Andrew Loog Oldham

Andrew Loog Oldham was born on 29 January 1944 in Oran, Algeria.  In 1963, in a south London hotel, Andrew Loog Oldham discovered an unknown blues band called the Rolling Stones and became their manager and producer. He masterminded the ceaseless recording and touring that produced a string of seminal tracks and propelled them, within three years, to global fame.

Andrew Loog Oldham was born in January 1944. His mother was a nurse and his father an American pilot from Texas. Andrew was raised in London and wanted to be in show business from the age of eight. From the moment he first went on the London underground and saw a movie poster he knew where he wanted to be. At 16 he got his wish when he was asked to leave school. His first job was with mod fashion designer Mary Quant. Oldham drifted into the world of pop music publicity via early ' 60's pop singers Mark Wynter and Kenny Lynch.He handled the publicity for the UK tours of Little Richard, Sam Cooke, Chris Montez, Bob Dylan and in 1963 met the Beatles and their manager Brian Epstein at a TV show in Birmingham, England and handled the group's PR from " Please, Please Me" through " From Me To You" . 

In late April of that year following a suggestion from music writer Peter Jones, Andrew and The Rolling Stones met each other.  He became the group's manager, promoting their notorious reputation as the bad boys of the British Invasion; his line "Would you let your daughter go out with a Rolling Stone?" encapsulating his approach. It was Loog Oldham who, famously, forced Jagger and Richards to sit down and write their first original song, realizing that the real money was to be made not by releasing blues standards, but by writing, recording and performing originals. He produced the groups first golden run that produced such standards as " The Last Time" , " Play With Fire" ,' Not Fade Away" , "Satisfaction" , "Paint It, Black" , " Get Off Of My Cloud" and " Ruby Tuesday" . In 1964 at a London party, Oldham discovered Marianne Faithfull and subsequently produced and co-wrote her first hit " As Tears Go By" .

In 1965 Oldham formed Immediate Records, the first UK indie record label. In five short years Immediate produced the early recordings of the Small Faces, Rod Stewart, Amen Corner, Fleetwood Mac, Humble Pie, Jimmy Page, Eric Clapton and the Nice. In 1967 he had parted company with the Stones and by end of the decade, Immediate had declared bankruptcy as well. In the 1970s, he lived and worked in New York, Connecticut, Texas and finally Colombia, his primary residence since the mid-80s, when he married Esther Farfan, a colombian former model. From 1996 to 2002 he produced two volumes of acclaimed biography, Stoned and 2Stoned.