Immediate: The Rise and Fall of the UK's First Independent Record Label

Simon Spence

Softcover | 13.79 x 1.4 x 21.59 cm | 218 pp

Backstage Books | 2023 | 9781739477905

"Our attitude towards the business in the UK was 'Fuck Them All', they were all old men." Rolling Stones manager Andrew Loog Oldham was the enfant terrible of Swinging Sixties London, the man who had crafted The Beatles’ antithesis. By 1965 he was a millionaire notorious for working every publicity angle for his rising stars but he still felt frustrated by the men in grey suits who controlled the music industry. His solution to that problem was Immediate Records - the UK’s first independent label - with a mission statement to wash away those grey men.

What followed was five years of scams, chicanery, sex, drugs, violence and sensational music. Immediate's "in-house' polymath producers Jagger, Richards, Oldham himself, Jimmy Page and Steve Marriott, attracted a crowd of daring, young British talent,
forging the hippest scene in the world.

Yet, following his ousting as Stones manager in 1967, the label itself began to fray with the scams, drugs and booze clouded Oldham's creative genius as the grey suits quietly took their revenge.

Simon Spence's acclaimed telling of Immediate's rise and fall was first published in 2007 but has now been augmented with explanatory footnotes and even more detail following a further decade's research.

"Simon Spence is like the son I never wanted" Andrew Loog Oldham, Immediate founder and legendary Rolling Stones manager.

“Small but perfectly formed… in many ways a useful and practical book” Mark Ellen

“A fantastic read. The sheer density of what the Americans would call bold type names on every page is astonishing” David Hepworth

“Highly readable… somebody should make a screenplay” Eamonn Forde, The Guardian

“Simon does a great contemporary take on gonzo. I can feel Hunter S, Nik Cohn, Tom Wolfe in there, but he sweetly swerves indulgence and keeps us informed all throughout.” Mark Hodkinson, The Times

“Sheer brilliance flashes from many of the interviewees” Dave Thompson, Shindig