Immediate Records

The label's main successes were the Small Faces and The Nice, both of whom made excellent mod and psychedelic records - the Small Faces indeed being a vastly underrated band.

Much of the rest of the label's roster though was taken up by non-writing vocalists. The two best of these were Chris Farlowe and P.P. Arnold, both of whom made some of the best British R&B records ever. Arnold's records in particular (often backed by the Small Faces) were practically the only credible soul records ever made in the UK.

In fact the main function of the label seems to have been to publicise the songs owned by Oldham's publishing companies, hence the large number of Stones songs recorded on the label (eg Chris Farlowe's Out Of Time and P.P. Arnold's As Tears Go By). Oldham also owned the UK rights to the Beach Boys publishing, hence presumably the label's signing of UK surf music second-divisioner Tony Rivers (later to become a very respected session singer) whose singles were almost all covers of Beach Boys album tracks.

Unfortunately the label went bankrupt, meaning that the recordings were sold on to numerous budget labels, none of whom bothered to pay royalties to the artists. Recently the imprint and logo have been revived by Castle Communications for its series of Immediate reissues.

For an overview of Immediate, the Immediate Singles Collection box set is probably the best place to start, or pick up any P.P. Arnold compilation with her versions of The First Cut Is The Deepest and Angel Of The Morning and the 2-CD Small Faces set The Darlings Of Wapping Wharf Launderette.