50 Years Ago Today - the recording of the first Rolling Stones single recorded by Roger Savage.

25. COME ON (Berry) 1.50
10 May 1963: Place: Olympic Studios, Carton St, London, England.
Played Live: 1963, 1964, 1965
Producer: Andrew Oldham, Eric Easton.
Engineer: Roger Savage.
UK Single: 7 June 1963: No. 21 - 14 weeks
UK Compilation LP THANK YOUR LUCKY STARS VOL 2: 27 September 1963
UK Compilation LP READY STEADY GO!: 24 January 1964: No. 20 - 1 week
UK Compilation LP BIG HITS (HIGH TIDE AND GREEN GRASS): 4 November 1966: No. 4 - 43 weeks
UK Compilation LP ROCK ‘N’ ROLLING STONES: 13 October 1972: No. 41 - 1 week
USA Compilation LP MORE HOT ROCKS (BIG HITS & FAZED COOKIES): 1 December 1972: No. 9 - 12 weeks
UK Compilation LP ROLLED GOLD: 14 November 1975: No. 7 - 50 weeks
German Compilation LP THE REST OF THE BEST: December 1983
UK & USA LP THE ROLLING STONES SINGLES COLLECTION - THE LONDON YEARS: 15 August 1989
USA Compilation CD MORE HOT ROCKS (BIG HITS & FAZED COOKIES): 3 September 2002
UK & USA CD box set THE ROLLING STONES SINGLES - 1963 - 1965: 4 May 2004
UK Compilation CD ROLLED GOLD +: 12 November 2007: No. 26 - 12 weeks

On 9 May 1963, a three-year management contract was confirmed between Brian Jones, Eric Easton and Andrew Oldham. Brian signed himself as L B Jones while Mick Jagger was described as a student. Oldham and Easton formed a company called Impact Sound to be the management and recording team behind the Rolling Stones. The deal was signed on 21 May by Brian Jones (as L B Jones) and Eric Easton for Impact Sound.
Brian’s part in the negotiations was reflected in an extra £5 a week, a fact hidden in the detail. Overall, it was weighted on Impact’s side - they received 14 per cent from Decca and paid the band six per cent. Oldham talked Jones into returning to IBC, paying them for the time spent in the studio and the return of their tapes, thereby nulling the contract with them. This displeased Glyn Johns, who had thought he would be producing the Stones’ early work. He did not in fact produce them until later in their career when Oldham was off the scene, relenting later to engineer live tapes in 1965 and work on the BETWEEN THE BUTTONS album.
Oldham booked the Olympic studios (a former Dutch reform church and a Synagogue in Carton Street, in London’s West End) for the first recording session on 10 May 1963. It was agreed that Roger Savage would be the recording engineer in a £40-for- three-hours deal.
The studio manager, Keith Grant, remembered it differently. He described that the “rabbit” was a free session which they gave occasionally. He knew Roger was keen to record the Stones having seen them at the Crawdaddy club. Keith was not so sure, having also watched them with BBC’s Jimmy Grant, from Saturday Club, and concluding: “They were dreadful.” He was somewhat surprised and pleased, therefore, when he heard the session’s result.
Come On is played at a frenetic pace, faster than the Chuck Berry version. Berry had a number of hits in the USA and UK in the 1950s but had not enjoyed chart success in the early 60s. Come On was virtually unknown and, to the public, it could have been construed as an original. A harmonica guides the track throughout in a rail-road style. The outcome was a very clean recording with clearly defined instrumentation, unlike some of the Regent Sound. Ian Stewart, although present at the sessions, did not contribute to the recording since his microphone had been switched off at Oldham’s instructions, according to the latter’s Stoned book.
The recording was made on an Ampex with tambourine and vocals over-dubbed. Roger Savage asked Oldham to mix the track thinking that was his production role but he left Roger to perform the task. Andrew had no clue how to go about taking four tracks and creating an end result, hence most of the early tracks being mono. Besides he had more to think about and needed a record company to sell the product. At the time there were only two major UK recording companies - EMI and Decca. Having been rejected by EMI there was only one more door to knock on. The Decca artiste and repertoire (A & R) man, Dick Rowe, who had previously turned down The Beatles in favour of Brian Poole and The Tremeloes, desperately wanted to rectify this mistake and recover some standing in the music industry. Ironically, Rowe had already been tipped off by George Harrison to sign the Stones. He saw the band live in early May and within a week had offered a recording contract. Oldham and Easton negotiated a shrewd recording contract with Rowe enabling the Stones to record independently and then sell the tapes to Decca.
The recording session for Come On was then arranged. Naturally, Decca were not convinced of the Impact Sound achieved on 10 May and requested that Come On be re-recorded at Decca’s own studios on 18 May. Decca then listened to both versions and agreed to release the original Impact Sound/Roger Savage version. The band themselves were not too convinced of the result created by “no mix” producer Oldham and sound engineer Savage. To back this up, the song was not played at concerts, the speed of the record being significant - it was too fast to dance to. However, it entered the lower echelons of the UK charts on 25 July 1963 and became their first “hit”. The track was included on a THANK YOUR LUCKY STARS compilation of various artists released by Decca in September 1963.

26. I WANT TO BE LOVED (Dixon) 1.51
10 May 1963: Place: Olympic Studios, Carton St, London, England.
Played Live: 1963
Producer: Andrew Oldham, Eric Easton.
Engineer: Roger Savage.
UK B-side Come On: 7 June 1963
German Compilation LP THE REST OF THE BEST: December 1983
UK & USA LP THE ROLLING STONES SINGLES COLLECTION - THE LONDON YEARS: 15 August 1989
UK & USA CD box set THE ROLLING STONES SINGLES - 1963 - 1965: 4 May 2004

The equipment at Olympic was state of the art, as Keith Grant reflected in 2012: “We had the first four-track studio with an EMT reverb plate and equalisation on every channel. It was developed by our engineer Dick Swettenham.”
The Olympic version of I Want To Be Loved is a faster guitar boogie than the original demo take and is also polished by a crisp quality studio finish. Again, the harmonica is used extensively and is featured in the instrumental break. Andrew Oldham was happy with the single sound and product and gave Keith £3 to pass on to Roger Savage for his effort in lieu of overtime.
The release, of which this was the flipside, was coupled by an appearance on the acclaimed Thank Your Lucky Stars TV show, where both sides were featured. As a result, a modest chart entry ensued. The TV recording is famous for the band wearing a set of appealing chequered suits, an image they attempted hastily to reject.
In order to better project the Stones on camera, Andrew Oldham also decided that Ian Stewart should step down from on-stage work and not appear in publicity photos, becoming instead a studio player and their road manager. This was due to his somewhat staid, square-jawed appearance and, graciously, he agreed.
Stewart had seen the signs when his piano had been moved further and further towards the dressing room while on stage. The Stones were starting to feel their way up the pop ladder by such compromises, whilst managing to retain their musical integrity.

(c) Martin Elliott.
Stones Sessions

never knew the glyn johns story... thanks for posting

Anybody know exactly where Carton Street was?

It was in a former synagogue in Carlton Mews near Baker Street.

Footage featuring Jimmy Page arriving there can be seen here:

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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2013-05-11 12:36 by His Majesty.