“This is going to be their next single. I’d love to know what you think of it…”
It was 1965, and I was in the office of Andrew Loog Oldham. So when he called me up and asked if I’d be interested in working for him, I agreed to go and see him. (Excerpt from the Telegraph)
I’d been a promoter in the music business for seven years, working for Tony Hall at Decca for several of those. It was a good gig – a great one, in fact. Why on Earth would I want to change any of that?
But then the needle came down on the acetate. There was the briefest bit of crackle and then, whoomph, one of the most iconic riffs in the whole of rock ’n’ roll ripped through the speakers. The song finished. Andrew lifted the needle off the record and turned to look at me. “Well?” he asked. “Would you like to come and work here?”
If someone had played you an advance copy of Satisfaction by the Rolling Stones at your job interview, what would you have said?
The Tastemaker by Tony King - Audiobook - Audible.ca
Working for the Stones in the mid-1960s was a heady cocktail of music, drugs, alcohol and excess. Later on, it became more about acid, and after that it was coke, but in the mid-1960s, dope was where it was at: West Indian and Moroccan hash.
When I first started, I got into the office and put the lights on, only to discover a blinking and bleary Keith Richards staring out at me from under the covers.
“Oh, hello,” I said, not quite sure what to say. “How are you?”
Classic Keith, he groaned and said: “Ooh, OK.”
“Do you want me to wake you up later with a cup of tea?” I asked.
“Yeah, all right,” Keith said, turning back over.
I switched the lights off and shut the door behind me, unsure what I was to do for the rest of the morning. This sort of thing didn’t happen back at Decca. I left him until 1pm, at which point I brought him a cup of tea. He was now less growly and much more friendly – incredibly sweet, in fact.
Mick Jagger’s head appeared around the door. “Chrissie’s gone and locked me out of the flat,” he said, talking about his then girlfriend, model Chrissie Shrimpton. “Who are you, by the way?”
Soon after that, I saw a cat in the corridor. It was limping and clearly wasn’t well. I asked Andrew about it and he said it was called Louise and belonged to Charlie Watts and his wife Shirley. “Can you take it to the vet for me?”
When i met the Beatles, first, I explained to Harrison that I was working for London American Records, George called Ringo Starr over. “This guy,” – George pointed at me – “he knows all about the records we like, Ringo.”
The first of John’s albums I worked on was 1973’s Mind Games. The campaign for it featured a somewhat unusual TV commercial.
The idea came when singer-songwriter and musician Mike Hazlewood and I got stoned one night at his house in LA, and I began doing an impersonation of the Queen telling people to go and buy the album. John found the idea hysterical and wanted me to do it on TV.
The other side of the promotions job was looking after the American artists when they came over to Britain. Roy Orbison had a thing about cars, and classic wartime German Mercedes in particular. He saw one of these Mercedes pull out from a side street and told me he wanted to buy it.
So I ran down the street, waving my arms, flagging the car down. I was lucky the driver didn’t think I was a mugger or try to run me over. Roy came out of the cab to join me. The driver double-blinked again when he saw who it was. With his jet-black hair and glasses, Roy was instantly recognisable.
“Are you…?” Roy nodded. He bought the car.
You can read the full story on the Telegraph
