Andrew Loog Oldham

Andrew Loog Oldham

Andrew Loog Oldham was born in January 1944. His mother a nurse; his father, Andrew Loog, 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. As gofer extraordinaire he poured drinks for the journalists, walked the models dogs and was able to hang with the likes of David Bailey, Terence Donovan and Vidal Sassoon - all part of the fraternity that was the first British pop business - fashion. After a spell bumming around France " begging, being involved in innocent kidnappings and running errands at the jazz festivals" 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 and they became his way of life. He became the group's co-manager through the end of 1967. 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. He 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. More than slightly burnt out at the age of 25 in 1969, Andrew started roaming the world, finally settling in Bogota, Colombia in 1983. During this time he recorded Italian stars Francesco di Gregori, Lucio Dalia and Anna Oxa ; plus Donovan in the UK and, Texas blues group The Werewolves, reggae star Jimmy Cliff and soulman Bobby Womack in the USA. Oldham then worked in Colombia and Argentina from 1986 to 1996 with Colombia's Compania Limitada and Oxygeno; and Argentina's los Ratones Paranoicos and Charly Garcia. In 1996 he decided to quit life and near-death on the highwire and just live. From 1996 to 2002 he produced two volumes of acclaimed biography, Stoned and 2Stoned. His third volume of biography and life-style , "On Hustling (How to survive in rock'n roll )", will be published by Random House in 2008. In 2005 he produced Canadian artist Wyckham Porteous with a recording to be released this summer on Cordova Bay Records . This past year he was back in Buenos Aires producing the Argentinean legend Charly Garcia with a work ," Kill Gil", that will be released on EMI in May. For the past three years Andrew has worked as a DJ for the Steven Van Zandt Underground Garage channel on the Sirius satelite network. Andrew has a dog named Gruff named after the singer with the Super Furry Animals and lives with his family in Bogota, Colombia. He wishes you wellness.