Stones Manager Remembers Rock's First Bad Boys

ByABC News
May 10, 2001, 6:45 PM

May 8 -- Long before gun-toting rap stars roamed America, the first manager of The Rolling Stones was terrorizing London, throwing errant journalists out of windows and others off bridges.

Accompanied by a thuggish bodyguard, Andrew Loog Oldham was said to be quite the rogue 40 years ago: Sporting a cape, he would careen around the city in his Mini Cooper, speakers blaring from the roof of the tiny car.

This is not all completely true but the anecdotes and rumors metamorphosed into "facts" over the years, a consequence of the hype and mystique Oldham engineered on behalf of his rabble-rousing charges.

Now 57, he is setting the record straight in his memoir, Stoned (St. Martin's Press), which details the early days of the so-called greatest rock and roll band in the world. The star character is not Mick Jagger or Keith Richards, it is Oldham an arrogant genius redeemed by a self-effacing British sense of humor.

"I would hope that (Stones guitarist) Keith Richards would turn around and say, 'Well finally, Andrew's working on his favorite act himself.' Which I am," Oldham said in an interview in his three-story Bogota apartment.

Oldham managed the Stones from 1963 to 1967 (in partnership with the late Eric Easton through 1965) and produced all their records during that period, including the hits "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction," "19th Nervous Breakdown," "Mother's Little Helper," "Play With Fire," "Paint It, Black," and "Get Off of My Cloud."

More importantly, he transformed the nice, middle-class boys into the anti-Beatles. To underscore their outlaw image, he invented the line "Would you let your daughter go out with a Rolling Stone?"

These days, with The Beatles bigger than ever 30 years after breaking up, he still considers the Stones to be underdogs, albeit filthy-rich ones.

"We're always going to be the bad boys. We're always going to be urchins," he said. "I had to wait until The Rolling Stones had their last hit before my early work was recognized."