U.K. EXEC PETER RUDGE STEPS AWAY FROM MANAGEMENT

Veteran executive Peter Rudge—who's worked with The Who, The Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix and Marc Bolan, among others—is stepping aside from management to pursue other music-centric projects.

They will include co-producing a documentary about the beginnings of the touring business centered around Premier Talent Agency founder Frank Barsalona, the only agent inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.

“After 55 years in the artist-management trenches, I’ve decided to call time and devote my time to family, travel and other projects, as well as Wolves and the New York Giants, who both need my help far more than any artist does right now," Rudge said.

Rudge began his career as a £20-per-week temp at Track Records in 1968 after graduating from Cambridge University “to fill time” while waiting to take the Civil Service exam the following January. He never took the test or even got a "real" job and calls the subsequent odyssey “one of peaks and valleys, highs and lows, but never dull.”

At Track, Rudge worked with Jimi Hendrix and Marc Bolan before going on to manage The Who with Bill Curbishley. Other acts with whom he worked closely include Lynyrd Skynyrd, Duran Duran, Roger Waters, Madness, Il Divo and Ball & Boe.

The act Rudge has worked with the longest and is perhaps most closely associated with is the band James, which he's repped since 1989. The Tim Booth-led band scored its first U.K. Official Albums #1 in June with Yummy and will now be managed by Neil Hughes (who's been co-managing for the past two years) and Charlotte Malecki at Tileyard.

Rudge, pictured getting a buss from Booth, thanked his “many partners over the years,” in particular accountant Colin Young, SJM founder Simon Moran and Solo Music Agency’s John Giddings, “whose friendship and expertise I have been able to lean on throughout my stewardship.”