Eric Easton
Easton was primarily responsible for booking gigs—he was keen for the group to get out of London and play nationally—but also acted as record producer on a number of occasions, including on their first single, a cover version of Chuck Berry's "Come On" in June 1963.
Although not enjoying the same economic prosperity as America, Britain experienced similar social developments, including the emergence of distinct youth leisure activities and sub-cultures.
[3] A moral panic was declared in the popular press as young cinema-goers ripped up seats to dance; this helped identify rock and roll with delinquency, and led to it being almost banned by radio stations.
[5] The music journalist Stephen Davis notes that, by the end of the decade, "the Teds and their girls filled the old dance band ballrooms" of the kind Easton had played, and Keith Richards called it "a totally new era ...
[14] Easton's early work consisted of performing popular pieces such as Ray Martin's "Marching Strings", Richard Rodgers' "Slaughter on Tenth Avenue" and John Walter Bratton's "Teddy Bears' Picnic (which the BBC recorded in Southend for their Light Programme in 1953).
[15] He also played with his own ensemble, called Eric Easton and his Organites,[16] and alongside contemporaries on the variety circuit such as Morecambe and Wise, Patrick O'Hagan and Al Read.
[18] By the time he met Oldham and the Stones he had many years in showbusiness,[18] and, says the music journalist Steven Davis, "an old-line talent agent ... and veteran of variety shows".
[6] Musically, the mild-mannered Easton was "a self-confessed 'square'", who kept family photographs on his desk; comments, says the musician and author Alan Clayson, for whom "the depths of depravity" were a 20-a-day smoking habit.
He knew showbusiness forwards as well as backwards, and was perfectly aware ... that the hunt was up for beat groups with sheepdog fringes who, if required, could crank out "Money", "Poison Ivy", "Boys" and the rest of the Merseybeat stand-bys plus a good half of the Chuck Berry songbook.
[12] The Stones were the Crawdaddy's house band, under the aegis of the club's owner Giorgio Gomelsky,[39] who had already "got them eulogized by Record Mirror ... [and] was their manager in every way other than writing".
[40] At 19 years old, Oldham was too young to hold a band manager's licence,[41][note 7] and as such he "trawl[ed] the lower reaches of West End theatrical agents" looking for a partner.
[39] A later assistant of Richards, Tony Sanchez, described how, "to Brian and Mick, who wanted–needed–so very badly to make it, walking over a couple of old friends was a small price to pay for the break that Oldham and Easton were offering them".
[18] Philip Norman describes the meeting:[56]It was a scene that had already been played in hundreds of other pop-managerial sanctums and would be in thousands more—the walls covered with signed celebrity photos, framed Gold Discs, and posters; the balding, over-genial man at a desk cluttered by pictures of wife and children (and, in this case, electronic organs), telling the two youngsters in front of him that, of course, he couldn't promise anything but, if they followed his guidance, there was every chance of them ending up rich and famous.
"[67] [Oldham] comes along with this other cat he's in partnership with, Eric Easton, who's much older, used to be an organ player in that dying era of vaudeville after the war in the fifties, when the music hall ground to a halt as a means of popular entertainment.
[71] Among the band, says rock journalist Paul Trynka, Jones was "the most enthusiastic about the new managers; that spring of 1963 he remained the Stone with whom Oldham and Easton would huddle and share plans".
Easton also arranged generous credit with fashionable stores in London; this, says Sandford, allowed Jagger and Richards "to run up impressive bills that they waved away airily on presentation".
[12][note 16] As a result, Easton pushed for the band to replace Jagger; Jones seemed agreeable to the suggestion, but Oldham vetoed it,[6] calling them both "completely insane".
[6] The following month Easton began booking the group into a series of ballroom appearances, so marking the end of their days as a club-based blues band, suggests Davis.
It was to be the Stones' second single and was recorded at Regent Sound Studios on Denmark Street—described by a roadie as "tiny, ropey, and look[ing] like someone's front room"[note 21]—overseen by Easton.
[6][note 22] On the other hand, he bought the group a brand new Volkswagen van for their touring needs[6]—"which I thought was very good of him", commented Richards later, "considering he was making a heavy fortune off us"[68]—and regularly acted as producer[93] during their studio sessions, as Oldham often failed to turn up.
[33] Easton may have prevented Wyman from being sacked alongside Ian Stewart, whom Oldham wanted to remove as not looking sufficiently part of the band.
[105][note 27] Easton, says the author Fred Goodman, "as unflinchingly middle class as any man who ever worked in the music business, could only scratch his head".
[120] Communication between the two had been difficult for some time, says Wyman,[121] who also notes that, although a number of contractual discussions were taking place between Oldham and the group, Easton "was conspicuously absent" from them.
[133] In October 1971,[128] Easton launched a series of lawsuits for breach of contract[140] against the band, Oldham, Decca, London Records, Allen Klein and Nanker Phelge.
[68]The group's 1966 single, "Paint it Black"—later the opening track on the album Aftermath, had its origins in what author Tim Dowley calls a "mickey-taking session"—a send-up, says Richards[149]—out of Easton, in which Wyman played a Hammond organ.
[160][74] Easton also managed Bert Weedon,[157] Mrs Mills[19] and the host of ITV's popular music show Thank Your Lucky Stars, Brian Matthew.
"[166] Following his death, the Eric Easton Awards were launched in Naples; named after him, they were intended to highlight the three best local student pianists of the year with a public recital.
[33] Clayson argues that, notwithstanding Easton's own prim dislike of the beatnik culture, it did not "prevent him from turning a hard-nosed penny or two when the opportunity knocked".
[19][note 38] Wyman, speaking to the Evening Herald's Eamon Carr in 1990, also believed that, while the Stones in their early days were consistently poor—"all the expenses went onto the band", he said—Oldham and Easton, "probably were quite wealthy".
Eric Easton, former pier organist from up north, now a nigh-on-fortyish, unassuming, slightly greying, bespectacled, open-faced man, sat behind his desk with a twinkle in his eye.
