Allen Klein From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia T Allen Klein Birth name Allen Klein Born December 18, 1931 Newark, New Jersey Died July 4, 2009 (aged 77) New York City Genres Rock music Occupations Accountant, Record Label Owner, Business Manager Years active 1956–2009 Labels ABKCO Records Associated acts The Rolling Stones, The Beatles, The Verve Allen Klein (December 18, 1931 – July 4, 2009) was an American businessman, talent agent and record label executive. His clients included The Beatles and The Rolling Stones. Contents 1 The accountant 2 Sam Cooke 3 Cameo Parkway 4 The Rolling Stones 5 The Beatles 6 Solo Beatles 7 Phil Spector 8 The Stranger films 9 Alejandro Jodorowsky films 10 The Verve 11 Death 12 References 13 External links The accountant Allen Klein was born in Newark, New Jersey, the son of Jewish immigrants from Budapest, Hungary. His father was a butcher by trade, and his mother died before his first birthday. As a teenager, he worked in several jobs while attending evening classes. He excelled at mental arithmetic, and graduated from Upsala College, East Orange, New Jersey, in 1956. He undertook bookkeeping for several people in showbusiness, and audited record companies. In 1957 he began his own business, a partnership with his wife Betty. Record industry insiders began to fear his blunt-speaking tenacity, and well-placed people began to recommend him. Klein regarded himself as a shrewd and tenacious businessman, exampled by him having a modified Bible quote on his desk, reading: "Though I walk in the shadow of the valley of evil, I have no fear, as I am the biggest bastard in the valley." Sam Cooke Klein became the business manager of Sam Cooke, and in 1963 Klein started to take control of all aspects of Cooke's career and demanded an independent record company. The role of business manager, someone who would take the artist's side in negotiations with the recording industry, was unprecedented.[citation needed] Klein secured an unprecedented agreement, with Cooke starting a new label (Tracey Records, to be distributed by RCA Records) that would own the rights to all of his future recordings, site fees, gate revenues for concerts, 10 percent of all records sold, and back royalties. Cameo Parkway Cameo Records was formed in 1956 and Parkway, a subsidiary, was formed in 1958. They were based in Philadelphia and specialised in teen market pop music. They had run out of hits by 1964, but struggled on until 1967, when Klein bought them, together with rights to music by The Animals, Herman's Hermits, Bobby Rydell, ? and the Mysterians, Chubby Checker and recordings produced by Mickie Most. The Rolling Stones In 1965, Klein became the co-manager of The Rolling Stones. In 1966 Klein bought Andrew Loog Oldham's share of the Rolling Stones' management, though Oldham continued in his role as the band's producer until late 1967. Mick Jagger had studied at the London School of Economics and was sufficiently impressed with Klein's business acumen to recommend him to Paul McCartney. Not long afterwards though, Jagger started to doubt Klein's trustworthiness. The Stones decided to fire Klein, and set up their own business structure in 1970. Klein sued, and the legal settlement meant giving Klein the rights to most of their songs recorded before 1971;[1] Keith Richards later described the settlement as "the price of an education."[2] Klein's ABKCO label released the rarest of all Stones albums, Metamorphosis. By the late 1990s, some of the 1960s albums were becoming hard to acquire on CD. Finally, in 2002, Klein's son Jody oversaw a remastering of the 1960s albums, to much acclaim. The Beatles This unreferenced section requires citations to ensure verifiability. During the filming of The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus, Klein and John Lennon met casually, but did not discuss business. Following the death of Brian Epstein in 1967, The Beatles were without a manager as such, although NEMS, headed by Epstein's brother Clive, had been taking care of day-to-day business, with Peter Brown acting as liaison to both the Beatles and the Epsteins, and Paul McCartney steering the band artistically.[3] Without a performing schedule, and with recording and filming dates in their own hands, the Beatles had not needed a traditional kind of manager. They had, however, gradually lost many of the people Epstein had made business deals with early in their career, such as music publisher Dick James and financial adviser Dr. Walter Strach, which had secured the band financially. They were used to asking for something to be done, without thinking of the price; much of Apple Corps had been set up in this way. Epstein had been the one to put the brakes on spending, talk over practicalities, and say "no." This had been all but forgotten. Without a damper, the band had overspent, and overtrusted, and problems arose. By 1969, Apple Corps was in a financial mess, and it was becoming obvious that a business brain was needed to sort things out.[4] Several names were considered, including Lord Beeching. McCartney favoured Lee Eastman, his father-in-law, as the man for the job, a suggestion ill-received by the others, as they felt Eastman would give McCartney's interests preference. Klein contacted Lennon after reading his press comment that the Beatles would be "broke in six months" if things continued as they were. Klein was willing to break precedent, and only take a commission on increased business; if Apple continued to lose money, he would be paid nothing.[5] After a meeting at Klein's suite in the Dorchester Hotel (opposite London's Hyde Park), where Klein impressed Lennon with both his in-depth knowledge of Lennon's work (he could quote lyrics from all of his songs) and his "streetwise" attitude and language, Lennon convinced George Harrison and Ringo Starr that Klein should take over instead. McCartney agreed to pose for photographs with Klein as a show of unity, pretending to sign a new contract, but he never put his signature on the paper. This fundamental disagreement about who should manage them, fueled by a years-long buildup of resentments and insecurity about other matters such as power and influence within the group, was one of the key factors in the eventual break-up. In 1969, Klein re-negotiated their contract with EMI, granting them the highest royalties ever paid to an artist at that time; 69 cents per $6–7 album. In exchange, EMI was allowed to repackage earlier Beatles material as compilations, which Brian Epstein had not permitted. Klein oversaw the issuing of the single "Something"/"Come Together," at a crucial point when Apple needed income. He helped to conclude the troubled Get Back project (released as Let It Be), by bringing Phil Spector to England to work on the tapes. He also transformed office habits at Apple, installing a time clock for the staff and insisting meals be pre-ordered from the building's kitchen instead of cooked on demand. Klein slashed expenditures at Apple, cancelled payouts and charge accounts for many Beatles associates, and friends of friends, who had worked or consulted for the company. On the other hand, Klein also managed to alienate many of the people who had previously been part of the Beatles's business and personal circle, with his abrasive style of management and negotiation. His cost-cutting measures at Apple included what was considered by some to be the "cold-blooded" firing of many of the employees who had flocked to the band's experiment in "western Communism" (including the erratic Magic Alex, and Epstein's old friend Alistair Taylor). Klein also closed the Zapple Records imprint, supervised by McCartney's friend, Barry Miles. He spoke occasionally at Apple and Beatles press conferences; a reporter for the London Evening Standard remarked later that Klein "must have set some kind of record for unprintable language" at one such conference. He was also unable to save Northern Songs from a buyout by ATV, which took away ownership of nearly all the band's song copyrights. McCartney continued to distrust Klein, though admitting to him at one point "If you are screwing us, I don't see how." Following their informal agreement to split in late 1969, he eventually sued the other three Beatles for what he called "a divorce," and the Beatles as a business unit came to an end. McCartney has stated he chose to legally dissolve the Beatles rather than allow Klein to milk and diminish their artistic legacy. [edit]Solo Beatles Klein helped Lennon and Ono with their film Imagine, and helped Harrison to organize The Concert for Bangladesh. It was here that his reputation started to unravel. Rather than prearrange matters with UNICEF, Klein waited until after the concert to approach them, leading to questions about the proceeds, and finally a US tax investigation. While a cheque was cut at the time, additional proceeds meant for UNICEF were frozen in an escrow account until the 1980s. Also, Klein had sided with Harrison in believing Yoko Ono should not perform at the concert, wanting Lennon to appear without her, causing Lennon to cool on Klein. After several suits and countersuits, Klein settled for a final payment of £3.5 million in 1977. In 1978, he was parodied by John Belushi as "Ron Decline" in the TV film All You Need Is Cash (a roman à clef with the Beatles turned into The Rutles). In 1979, Klein was sentenced to two months in jail for tax evasion after helping himself to the proceeds from the sale of promotional copies of the Concert For Bangladesh triple album.[6] It turned out Klein and Harrison were not completely finished with each other. While Klein had supported and advised Harrison during the first phase of his "My Sweet Lord" lawsuit, Klein later bought Bright Tunes, the music publishing company that sued Harrison, thus becoming his legal opponent. A judge ruled later that Klein had unfairly switched sides of the lawsuit, and it counted against Klein in court. (Harrison ultimately became the owner of "He's So Fine", the song at the heart of the case.) Phil Spector Klein bought the rights to music produced by Phil Spector, such as the Philles Records and Phil Spector International catalogs, in the 1980s. The Stranger films Klein produced a trilogy of spaghetti westerns starring and written by Tony Anthony. A Stranger In Town and The Stranger Returns were released in the USA by MGM. A dispute with MGM over the last of the three, The Silent Stranger, led to it not being released for seven years after production. Klein and Anthony also collaborated on the film Blindman, featuring Ringo Starr as a Mexican bandito. Klein also appeared briefly on camera, in a similar role. [edit]Alejandro Jodorowsky films Lennon, after seeing and being impressed with Chilean director Alejandro Jodorowsky's El Topo, persuaded Klein to buy the rights and bankroll Jodorowsky's next film, The Holy Mountain (1973). The Jodorowsky-Klein collaboration was an artistic success, but plans for a follow-up never materialized. Witnessing the commercial success of hard-core pornographic films, such as Deep Throat and The Devil In Miss Jones, which broke through to the mainstream, Klein saw similar potential in Pauline Réage's bestseller The Story Of O, but Jodorowsky walked out on the deal. In retribution, Klein withdrew every print of El Topo and The Holy Mountain from US distribution, and turned down all subsequent requests by film festivals. Both films were withdrawn from circulation in the US for more than 30 years, making sporadic, bootleg appearances on video – and being usually only of poor quality. Jodorowsky publicly endorsed these pirated copies of his work, since he was unable to show or distribute the films legally (within the US). Both El Topo and The Holy Mountain were screened as part of a retrospective of Jodorowsky's work at the 7th annual Chicago Underground Film Festival in 2000. The dispute over the films ended in 2004, when Jody Klein contacted Jodorowsky and offered a reconciliation. In response to the films' re-appearance, both the Cannes and London Film Festivals have organised gala screenings.[7] Both films are also available on DVD and Blu-Ray.[8] [edit]The Verve On their song "Bittersweet Symphony," the British rock group The Verve sampled an orchestration from Andrew Loog Oldham's version of The Rolling Stones' "The Last Time," the rights to which are owned by Klein's ABKCO Industries. Before the release of the album, The Verve negotiated a licensing agreement with Klein, who administered The Stones' catalogue, to use the sample (or at least the compositional rights to the sample). In 1997, The Verve's album Urban Hymns peaked at No. 23 on the Billboard charts. A bitter legal battle ensued, resulting in The Verve turning over 100% of the royalties to ABKCO. Klein argued that The Verve had violated the previous licensing agreement by using too much of the sample in their song. Capitalizing off the success of the song, Klein licensed The Verve's "Bittersweet Symphony" to Nike, who proceeded to run a multi-million dollar television campaign using The Verve's song over shots of its sneakers. Klein also allowed the song to be used in advertisements for Vauxhall automobiles. (Additionally, though the song was authored by The Rolling Stones, the Andrew Loog Oldham Orchestra performed the sampled recording, and also filed suit upon the success of the song.) When "Bittersweet Symphony" was nominated for a Grammy Award, Mick Jagger and Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones were named as the nominees, rather than The Verve. [edit]Death Klein died in New York City on July 4, 2009 of Alzheimer's disease.[1][4] References ^ a b Sisario, Ben (July 5, 2009). "Allen Klein, 77, Dies; Managed Music Legends". The New York Times. Retrieved April 23, 2010. ^ news.bbc.co.uk ^ "After Brian died we collapsed. Paul took over and supposedly led us." John Lennon, Lennon Remembers: The Rolling Stone Interviews, Jann Wenner, Popular Library 1971 (paperback), pg. 51 ^ a b "Former Beatles, Stones manager Allen Klein dies". Reuters. July 4, 2009. Retrieved 2009-07-05. ^ "Allen Klein". The Daily Telegraph (London). July 5, 2009. ^ The Independent (London). July 6, 2009. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/allen-klein-notorious-business-manager-for-the-beatles-and-the-rolling-stones-1732780.html. ^ Sight & Sound magazine, vol. 17, issue 5, May 2007, p. 92 ^ the website of Abkco Films