Allen Klein, music businessman of Beatles infamy
Dec. 18, 1931—July 4, 2009
NEW YORK (AP)—Music manager Allen Klein, a no-holds- barred businessman who bulldozed his way into and out of deals with the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, died Saturday, a publicist for his company said. He was 77.
Klein, who was one of the most powerful figures in the music business in the 1960s but ended up feuding with some of his biggest clients, died at his New York City home of Alzheimer’s disease, said Bob Merlis, publicist for ABKCO Music &Records.
An accountant known for his brashness, temper and tenacity in tracking down royalties and getting better record deals, Klein garnered clients including Sam Cooke, Bobby Darin and Herman’s Hermits.
But he became most famous —and later infamous—for signing on the Rolling Stones and then the Beatles. Both arrangements eventually spurred lawsuits, with some Beatles fans blaming Klein for contributing to the tensions that broke up the group.
Klein was convicted of tax fraud in 1979 and served two months in prison for failing to report income from sales of promotional records by the Beatles and other groups; the records were supposed to have been given away. The Rolling Stones grew so infuriated with Klein—whose company still owns an enormous chunk of their 1960s songs—that Mick Jagger once chased him down the hall of a posh hotel.
Klein set his sights on managing the Beatles and saw his chance when their longtime manager, Brian Epstein, died in 1967.
Initially rebuffed, Klein eventually won John Lennon’s favor.
“He not only knew my work, and the lyrics that I had written, but he also understood them, and from way back. That was it,” Lennon told an interviewer in 1970.
The group hired Klein in 1969 over the objections of Paul McCartney, who preferred his father-in-law, Lee Eastman.
But his relationship with the Beatles was bitter and shortlived. The group broke up the next year, and McCartney sued his bandmates in an effort to break free from Klein, an action once unthinkable among the harmonious foursome. McCartney went on to revile Klein in a 1997 biography, “Paul McCartney: Many Years From Now.”
The other Beatles lost faith in Klein and sued him in the mid-1970s. Lennon sent him off in song in “Steel and Glass,” which describes how “your mouthpiece squawks as he spreads your lies.”
Klein was born in Newark,
N. J., on Dec. 18, 1931, and spent several years in an orphanage after his mother’s death during his infancy. He was later raised by a grandmother and an aunt.
Klein graduated from Upsala College and served in the U. S. Army before joining a Manhattan accounting firm, according to his company.
He started his own firm, which later became ABKCO, in the late 1950s. Besides managing music, he co-produced 1971’s “The Concert for Bangladesh,” a forerunner of modern charity concerts.
Log into MyBuffalo to post a comment
MyBuffalo is the new social network from Buffalo.com. Your MyBuffalo account lets you comment on and rate stories at buffalonews.com. You can also head over to mybuffalo.com to share your blog posts, stories, photos, and videos with the community. Join now or learn more.
Reader comments