How Bob Dylan inspired Andrew Loog Oldham to manage The Rolling Stones
By 1965, Bob Dylan had become a colossal presence on both sides of the Atlantic, and upon arriving on UK soil for his famed tour of 1965, he encountered the man touted as his British counterpart – or imitator, depending on whom you asked. Dylan first met Donovan at the Savoy Hotel in Westminster, London, along with fellow musician Derrol Adams.
In the weeks prior to Dylan’s arrival in London, the British press stoked the fires, noting an uncanny relationship between the two musicians. Naturally, Dylan felt compelled to see this guy for himself. Footage from D. A. Pennebaker’s documentary film Don’t Look Back caught this historical moment.
Fortunately, Dylan acquainted Donovan with no malice – save for a momentary skirmish involving a broken beer bottle – and any similarities between the pair were ironed out as a natural symptom of the folk process.
“There’s no shame in mimicking a hero or two – it flexes the creative muscles and tones the quality of our composition and technique,” Donovan said in a 2001 interview with the BBC on the matter. “It was not only Dylan who influenced us – for me, he was a spearhead into protest, and we all had a go at his style. I sounded like him for five minutes – others made a career of his sound. Like troubadours, Bob and I can write about any facet of the human condition. To be compared was natural, but I am not a copyist.”
Countering Donovan’s claims at the time, however, was Brian Jones, the founding leader of The Rolling Stones. “We’ve been watching Donovan too,” Jones was quoted as saying in Mark Paytress’ book, Rolling Stones off The Record. “He isn’t too bad a singer, but his stuff sounds like Dylan’s. His ‘Catch The Wind’ sounds like ‘Chimes of Freedom’. He’s got a song, ‘Hey Tangerine Eyes’, and it sounds like Dylan’s ‘Mr. Tambourine Man’.”
Jones’s stance on the matter is perhaps unsurprising, given that he and the other Stones were infatuated with the folk rocker and his era-defining music. Indeed, the surviving members of the Rolling Stones have maintained a deep admiration for Dylan over the subsequent decades, with Mick Jagger once valiantly defending the troubadour’s idiosyncratic vocal style during an appearance on Dutch TV.
This endorsement certainly won’t come as a surprise for any discerning rock fanatics, but did you know the Rolling Stones might never have made it big had it not been for Dylan? As The Rolling Stones’ pivotal manager Andrew Loog Oldham once revealed to Harvey Kubernik that he would most likely never have chosen his path had he not witnessed the dynamic between Dylan and his early career manager Albert Grossman.
“If it were not for Dylan and his manager Albert Grossman I might not be here,” Oldham said. “I worked for them for ten days in January of 1963. The first 20 minutes in their hotel room, I wanted in. The magic between them was a working marriage that informed me and let me know what might be possible. I met the Rolling Stones in late April of the same year.”
Like Brian Epstein was for The Beatles, Oldham was the tenacious force behind the Stones’ rise to global popularity during the British Invasion. It was Oldham who cunningly posed the Stones as a more devious answer to The Beatles and held both hands firmly on the band’s exemplary marketing regime. Until we invent the time machine, we can’t be certain, but without Oldham, the Stones likely wouldn’t have had such a potent and enduring impact. Hence, Dylan and Grossman, we thank you for your butterfly effect.
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