A new previously unreleased video of Nico performing her first single, I’m Not Saying, cut from recently surfaced raw 16mm footage, shot in the UK in 1965.
In 1965 The Rolling Stones' manager Andrew Loog Oldham and his business manager Tony Calder, set up Immediate Records. The label signed artists such as Rod Stewart, Small Faces, The Nice and Fleetwood Mac. One of the first releases on the label, IM003 in fact, was I'm Not Sayin', the debut record by German model and actress Nico.
I'm Not Sayin' was a song written and recorded by Gordon Lightfoot, that was released in early 1965. Nico’s version was recorded in May of that year, at Regent Sounds, in Denmark Street, London. It is disputed who produced and played on the track. Andrew Loog Oldham has been credited as producer. But Oldham himself is quoted as saying it was Jimmy Page (later of the Yardbirds and Led Zeppelin) who produced, and played guitar. Page was then a 21-year-old session guitarist who had been recruited by Oldham as Immediate’s house producer. Other sources say that it was Brian Jones of the Rolling Stones playing guitar on the track. At that time, Jones and Nico were dating, which lends some credibility to that. Another source states that the track features a combination of Jones and Page on guitar. David Whitaker is credited as conductor of the orchestra, elsewhere also as arranger. David Whitaker’s sound is widely known for his instantly recognisable strings, on the Andrew Oldham Orchestra’s 1965 track The Last Time, which 30 years later, became the basis of the Verve’s Bittersweet Symphony.