Stoned

Oldham already had a reputation as a mod hustler when he met the Rolling Stones, the group with which the manager-promoter would forever be identified. ”I heard the anthem of a national sound, I heard the sound of a national anthem,” he recalls — but it’s really citizenship in the cult of Carnaby Street he was touting with the brilliantly constructed rebel image of the band. Stoned is a reminder that like the American Revolution, the British Invasion was not a foregone conclusion: There just happened to be some great bands and some shrewd businessmen — Oldham among them — who had a vision of a better musical-world order.