actually did was in October November as I
Speaker 1: want to be a man went up the charts for
Speaker 1: Don Arden, for Sharon's father, with the Evely Brothers, Bo
Speaker 1: Diddley and bottom of a Bill with the Rolling Sterns,
Speaker 1: Mackey Most And how was reception on that tour? It was,
Speaker 1: Keith says it was university. I didn't. I didn't. I
Speaker 1: didn't go to the places where I knew they wouldn't
Speaker 1: do well. Yeah, um, you don't need to see that, Okay,
Speaker 1: they can learn their jobs exactly. And you know you're
Speaker 1: on the road with Boa Didley, with the Jerome and
Speaker 1: the Duchess, the Evely brothers who have basically got the
Speaker 1: semblance of the crickets back in them. And that's almost
Speaker 1: the first time we've ever heard somebody about to duplicate
Speaker 1: the records on stage. So it's it is university and
Speaker 1: it um in in the place that we were living
Speaker 1: in Wilston Um. I would tell them I've got to
Speaker 1: write a song. And now, of course the constitute of
Speaker 1: time goes. I locked him up. I didn't lock him up.
Speaker 1: I just would take gather my laundry and go. I
Speaker 1: was going to walk back to my mother's house. Was
Speaker 1: still doing my elning right, you know, And then I
Speaker 1: would slam the front door and pretend I've left, and
Speaker 1: I would creep back up the stairs at thirty three
Speaker 1: makes free road to see if they were actually writing.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, and they were all it was awful, you know,
Speaker 1: because the first stuff you write is suppy. It's always awful.
Speaker 1: And so what is the first thing they write that
Speaker 1: you decide is worthy of recording, Well, it's something they
Speaker 1: didn't write. I'm such a believer that when I heard
Speaker 1: Keith just with the acoustic doing what was the B
Speaker 1: side again? Not fade away to me? Written it? Okay,
Speaker 1: then how does it tell me? Come about around the
Speaker 1: same time, and you've got this wonderful process of where
Speaker 1: as they start to write, it's also got to pass
Speaker 1: muster with the rest of the band, even when we'd
Speaker 1: already got to hear to l a like with some
Speaker 1: of the songs like I'm Free or the singer not
Speaker 1: the song when they run it down in front of
Speaker 1: the other three stones, you don't know what I'm just
Speaker 1: gonna say. Oh fuck, you know you don't think we're
Speaker 1: gonna play that piece of ship, do you? But you know?
Speaker 1: But staying with tell me for a second, that was
Speaker 1: the song that closed me, not fatal great, right? I
Speaker 1: remember them being on some New York TV show. Yes,
Speaker 1: that's exactly before uh with Bill Wyman. You know with
Speaker 1: the guitar they based almost vertical, etcetera. So you know
Speaker 1: why he did that. So he could stand on stage
Speaker 1: as he wasn't moving, call out his room numbers, mouths
Speaker 1: his room number. I'm just done for those people don't know.
Speaker 1: He has almost a photographic memory and supposedly has had it,
Speaker 1: slept with more women than Mick and Keith could even dream.
Speaker 1: And what do you think his magic was? You know,
Speaker 1: it didn't affect me, So the other thing we would
Speaker 1: we were miss assistance. That's why question. You know, there's
Speaker 1: certain people you ask enough times, you know the door opens.
Speaker 1: You did take Ian Stewart, Austine, can you walk us
Speaker 1: through what your flaw process was there? That? How do
Speaker 1: you know any of the Hurricanes apart from Johnny? Okay?
Speaker 1: Um four with the Beatles and the Shadows, because then
Speaker 1: the prototype of all this is the cliff Ridges back
Speaker 1: in group in terms of electric bass, in terms of
Speaker 1: the lead guitar, Hank B. Marvin, that's the benchmark cliff
Speaker 1: Ridge and the Shadows, the Shadows. Okay, therefore why were
Speaker 1: the Beatles in suits? Because the Shadows were the example.
Speaker 1: I didn't believe the public could count to five, but
Speaker 1: you already had five. Six thinks that thank you correcting me? Yes,
Speaker 1: six was now putting you in Johnny in the Hurricanes territory.
Speaker 1: And apart from that, he looked like William Bendicks or
Speaker 1: Neville Brand, which was not acceptable. Ironically, you know, twenty
Speaker 1: years later if you put a picture of ste and
Speaker 1: Morrissey up, it's the same thing. But when you tell
Speaker 1: the band this, what do they say, Well, you've got
Speaker 1: this wonderful thing with time that I can now say.
Speaker 1: I mean, for example, when I want to be your
Speaker 1: Man came out, there was no oh, this group was
Speaker 1: against the beat or so you know, I think there
Speaker 1: was none of that. That's part of Keith's rotation of
Speaker 1: Andrew knew that you know, we were going to be
Speaker 1: the opposite of the beat. Was no, I didn't look
Speaker 1: at this way. Can you imagine if I was having
Speaker 1: to talk to the Rolling Stones and I said, your
Speaker 1: greatest ability is that you unlike another group? I mean,
Speaker 1: what is that saying? That's a negative? Exactly? And within Stewart,
Speaker 1: all I can say is the Stones didn't stop me
Speaker 1: because they were that hungry for success. That's their identity.
Speaker 1: Um I think the real hunger came after America, but
Speaker 1: probably as a result of Alan Klein. But we can
Speaker 1: get to that. Um it. I don't know, you know,
Speaker 1: it's like, remember, kids are cruel. It's Lord of the flies,
Speaker 1: and so I don't even think you're gonna apply Were
Speaker 1: they that ambitious or were they you know that It's
Speaker 1: just you don't think when you're that age that I
Speaker 1: could be like, you know, destroying somebody that you weren't.
Speaker 1: Because they needed the van which he drove, which he drove,
Speaker 1: and Brian was the only one who's the idiot of
Speaker 1: the day when he's you know, don't worry, Stu will
Speaker 1: take care of you for the rest of your life.
Speaker 1: You'll be an equal partner with us, was he No,
Speaker 1: of course no, of course not. But but he lasted
Speaker 1: longer than me. I mean I did have a moment
Speaker 1: in the eighties because his wife used to work for me,
Speaker 1: and I was staying at their house and I'm in
Speaker 1: the house by myself and he comes in after having
Speaker 1: played golf with Glynn Jones, and I thought, well, if
Speaker 1: there's ever going to be a moment, this is it.
Speaker 1: But he knew how it had worked. He played piano
Speaker 1: on the you know it was he played all the
Speaker 1: blues pianos. He had the van that he had a
Speaker 1: wonderful run in the eighties tour when it was him
Speaker 1: and he and McLagan as the things. And he also
Speaker 1: was one of the few people who picked satisfaction. Okay,
Speaker 1: let's not jump too far ahead, so not fate away
Speaker 1: comes out? How far does that go on the chart?
Speaker 1: Number four? Number four? And then okay, now we're over,
Speaker 1: now we're over buying. We don't have to buy it
Speaker 1: up the charts anymore. We also in the interim and
Speaker 1: had an EP, which is do you want to explain
Speaker 1: to them? Shall I think today they know what an
Speaker 1: EP is because EPs are down coming. Then an EP.
Speaker 1: There's only two acts in the world that had five
Speaker 1: songs instead of four on an EP, and it's US
Speaker 1: and Elvis Um Jail House Rock was and we um
Speaker 1: d P. We did a version of you Better Move
Speaker 1: On the Arthur Alexander thing and that went between um,
Speaker 1: in between yeah, or we'll tell me's on the album,
Speaker 1: right um. So it's either after Not Fade Away or
Speaker 1: before Not Fade Away, probably after I think it's like
Speaker 1: April six that went to number eleven and the sixth
Speaker 1: in the singles charts, so they're paying a level double
Speaker 1: the price and it still goes to number eleven. And
Speaker 1: you better move on with Killer I mean him on
Speaker 1: a TV show with the French sweater and that to
Speaker 1: die for, right um. And next I'm in a panic.
Speaker 1: I don't know what to do except I decide maybe
Speaker 1: I can hold it back. That's while I've got to
Speaker 1: give yourself thinking time. So I decided to release Little
Speaker 1: Red Rooster I figured that will hold it, you know,
Speaker 1: I mean after you know what what we doing next,
Speaker 1: slow it down, have a difficult record. It was too late.
Speaker 1: There were a hundred orders of a hundred eighty thousand,
Speaker 1: and it went straight to number one the first week.
Speaker 1: Little Red Rooster flies right up the charts, contrary to
Speaker 1: your expectation, and you're panicking again. No, got used to it. Okay,
Speaker 1: exposure therapy. So what was the move after a Little
Speaker 1: Red Rooster? Uh? Where? Now starting to deal with America? Now?
Speaker 1: Are you pushing to get in the door. Are they
Speaker 1: clamoring to have you come? No, nobody's clamoring at all.
Speaker 1: I mean we were worse than the sex pistols, you know.
Speaker 1: I mean you had a core following, most of whom
Speaker 1: are following you because nobody else is well articulated. And
Speaker 1: in some instances the promoters didn't show. I mean, we're
Speaker 1: playing in Sacramento. The prom that doesn't show. I don't
Speaker 1: know whether they went off with the money. We played
Speaker 1: about ten dates in Texas. We're playing with Bobby V
Speaker 1: and Diane Renee and some performing seals at a state fair.
Speaker 1: When you see that the promoter doesn't sure, I mean
Speaker 1: you get to the gig and there's nobody there, well
Speaker 1: that the actual promoter, your local Bill Graham has decided
Speaker 1: it's not to turn up. So we left in the
Speaker 1: hands of assistance or what a lot of the gigs
Speaker 1: I mean we did okay in say Chicago, or okay
Speaker 1: with said Bernstein in New York. But once you got
Speaker 1: to the b places, nobody knew, nobody cared, nobody showed up,
Speaker 1: including the promoter. So there was no infrastructure today. And
Speaker 1: how do you get the television gigs through? We were
Speaker 1: with g c M. That's an agency's an agency and
Speaker 1: they so we would do Clay Cole. I'd rather done
Speaker 1: Joe Pine. You know, I don't think what's my audiences,
Speaker 1: Joel Pie? But keep going well okay? Um? And because
Speaker 1: of I had done PR, made a point of doing
Speaker 1: PR for Phil Specter in around the time of Not
Speaker 1: Fade Away. So that's like he came to England like
Speaker 1: February of sixty four, right and went back on the
Speaker 1: plane with the Beatles. He arrived on the plane with
Speaker 1: them in jfk or than Kennedy idle world what it
Speaker 1: was right right? And um he was at the Not
Speaker 1: Fade Away session he was your note, did he weigh in?
Speaker 1: He played the miracles? And did he tell you how
Speaker 1: to record it? No? I mean it's a mono. Studios
Speaker 1: have to ask interacting with Phil at that time it
Speaker 1: was a pleasure. It was a pleasure. Is this This
Speaker 1: is the defining time for Phil Specter's life? Is the
Speaker 1: article that Tom Wolfe wrote about And he then decided
Speaker 1: that's who he was, and that was the beginning of
Speaker 1: everything else. I don't really think River Deep, Mountain High
Speaker 1: not going to you know, he's he was already nuts,
Speaker 1: you know. I mean it went to number one in England.
Speaker 1: You grab what you can so and he went to
Speaker 1: number ninety in America. Fuck it, Um, he was just
Speaker 1: a pleasure. He had a gleam in his eye that
Speaker 1: I didn't see again until the last prison picture in
Speaker 1: that whatever the medication he's on now it's working. And
Speaker 1: there was a picture out of him. Remember we weren't there,
Speaker 1: you mean, in his so called castle. We weren't there
Speaker 1: when it happened. And you're saying, you're implying what I'm
Speaker 1: implying that the same as armad Urgin. As a certain age,
Speaker 1: you stopped going out and you can all right, Well,
Speaker 1: when you go out at that age, what you're going
Speaker 1: to end up with is troubled to start with. Well
Speaker 1: armed still went out to a good degree. Okay, yes,
Speaker 1: he certainly did went and he shouldn't have gone down
Speaker 1: those final steps at the Beacon and into a room
Speaker 1: with Keith. Well, okay, we can rewrite history. I mean,
Speaker 1: we could try to change history, but let's go on.
Speaker 1: That's what I meant. I'm trying to say myself. No, no,
Speaker 1: that that's not that I misspoke. What I mean is,
Speaker 1: you know, it would be great if he didn't go
Speaker 1: down those stairs, but he did. He did. Is my point,
Speaker 1: Not that I'm saying that the facts are not correct.
Speaker 1: What I'm saying though, Okay, Okay, he was giving um
Speaker 1: he hadn't closed up. Now, when the stones are on
Speaker 1: tour in America, is that also when they go into
Speaker 1: chess studios? James was not fight away too? Really, yeah,
Speaker 1: I called James j Pittney was in Paris. We had
Speaker 1: done we making Keith wrote the follow up to twenty
Speaker 1: four US to tell Usa, which was only really a hit,
Speaker 1: only went to fifty six here in England. It went
Speaker 1: just went top ten. So that was their first top
Speaker 1: ten song as writers. Then came Mary and Faithful and
Speaker 1: Pittney was in Paris and the Not Fadeaway session was
Speaker 1: going very, very badly. Because when you've heard something in
Speaker 1: a room, like in the room that I lived with Keith,
Speaker 1: when you've heard a song someone play your room, play
Speaker 1: play to you in a room and you hear the
Speaker 1: whole thing. Now you've got to go and get it right, um.
Speaker 1: And it was not going well. And in this time,
Speaker 1: this time, for once, an audience helped get it to
Speaker 1: the point. Normally, an audience in the studio fucking kills
Speaker 1: it right. So you got Pittney come in with Brandy
Speaker 1: Prospect to come in in a red corduroy coat and
Speaker 1: he played the maracas. Two of the Hollies were there,
Speaker 1: and Peter Meaden, who, as you know for five minutes,
Speaker 1: was the first manager of the Who before Cat Lamber
Speaker 1: and Christa. So there was a cheerleading section in this
Speaker 1: little room that's about the size. So it's room sound
Speaker 1: that makes the record. How long did it like? Tell
Speaker 1: Me Free you Love tell Me? The reason the guitar
Speaker 1: sounds so great is because he's leaking into Charlie's bass. Drum.
Speaker 1: How long did it take you to get in our
Speaker 1: feet away? Two else? Which is a long time? Right,
Speaker 1: And there was so relieved that making seriously, Mick and
Speaker 1: Specter go outside and sit on the staircase and they
Speaker 1: come up with a little by little. So you tour America,
Speaker 1: you mentioned satisfaction. How do satisfaction come to be? He
Speaker 1: wrote it? Actually, Keith wrote it in the Scientology building
Speaker 1: in clear Water. Now the rumor is that he woke
Speaker 1: up in the middle of the night and sung it
Speaker 1: into his tape recorders. He did, that is true. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And the scientologists supposedly had the room, the whole floor
Speaker 1: exercised too, to get rid of that whatever, so that
Speaker 1: we never had another satisfaction. So but the one amazing
Speaker 1: thing about Satisfaction is brilliant as that record is with
Speaker 1: the iconic sound. He cannot play it live. And I
Speaker 1: will tell you why. Okay, to start with, we'd attempted. Okay,
Speaker 1: at the end of the first tour. The first tour
Speaker 1: was basically so fucking disastrous, right because we'd ended up
Speaker 1: in Texas. You know you don't we're ending on a
Speaker 1: bummer with bby V and the Seals, right, um, and
Speaker 1: I called Phil and I mean, I don't know why
Speaker 1: I didn't do it myself, but I asked him to
Speaker 1: do it. Get us into Chess studios because I need
Speaker 1: them going back to England with a smile on their faces.
Speaker 1: Can't have this. It was all your idea. And we
Speaker 1: go into Chess and they do thirteen things in two days,
Speaker 1: including it's all over now. Because Murray the k had
Speaker 1: at a party of Bob Cruz had put the Valentino's
Speaker 1: record in my hand and said, Andy, if you cut
Speaker 1: with the boys, because he was the sixth Stone as
Speaker 1: well as the fifth beatle Um, you'll have a hit.
Speaker 1: And he was right right, and thirteen other things in
Speaker 1: case of the Highway, all those kind of things. And
Speaker 1: we did try satisfaction. Oh really, yeah, don't ask me
Speaker 1: where the tapes are. Abco don't have them, The Stones
Speaker 1: don't have them. They're gone, right um. And it sounds
Speaker 1: like to me it sounded like the rooftop Singers, which
Speaker 1: of course is not satisfaction. But it's got that thing.
Speaker 1: So we get to l a but and very this
Speaker 1: is the only time that in my history, in my
Speaker 1: time with them, that we tried to cut something again.
Speaker 1: There was no nothing else. Everything else was done, done,
Speaker 1: no more, you know, no returning to anything. And Jack
Speaker 1: Nisim whom we knew through Sonny Bernard, how did you
Speaker 1: know Sonny Berna through Phil Specter and Aspector sent Sonny
Speaker 1: Bono to meet us at the airport. Okay, it's wonderful
Speaker 1: the car the first time we saw records, the Caesar
Speaker 1: and clear records in the trunk. You didn't see records
Speaker 1: in England, right, What do you mean you didn't see records. Well,
Speaker 1: you know they could have been a Decca if you
Speaker 1: went had to go to Decca. You never saw the factory.
Speaker 1: You know, they could have been doing baked beans, right, Um,
Speaker 1: and uh, we're in the middle. You know, most songs
Speaker 1: got twenty minutes, forty minutes to take the shape they
Speaker 1: were going to take. And Jack Nichi, well I communicated
Speaker 1: with you about this. Um took Keith down on one
Speaker 1: of the shops on sunset because we're recording it on
Speaker 1: sunset neither and he comes back to the first box
Speaker 1: just in time. Serendipitous. Yeah, and as you as you know,
Speaker 1: this was not New sixty two sixty three Hodges and
Speaker 1: Frankie Lane with Jack when jack NISI mean doing arrangements
Speaker 1: and either they couldn't afford the horn section or whatever.
Speaker 1: He comes to fuss right, sounding more like muted trumbones
Speaker 1: and things, and Keate, of course, since then has gone own. Man.
Speaker 1: You know, like the record wasn't finished. I was going
Speaker 1: to do horns with what Keith. We weren't even meant
Speaker 1: to be recording in America, let alone bringing union horn
Speaker 1: sections in. Okay, So he comes back with the fuzz
Speaker 1: box and plugging, and the record just comes together that
Speaker 1: it gets made. Okay, But to your point of why
Speaker 1: it's not good live, it's a difficult song to sing.
Speaker 1: And so what I did was with Brian and Keith
Speaker 1: put in a huge bed of acoustics that gave the
Speaker 1: voice somewhere to land that once it had landed, I
Speaker 1: then took them down from ten volume down to three. Wow.
Speaker 1: I mean so he in other words, is you know
Speaker 1: he's singing the verses like a ballad. I can't do
Speaker 1: that on stage because there's no there's no acoustic guitars
Speaker 1: underlining it. Okay, you cut satisfaction, do you immediately know
Speaker 1: you have a worldwide yes? And how long until it
Speaker 1: comes out? It comes out in America first, which was
Speaker 1: slightly offensive at the time to England, but it did. Um,
Speaker 1: you just knew. I mean, it's like, but that's what
Speaker 1: I tell people. People say, you know that when you
Speaker 1: achieve excellence, you know there's a smile on your face.
Speaker 1: That's it. Well, because it's actually having the appeal to
Speaker 1: you that a record you've loved that you've had nothing
Speaker 1: to do with, you know what I mean, it's it's
Speaker 1: on that level pretty previously records, whether it's Cathy's Clown
Speaker 1: or whatever it is, or it's records that have changed
Speaker 1: your life, and then suddenly you're in the studio and
Speaker 1: part of whatever has made it. That's it. So the
Speaker 1: record comes out, does it totally change the landscape of
Speaker 1: the band in the business? Yeah? Goes by then we're
Speaker 1: already seven or eight five no winners September August, September,
Speaker 1: already four or five months in with Alan Klein. So
Speaker 1: tell us how you hook up with a um. Alan
Speaker 1: Klein represented Mickey Most in England and you've got Mickey
Speaker 1: Most with uh, he's a millionaire, okay, sir? Right for
Speaker 1: a week at least, and I want I don't want
Speaker 1: to talk to Alan about the Stones. I want to
Speaker 1: talk to about I want about the media. I need
Speaker 1: money for it. Okay, just for those don't know. So
Speaker 1: the Stones are going and you decide to start Immediate
Speaker 1: how Immediate Records? Because I was fed up dealing with
Speaker 1: the record companies. I was probably smoking too much. I
Speaker 1: rather wanted to control my aunt destiny without having to
Speaker 1: leave the office. I didn't want to have to keep
Speaker 1: going and I was basically keep pitching. So you go
Speaker 1: to Alan looking for money, No, I go ask wanting
Speaker 1: to get distribution. That should I start the record company? Obviously,
Speaker 1: in the back of my mind, I had what else
Speaker 1: can we do? But I'm not going to walk in
Speaker 1: and say I need help. But he smelled it. Um.
Speaker 1: He actually thought Eric Easton controlled everything, um because he'd
Speaker 1: done his homework, had been doing his homework already. I
Speaker 1: was saying I need um the same way as he
Speaker 1: placed Mickey Most so well, and they were well, you know,
Speaker 1: he didn't just do a deal for Mickey Most. They
Speaker 1: were placed hermis hermes was on MGM the Animals. He
Speaker 1: was stuck on that one because that had to end
Speaker 1: up on wherever it was originally, and then the other
Speaker 1: one he had three hits at once national teams. Yeah, okay, um,
Speaker 1: and I just wanted help that way. Eventually he started
Speaker 1: pitching me. I said, you better pitch making keys. If
Speaker 1: they say yes, we'll get into bed. And what was
Speaker 1: the goal of getting to bed? What was his sales pitch? Um,
Speaker 1: I don't remember what his sales pitch was. I know
Speaker 1: what I want it and what I wanted is I
Speaker 1: was already in trouble with Eric Euston. The two or
Speaker 1: three years was nearly up with Decca. Eric Easton wanted out.
Speaker 1: He wanted to do a deal where they were going
Speaker 1: to get six hundred thousand dollars of their own money
Speaker 1: and the money that was going to come because as
Speaker 1: you know, we sold records in England by now, in
Speaker 1: a very short period of time, we built up a
Speaker 1: lot of royalties abroad, not America, but in Europe that
Speaker 1: don't have to be paid for another twelve months. So
Speaker 1: we're very famous. But no petrol, right, And um, I
Speaker 1: kind of knew by instinct. I mean, obviously I'm articulating
Speaker 1: it better today, but the street instinct told me if
Speaker 1: I don't get Eric Easton handled, I could be in
Speaker 1: trouble because he had the same way as Allan once
Speaker 1: said to me, you know how I managed to take
Speaker 1: advantage of you, which years later was an incredible sentence
Speaker 1: to say to say, of course, And the real thing
Speaker 1: was that because he was thirteen years older than me.
Speaker 1: Now is that all there is? You know? No, right?
Speaker 1: But and we were And so you've got this wonderful
Speaker 1: destiny of time where we've met Alan. Then we cut satisfaction.
Speaker 1: Then he's got that to run with in terms of
Speaker 1: the advantage factor of him of things that had nothing
Speaker 1: to do with the money that there was nothing to
Speaker 1: do with. Is that London Records was really epistle. It
Speaker 1: was run by an old war buddy of Sir Robert Lewis.
Speaker 1: He was down on st and tenth and they had
Speaker 1: Willie Mitchell. But so what and how do we get
Speaker 1: rise above? When the Beatles wrong? Capital a man for
Speaker 1: man or whatever, you know, they're on a division of
Speaker 1: that or Ascot whatever the label was. And so and
Speaker 1: we're not even down in the boondocks. But it's so
Speaker 1: the energy of Alan and Alan repeating the same tricks
Speaker 1: that we didn't know he'd done with Sam Cook, by
Speaker 1: taking billboards in Times Square and things like that, add
Speaker 1: um erasmutas and flashed to it that we couldn't I
Speaker 1: mean I as you know the first album. One of
Speaker 1: the selling points of the first album was that it
Speaker 1: had no title on it in England because of communication
Speaker 1: and they fucked me. They put England's Newest Hit Makers
Speaker 1: of course, right, so you know um and that. But
Speaker 1: of course the key then was now we need to
Speaker 1: follow up. Okay. So Alan's goal was to get enough
Speaker 1: cash and a better deal so you could squeeze. I
Speaker 1: don't know what his goal was, Okay. He wanted what
Speaker 1: he wanted. I wanted what I wanted. Eric Easton was
Speaker 1: settled five years later. You know, Um, he wanted the stunts.
Speaker 1: You had any idea you were getting in bed of
Speaker 1: the devil. No, you can remember we're only, um, twenty
Speaker 1: years after the war. Americans are still terrific, okay, So
Speaker 1: you get in bed with that. He was American because
Speaker 1: one of the one of the right. The point is,
Speaker 1: Bob that when we got to America and sixty four,
Speaker 1: suddenly we're in a country where we're not in a
Speaker 1: dirty business. I have to digest that. Well, Um, all
Speaker 1: of them included Dick Rowe, who was good because he's
Speaker 1: not the man who turned down the Beatles. To me,
Speaker 1: he's the man who signed the Rolling Stones. But they
Speaker 1: were all hoping we'd go away like that, would go
Speaker 1: back to Manta Varney and Davy Crockett hats and knacking cold,
Speaker 1: just like people robbing to get back to rock from
Speaker 1: hip hop. They were, so let's breathe heavily. Well, did
Speaker 1: it go well with Alan for a while? Okay? And
Speaker 1: then when do you start to realize there out for you? Oh? No,
Speaker 1: it where to start with? There is a point of
Speaker 1: realization where we haven't got what Alan promised, but we
Speaker 1: haven't got the time to do anything about it because well, um,
Speaker 1: we supposedly we're going to continue to own our own records. Um.
Speaker 1: It's the greatest three card Monty trick of all time.
Speaker 1: If you say to somebody that, um, yeah, you're gonna
Speaker 1: own your own masters. It's going into this company and
Speaker 1: it's the same name as your British publishing company. If
Speaker 1: it's got limited stuck on the end of it, you say,
Speaker 1: oh limited, you know that's English. Like we we had
Speaker 1: everything we wanted for three days, and what happened after
Speaker 1: those three days? The Stones were advised by Alan that
Speaker 1: they couldn't own it or even the money without horrendous
Speaker 1: tax consequences, so he would and he'd pay them out
Speaker 1: over the next twenty years. They and you did not understand,
Speaker 1: of course not. This is where do you know how
Speaker 1: I managed to take advantage of you comes in? Although
Speaker 1: I heard from his nephew that you had positive words
Speaker 1: to say about Alan at his funeral. Always, man, if
Speaker 1: you're stuck with somebody for fifty years and responsible for
Speaker 1: them putting the food on your table, he'll kill you
Speaker 1: if you hate them. He was always a very attractive person.
Speaker 1: How does the sun set on your relationship with the Stones? Um?
Speaker 1: Me taking too much drugs? Me? As Keith put in
Speaker 1: his book, while we and Andrew liked the same music
Speaker 1: what and wanted the same goals in other words, singles
Speaker 1: I'm still not into money wars. I'd rather watch Lionel Richie.
Speaker 1: I mean, I want hits. So when it came to
Speaker 1: that stage where suddenly the public taking drugs, which was
Speaker 1: here you've got the underbelly of Vietnam in England, we
Speaker 1: had the unrest that was coming up in Europe. Whether
Speaker 1: suddenly the equivalent on FM market and suddenly you can
Speaker 1: make albums I was making up. I mean one of
Speaker 1: the great things through Between the Buttons Aftermath, and that
Speaker 1: is the Stones are completely seamless. One of the things
Speaker 1: that places them above forget the Beatles, they're in the
Speaker 1: league of their own right, but all the other stuff
Speaker 1: where that's the animals Man from Man is the other
Speaker 1: bands were daiging to be commercial for one cut like
Speaker 1: for Your Love by the others, they were not seamless
Speaker 1: in that we all our stuff EPs or LPs was
Speaker 1: all as good as the singles. So the last album
Speaker 1: you were involved with word Between the Buttons. Many people
Speaker 1: consider that to be the best Stones record. That isn't
Speaker 1: necessarily my opinion, but people people see that as a
Speaker 1: great record in an era that was sixty six right,
Speaker 1: thank Ray Davis for it. Think well, it's it's gotta
Speaker 1: it's it's a strange thing where mcinkeith are right thing
Speaker 1: about England when they're not in England, and it has
Speaker 1: some of that flippancy. Flowers was the last one I
Speaker 1: put together. Um I left in the middle of Satanic
Speaker 1: match just um. Basically I mean the same way as
Speaker 1: I got to the Stones say forty eight hours ahead
Speaker 1: of the rest of the world. I left before I
Speaker 1: was asked to, and I thought, you realize this was
Speaker 1: self indulgent. You thought it was going off the deep end,
Speaker 1: and you said, I'm done. I couldn't. This was the
Speaker 1: first time that we were recording back in England apart
Speaker 1: from overdubs, and that they were arriving in the studio
Speaker 1: and cutting the tracks and then writing the songs on
Speaker 1: top of the tracks. And I couldn't get behind that.
Speaker 1: I wasn't. I do dreams, not money. I didn't sit
Speaker 1: there and think, oh, I better negotiate my way out
Speaker 1: of this. I just was. It was three weeks of hell.
Speaker 1: If you can't contribute, if you want to be a vegetable, okay,
Speaker 1: or you're gonna sit there. So there was no cart
Speaker 1: just this of I want to stay in this but
Speaker 1: from base for my bank account. No. But what was
Speaker 1: the status of immediate at that point was small faces
Speaker 1: were just coming together. That we had one hit with
Speaker 1: hang On Sloopy that we got from Burt Burns. Um.
Speaker 1: We had a very expensive number one that they could
Speaker 1: produce with Chris Farlow about of time. Um. It was
Speaker 1: draining blood, but and so it was getting to the
Speaker 1: end because I couldn't keep financing it with my Stones money,
Speaker 1: because that was coming to an end, or sort of
Speaker 1: coming to an end, you know. I mean We're still here,
Speaker 1: but it and we hadn't got the Small Faces. That
Speaker 1: was very expensive too, because that kind of involved twenty
Speaker 1: five grand of a paper bag for Don Arden to
Speaker 1: find a way out of breaking the deal they had
Speaker 1: with Decca and and the Small Face as well. You know, Um,
Speaker 1: they were great in the studio, but they were not
Speaker 1: a band. They were a group you could never there
Speaker 1: was no reliableity with them on stage. They were children
Speaker 1: always Keith like when he said about Jimi Hendrix, Jimmy's great,
Speaker 1: but the kids he plays with, right? And did you
Speaker 1: put Humble Pie together? Yes? Well, no, I had a choice.
Speaker 1: Steve Mary was had had enough of Ronnie Lane and
Speaker 1: the Small Faces and the other three. Um, he wanted
Speaker 1: Peter Frampton, so he knew Frampton and Frampton as a
Speaker 1: hot guitar, and so we couldn't have gone with whatever
Speaker 1: the Faces were going to become. And humble Pie. Humble
Speaker 1: Pie was definitely an adventure man, you know what I mean?
Speaker 1: You okay, they it became realized after media went down
Speaker 1: with the Anthony and A and M. But I thought,
Speaker 1: here's another great shot. You can't get in the way
Speaker 1: of these people, except when Steve Mary got in the
Speaker 1: way of himself. So what year do you basically close
Speaker 1: up shop op and immediate okay? And then you're thinking,
Speaker 1: what are you so high on drug? Because you don't
Speaker 1: even know what you're thinking. Oh, I know what I'm thinking.
Speaker 1: I have the same now economic problems as the Rolling
Speaker 1: Stones do. And we've all got to leave England and
Speaker 1: they go to France and I go to Connecticut Wilson
Speaker 1: of course, very close to where I grew up, six
Speaker 1: or five Ridge Raild Road. And you continue to produce
Speaker 1: records and make deals, and you do that for about
Speaker 1: another ten years um on that more than I do.
Speaker 1: Had this interesting segue with Rare Earth Records, right produced
Speaker 1: stuff with them because well after they had get ready,
Speaker 1: they thought they're gonna have a white label, and so
Speaker 1: all the old white people who had had the like
Speaker 1: Bob Crew and it was there. I was there, Bobby
Speaker 1: Darren was there all producing stuff for Rare Earth. So
Speaker 1: now fifty years later, with this perspective, what do we
Speaker 1: learn have fun getting it done. I had fun getting done.
Speaker 1: If you you know this is a cliche question, I'll
Speaker 1: ask it anyway, if you had to do it over again,
Speaker 1: would you do anything differently? Absolutely nothing. I mean to me,
Speaker 1: the life is simply that comes out of Uterus and location.
Speaker 1: Where you know who drops you and where they dropped you, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, it's simple. You can't you you're the worst
Speaker 1: thing you can do is think you were responsible and
Speaker 1: in the time you have left. What anything you want
Speaker 1: to say any autumn, Bob, it's an I'm not saying
Speaker 1: it's over, okay, but any goals, any achievements, any dreams
Speaker 1: yet unfulfilled. I'm very lucky that, with all due respect
Speaker 1: to the Stones, once I got over the drug and
Speaker 1: alcoholism thing, every day is just as exciting as any
Speaker 1: day was with them, because life brings you that if
Speaker 1: you fucking embrace it and kiss it. I mean, Pulaski
Speaker 1: could have been the most depressing, depressed guy who I
Speaker 1: mean what he went through, But the thing I learned
Speaker 1: from him was my guard he went through. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, Narny dead at eleven Poland and as you
Speaker 1: couldn't meet a more positive fucker in your life, and
Speaker 1: it's your choice. And so you wake up every day
Speaker 1: and you say, let's see what the world brings me. No,
Speaker 1: let's see what I can take from the world for me.
Speaker 1: If I don't take care of myself, there's absolutely no
Speaker 1: way I can take care of anybody else. And so
Speaker 1: a little bit more concretely, what might you take for yourself?
Speaker 1: I'd be grateful, Um, I would pace myself. I would
Speaker 1: make sure I got enough sleep, and I wouldn't kill
Speaker 1: mysel I'll trying to get anything done because it's going
Speaker 1: to get done, or it's not going to get done.
Speaker 1: You're just watching yourself do it. Do you think that
Speaker 1: the landscape of both culture and politics always maintains the same,
Speaker 1: or are we in a worse position better position? You've
Speaker 1: got the brainwashing of technology that if you actually are
Speaker 1: one of the unemployed or the underemployed or self employed,
Speaker 1: and you got time to watch this crap on television,
Speaker 1: you will notice, like vance packet and the hidden persuade us,
Speaker 1: that you're getting the same loop of information every thirty seconds,
Speaker 1: and you're being brainwashed. It's suppressed into absolutely nothing. For
Speaker 1: those who care to remember, the year we came to America,
Speaker 1: you had Lyndon Johnson, you know, I mean, come on,
Speaker 1: you just haven't got the barrage of it going out.
Speaker 1: But he did his press conference from the bathroom when
Speaker 1: we arrived in America. Uh. One of the many possibilities
Speaker 1: was that he could have killed Kennedy. Yes, I mean
Speaker 1: it was a different arab because we didn't know that much.
Speaker 1: I mean, now we know where everybody is and everybody's
Speaker 1: reachable seven. You know, we didn't know that f DR
Speaker 1: basically could walk. And you know, it's a very interesting time.
Speaker 1: Of course, you know, you live through We've We've lived
Speaker 1: long enough to see a couple of revolutions where music
Speaker 1: drove the culture, then technology drove the culture. And it's
Speaker 1: interesting is these changes occur that people believe that things
Speaker 1: don't change. Music will always survive. It's important. But just
Speaker 1: like you talk about Mary Kwan and Carnabie Street and
Speaker 1: all that other stuff, they have these peaks and then
Speaker 1: the peak becomes something else. It I agree with you,
Speaker 1: but it also has something to do with your age
Speaker 1: and where you're coming from. I made a point in
Speaker 1: April this year last year to go and see Justin
Speaker 1: Bieber in Bogata. I knew he would be great. You cannot.
Speaker 1: I hate to say this because it's gonna come out
Speaker 1: of the time by but Justin Bieber is great. Thank you.
Speaker 1: I mean, II the way I do this and the
Speaker 1: way I uh, you know the recent tracks which you
Speaker 1: are now two years old. I was listening on Spotify.
Speaker 1: I'm hiking in the mountains and I'm just clicking through
Speaker 1: the tracks. I have a little click around my Santahiser
Speaker 1: headphones and also like I go, what is this? And
Speaker 1: I gotta pull out my phone. You know, those happen
Speaker 1: to be great tracks. I mean, it's Justin Bieber. What
Speaker 1: can you say so great? It's like a great movie. Well,
Speaker 1: you see when he was in Colombia, that's where he
Speaker 1: picked up this next record, this panamz that he just
Speaker 1: picked it up. I know the people he went into
Speaker 1: the studio in Colombia. He did it in twenty four hours,
Speaker 1: he got so he did it when he was there
Speaker 1: on tour. Yeah, okay, so this is someone in a
Speaker 1: And also the other gift, which I didn't allow for
Speaker 1: because I had not seen him live, is when he
Speaker 1: and you can't rehearse this. I mean, you're born, You're
Speaker 1: born with this and it goes with the rest and everything.
Speaker 1: When he spoke to that audience, it was like Doobe
Speaker 1: Gillis meets Elvis. Okay, it was magic. It had as
Speaker 1: much volume and intensity as all the records of the
Speaker 1: songs and what he was doing on stage. So if
Speaker 1: you have a few we have four hours now, would
Speaker 1: you read a book, would you go for a walk,
Speaker 1: would you watch a movie? Would you watch television show?
Speaker 1: Would you listen to you know, listen to music? What? What? What?
Speaker 1: You don't listen to what? I go to see it
Speaker 1: and you don't listen because I will listen if I'm
Speaker 1: not choosing because you think music is best performed live,
Speaker 1: or you get an um. Uh. You know, look when
Speaker 1: I got here two days ago, we're in Los Angeles. Okay,
Speaker 1: it's weird. Uh in that my place, you know, I
Speaker 1: mean coming here six four and it's our c A
Speaker 1: and it's Liberty Records, and it's sunset, it's this um
Speaker 1: And now all that used to be inside a building.
Speaker 1: You were creating music, you were making it, you were
Speaker 1: still outsiders. Now it's wall to wool, restaurants, everything, and
Speaker 1: invariably in some music that I've made, or music that
Speaker 1: I'm familiar with that was made at the time. If
Speaker 1: I can hear in a supermarket, I'm gonna play it
Speaker 1: at home. I'm gonna be at Rock Hudson showing his
Speaker 1: old movies. What I come across, I will let in.
Speaker 1: But the reward is seeing stuff live. And that's a
Speaker 1: gentleman who lived through it and is still alive. Andrew,
Speaker 1: so great to have you. We could go out for hours.
Speaker 1: I mean, we'll have to do it the next time
Speaker 1: you're in Los Angeles because we have so much more
Speaker 1: to talk about a little deeper into those Stones albums
Speaker 1: and immediate and your era in Connecticut. Never mind, we
Speaker 1: didn't even get into the scientology thing, which but thanks
Speaker 1: so much for being Thank you for being so well.
Speaker 1: Until next time, It's Bob left Sex with Andrew lou
Speaker 1: Goldham on the Bob Left Sets Podcast. That wraps up
Speaker 1: another episode of the Bob Left Sets Podcast. I know
Speaker 1: there are a lot of podcasts out there. Hell, you
Speaker 1: can do so many other things with your time, so
Speaker 1: I really appreciate you joining me. Be sure to check
Speaker 1: out previous episodes if you missed them, and don't forget
Speaker 1: to subscribe on tune in, Apple podcast, or where where
Speaker 1: you get your podcast