Biography
Immediate Records, Andrew Loog Oldham’s fledgling 1960s independent label, gave birth to the Aranbee Pop Symphony Orchestra during its earliest period. Because the company lacked any acts able to attract widespread press attention by themselves, Oldham turned to resources already at hand: his managerial control of the Rolling Stones granted ready use of their catalog, while the group’s five members could be asked for occasional assistance. The Andrew Loog Oldham Orchestra, already responsible for several modestly successful instrumental renditions of pop material, was renamed the Aranbee Pop Symphony Orchestra, and Keith Richards was listed as its director. Richards’s actual contribution appears to have extended no further than his appearance at the project’s initial press announcement. Any stylistic precedents likely included Joshua Rifkin’s Baroque Beatles Book album together with the Jan & Dean Pop Symphony No. 1 release. The resulting record succeeded in publicizing the new label yet produced little in the way of sales or earnings. Once its single album appeared, the Aranbee Pop Symphony Orchestra ceased to exist. That album vanished almost without notice and had become a five-hundred-dollar collector’s item by the late 1980s; it resurfaced on CD in the early 1990s as ersatz Rolling Stones-related material.
Singles
