Immediate Records was a British record label, started in 1965 by

The Rolling Stones The Rolling Stones are an English Rock music, rock band formed in London in 1962. Active for over six decades, they are one of the most popular, influential, and enduring bands of the Album era, rock era. In the early 1960s, the band pione ...

' manager Andrew Loog Oldham and Tony Calder, and concentrating on the London-based

blues Blues is a music genre and musical form that originated among African Americans in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues has incorporated spiritual (music), spirituals, work songs, field hollers, Ring shout, shouts, cha ...

and R&B scene.

History

Immediate Records was started in 1965. Signed musicians included

Rod Stewart Sir Roderick David Stewart (born 10 January 1945) is a British singer and songwriter. Known for his distinctive raspy singing voice, Stewart is among the List of best-selling music artists, best-selling music artists of all time, having sold ...

, P.P. Arnold, songwriter Paul Korda, Billy Nicholls, John Mayall, Savoy Brown,

Small Faces Small Faces were an English Rock music, rock band from London, founded in 1965. The group originally consisted of Steve Marriott, Ronnie Lane, Kenney Jones and Jimmy Winston, with Ian McLagan replacing Winston as the band's keyboardist in 1966 ...

, The Nice,

Fleetwood Mac Fleetwood Mac are a British-American Rock music, rock band formed in London in 1967 by the singer and guitarist Peter Green (musician), Peter Green. Green named the band by combining the surnames of the drummer, Mick Fleetwood, and the bassis ...

, The Groundhogs,

Chris Farlowe Chris Farlowe (born John Henry Deighton, 13 October 1940) is an English rock music, rock, blues and blue-eyed soul singer. He is best known for his hit single "Out of Time (Rolling Stones song), Out of Time" written by Mick Jagger and Keith Ric ...

, Duncan Browne and

Humble Pie Humble Pie are an English Rock music, rock band formed by Steve Marriott and Peter Frampton in Moreton, Essex, in 1969. They are known as one of the first Supergroup (music), supergroups of the late 1960s and enjoyed success in the early 1970s ...

. Due to financial problems, the label ceased operations in 1970, and it has been the subject of controversy ever since. This is especially true in regard to unpaid

royalties A royalty payment is a payment made by one party to another that owns a particular asset, for the right to ongoing use of that asset. Royalties are typically agreed upon as a percentage of gross or net revenues derived from the use of an asset or ...

owed to the Small Faces, who made numerous hit recordings for the label between 1967 and 1969. Despite their success, the band received virtually no income from these often re-released records, until legal action finally secured payments from the present licencees in the early 2000s. According to Small Faces drummer Kenney Jones, most of Immediate Records' assets and income were embezzled by one of the company's senior partners, who allegedly channelled the funds to

offshore bank An offshore bank is a bank that is operated and regulated under international banking license (often called offshore license), which usually prohibits the bank from establishing any business activities in the jurisdiction of establishment. Due to ...

accounts. Paul Korda, who wrote songs such as "The Time Has Come" for P.P. Arnold, was never paid for work done for Immediate Records. In the US, Immediate Records first set up a deal with

MGM Records MGM Records was a record label founded by the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer film studio in 1946 for the purpose of releasing soundtrack recordings (later LP albums) of their musical films. It transitioned into a pop music label that continued into the ...

, who issued three singles (K-13530, K-13567, K-13600) as part of the regular MGM series using regular MGM labels with the Immediate logo on the side of the label. Then Immediate Records set up a short-lived deal with

United Artists United Artists (UA) is an American film production and film distribution, distribution company owned by Amazon MGM Studios. In its original operating period, it was founded in February 1919 by Charlie Chaplin, D. W. Griffith, Mary Pickford an ...

, who issued two singles using the Immediate moniker (E-1901, E-1902) before signing a deal with CBS to set up a new label series, which picked selective Immediate Records singles (using product codes with the ZS7 prefix) and albums (using Z12) until they had a dispute. Finally, Immediate Records set up a short-lived independent label in the US to issue one single (IMOC-001), Humble Pie’s first album, and The Nice's last album before the label entered into

liquidation Liquidation is the process in accounting by which a Company (law), company is brought to an end. The assets and property of the business are redistributed. When a firm has been liquidated, it is sometimes referred to as :wikt:wind up#Noun, w ...

. In 2008, a comprehensive book about Immediate Records, written by Simon Spence, who 'ghosted' Andrew Loog Oldham's two autobiographies, was published in the UK and US by Black Dog as part of their Labels Unlimited series. A second, amended version has since been published. In 2016, a comprehensive discography with brief organisational history, ''The Immediate Discography: The First 20 Years'' by recorded music historian, Mark Jones, was published with input from Barry Green, the curator of the official Immediate archive. This book won the Association for Recorded Sound Collections, Best Research in Recorded Rock Music, Best Discography Award, 2017. Today, Sanctuary Records, owned by

BMG Rights Management BMG Rights Management GmbH (also known simply as BMG) is an international music company based in Berlin, Germany. It combines the activities of a music publisher and a record label. BMG was formed in October 2008 after Bertelsmann sold its st ...

, controls the Immediate Records catalogue in the United Kingdom. Outside of the UK, Charly Records controls the Immediate catalogue. Charly owns the Immediate Records trade mark.

Discography

Albums

Singles

References

External links