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Home , Austin Powers, Capricorn Records, Mick Jagger, Paul Pena, Phil Walden, Robert Stigwood

BARON WOLMAN Allman Brothers’ former manager, , center, with the co-founders of .

from infamous to professional

By Chris Hodenfield

regg Allman is doing O.K. these days. He can laugh about his storied BARON WOLMAN past, and does so in a wheeze that sounds part gospel moan and part Gexhausted truck driver. His career in has certainly been an epic. “I am probably up for the Guinness Book of World Records for having the jivest, thievingest, most crooked managers in the world,” says the singer who put the tattoos on , laughing brightly. He’s got a new guy now and his career is on the upswing again. But there were times, he recalls, when the Allman Brothers’ record sales had gone past 30 mil- lion and he was still living on $150 a week. Sure, much of his fortune was lost in opium dens and divorce court, but still. Something had surely gone wrong.

57 Maybe it was the financial advice? With one of his past managers, he swears, he knew he was paying the medical and dental for the whole office, but the last straw came when his American Express bill showed the manager had put his daughter’s wedding on Allman’s card. Below, and his former manager, Phil Walden. Like so many musicians who became popular in the turbulent 1970’s, the Allman Brothers made deals that moved them out of obscurity, but often at a price that would give a man a serious case of the . The Allmans’ first manager, Phil Walden, brought them into a deal that closed around them like a Venus flytrap. “He had what I would call five fingers in the pie,” Allman recalls. “There’s laws against this now. He was the booking agent, our travel agent, our manager. He had my publishing there for a while, and he owned the record company.” The manager owned the record company? This wouldn’t result in any artificially low royalties, would it? Allman’s short answer: “Yes. It did.” “Now it’s against the law for a manager to advise a client to sign with a record company that he owns any of. They fixed all that, thank God.” As Allman moaned on about the conflicting interests that characterized his early career, I could not help but think of a lovely afternoon I’d spent with Phil Walden. During that period I was writing about rock bands for and happened to be at a wedding reception for comedian Martin Mull, who grabbed me by one elbow and Walden by the other, plunked us at a table and said, “Rolling Stone, meet Capricorn Records. Have fun.” Walden was sunny and wise, politically astute (he fig- ured prominently in Jimmy Carter’s presidential run) and had stories about being on the road with . He even mailed me clippings about him and his lovely family. Gosh, I thought, what a great guy. One wouldn’t have guessed that he’d end up getting sued out the wazoo by the Allmans, forcing his record company into bankruptcy to avoid paying back royalties, and certain other ignominious ballads in his final slide from grace and . “I am probably up for the Guinness Book of World Records for having the jivest, thievingest, most crooked managers in the world.” —GREGG ALLMAN CORBIS

58 briefings on talent + LEADERSHIP GETTY IMAGES he 70’s was rock’s Renaissance decade. FM radio was music’s dark corners. In the 50’s and 60’s, record labels were still independent and bursting with adventurous known to be money-laundering operations for organized crime. T music. and had battered Artists never knew who was poaching from their accounts. down the creative walls, and now all musical styles were in In the 1950’s, was forced to give half his the mix — folk, pop, surf, psychedelic, jazz, singer-song- publishing rights on his song “Maybelline” to disc jockey/ writer, blues, Indian, Celtic. Fans still bought records. The impresario Alan Freed just to get the song played. Berry latest revolutionary howl could be nabbed at Montgomery spent years suing to get the rights back. If the original blues Wards for three bucks. musicians and who wrote all those standards As a fresh-faced rock writer who sat in the mud at ever earned a royalty check, it was, as Allman noted ruefully, , I could see how that festival pushed things “just enough to keep them in alligator shoes.” to a new level in one summer weekend in 1969. Business- The most famous rock manager was ’s people might have been oblivious to top 40 charts and Dutch-born Svengali, Col. Tom Parker, who took 50 percent -ticket sales of the earlier era, but no one could of Elvis's earnings. For many managers of the day, giving the miss the spectacle of a half-million fans drawn to a place artist even 50 percent seemed generous. as if by some mystic force. Up until the early 70’s, record deals weren’t all that lucra- Immediately, businesspeople wanted to know what it tive, so management pushed performers into punishing tour was all about. The questions came flying. This was a market. schedules. Today’s basement guitarists who treasure their Scores of bands rushed to the scene, every one of them Cream CDs might be amazed to know that the explosive adhering to the admonition, “The road of excess leads to British of the late 60’s was crammed into station of wisdom.” So said William Blake, who for some wagons, sent to high school gyms all across America and, reason forgot the parts about bankruptcy court and rehab. in general, dumped into living situations that led to mutual Of course, there had long been a crooked element in pop loathing and disruption.

CORBIS Above, Elvis Presley with his manager, Col. Tom Parker.

GETTY IMAGES 2013 : Q4 korn/ferry INTERNATIONAL 59 In one year, the Allman Brothers did 300 shows — and other musicians and formed this imposter band. Why? Because they were always long shows that went into the night. Is it he felt he owned the name. After a raft of lawsuits, Davis found any wonder they resorted to bad medicine? “We were pushed himself on the outs. to exhaustion,” Allman says. “But when you’re 23, you think If Davis had only looked around, he would have seen a you’re bulletproof.” new kind of management taking hold, one that provided a An astonishing number of major talents in that period had stark contrast to the classic model in which managers were very short careers. The death of was particularly masterminds and talent were marionettes. galling to many musicians, as it was known that his mysterious critical figure in this manager, Mike Jeffery, worked transitional period Hendrix into the ground. Would A was Peter Asher, Hendrix have survived and a Mod-style singer from prospered past the age of 27 if he swinging whose toothy, had been managed differently? bespectacled look would later But musicians began to be copied by for wake up. By the 70’s, they were his Austin Powers character. As becoming cultural spokes- half of Peter & Gordon, he had people, taken seriously in the enjoyed a number of hits in the press. Records were selling by 1960’s. When the duet broke the millions. Artists no longer up, Asher, a bright fellow who’d wanted to be disposable cash studied philosophy at London’s machines, enslaved by man- King's College, went to work agement. A power shift was as an A&R man at the Beatles’ inevitable. new label, Apple. He had good When the new style of recommendations. His sister management arrived, it helped Jane had dated Paul McCartney bring about a flowering of for two years, and McCartney creativity. The successes of Mick Jagger and Peter Asher in 1967. had quite often bunked at the that period provide valuable Asher family home. lessons for any business leader The Beatles had ambitious operating in a sphere where as well as idealistic hopes production starts with creative people. Business, after all, for Apple, but Asher thought it was a madhouse. He did, always dominates creative. When creative input is appreci- however, find one artist he admired — , a soft- ated, you get the Apple Computer of 1990–2010. If not, you spoken singer from North Carolina. As the two struggled might end up with failure. to get a record off the ground, they grew increasingly disen- The lessons on how not to manage a rock band were chanted with Apple’s business turmoil. The Beatles decided plentiful. Just look at and infamous “fake to bring in a “fixer” from , the controversial Mac.” In 1973, the road-weary band felt was right wheeler-dealer Allan Klein. to have a vacation, write some songs and think about a new Klein had just “fixed” the business affairs of the Rolling direction. They were in the process of transitioning from a Stones, with “repairs” that would soon get him fired by the hard-nosed band to a gentler outfit band. Klein ended up owning all the Stones’ music made in with a romantic air that would eventually go huge. But the 1960’s. while they were vacationing they learned that some other “When Allan Klein arrived,” Asher recalls, sitting at “Fleetwood Mac” was out on the road, doing . his desk in Los Angeles, “I knew Allan by reputation from CORBIS Their manager, Clifford Davis, it turned out, had hired friends in New York. So I was convinced he was not going

2000 2001 2001

CONTINUED The dot-com XM Satellite Radio Corporate accounting scandals begin, FROM PAGE 55 bubble reaches its goes live with 100 with energy giant Enron, soon followed climax and bursts. channels. by WorldCom and Tyco.

60 briefings on talent + LEADERSHIP to be the right person for the job of taking over and reorga- Asher, suddenly a proven success, gave the same treat- nizing Apple in an efficient way. Paul and John agreed this ment to . The pop singer, he says, is a very was the mission but disagreed vehemently on who it should intelligent woman who had suffered years of managers be. James had met Allan once and shared my opinion.” telling her, “Don’t worry your pretty little head.” He let her Asher and Taylor quit the Beatles empire and left for create the music from within, and again, it was magical. America. At the time, it seemed a rash move. Instead of being merely “chick singer, pop folk,” she could “The only reason I became a manager is that James and now do soul, oldies, Mexican, even a full torch-singer I didn’t know who we trusted to do it. It wasn’t something number with the Nelson Riddle Orchestra. that I knew in advance how to do. Therefore,” he says with a It was Beatles’ thinking all over again. And it’s critical laugh, “I made it up as I went along.” to note the contrast with the many promising bands that Asher had some ideas of what he didn’t want. His tours failed because of the manager or record company executive of America as a singer had been a mess. Peter & Gordon’s who had a Big Idea and forced the artists to put on some manager was part of a big, well-connected firm, but he was metaphorical monkey suit. oblivious to their lives and never joined them on the road. Asher let the artists out. His success begat more hit They would later learn that their agent was afraid of flying. records, and the unique aspect was that he was both By contrast, Asher was prepared to offer complete devo- managing careers and hiring himself out as a producer. His tion. He compares his journey to that of : “He other clients included J.D. Souther and . wasn’t a manager — he ran a record shop. But he found the By 1995, he was able to quit managing and join Beatles originally and believed in them so intensely that he as senior vice president. Having seen the business from the became a manager.” other side of the desk, he knew all the fibs and stretchers Being a manager in that era, of course, offered a lot of record companies told clients and he determined, in his what musicians call “the side benefits.” ’s rough- seven-year stint as Corporate Guy, not to lie to the artists. housing manager, Peter Grant, certainly lived a more deca- dent life shepherding a pretty-boy British blues band around than he had in his earlier days as a bouncer and wrestler. One “The only reason of the toughest, shrewdest managers in the business, Grant I became a manager fought (sometimes literally) to get his band the better deals until at last the rock star life caught up with him. is that ... I didn’t Asher, once he set up in Los Angeles in 1969, went on to know who we write several chapters in the history of pop. He invited L.A. musicians to his living room and from them assembled a trusted to do it.” group to — gently — back up Taylor on his recording of a —peter asher new . To their astonishment, the autobiographical lament “Fire and Rain” would seize the public imagination. sher’s style of management was emulated and taken “We were only hoping to sell out the folk clubs,” Asher to new places. Two mailroom guys from William says, voice rising, “not Madison Square Garden. Not be on AMorris named Elliot Roberts and David Geffen the cover of Time. That wasn’t in the plans at all. Although worked their way into the management of folk acts, starting we had no objections!” with Buffy Sainte-Marie, Joni Mitchell and Jackson Browne. Not only did Taylor catch on, the sound itself caught on. The two guys weren’t musicians, but in their faded Laurel The musicians Asher had assembled, led by Russell Kunkel Canyon jeans, they looked like musicians. In contrast to the and Danny Kortchmar, were so much in demand that they cigar-chompers of yore, these long-haired managers were became known as the Section, the hidden purveyors of comfortable hanging out with their artist-clients, and the the soft-rock hits that gushed blissfully from Hollywood staff could comfortably get high with them, too. CORBIS recording studios. Taylor’s success cleared a path for dozens They might have looked mellow, but Geffen and Roberts of other singer-songwriters. were not above some screaming into the phone and coming

2001 Apple transforms the way music is sold and played with the release of the iPod portable media player and, along with it, iTunes.

2013 : Q4 korn/ferry INTERNATIONAL 61 on like Gen. Patton with promoters and record labels. influence in the business when he expanded from mere Result: Huge record deals. Geffen and Roberts’s Lookout agenting in the 60’s into record production, his own RSO Management scored with Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young label, theatrical productions (“” and “Jesus Christ prying more-lucrative album advances out of the record Superstar”) and film (“Saturday ”). companies. Now the rock ’n’ roll deal had really changed. For all those successes, though, Stigwood botched his Was it all to the good? Not always. Now surrounded by handling of . After the Cream breakup, Clapton loyal consigliere, walled off by wealth and illegal alkaloids, wanted to make quieter, more adventurous music with his a number of great musicians rode out the decade on a fast old chum . They formed a band called Blind train to isolation and oblivion. Faith. Instead of letting the band develop in friendly clubs and As a writer, I loved interviewing the acts who were concert halls, Stigwood made their premiere — as a supergroup veterans of the road and not surrounded by the psycho- — an outdoor concert in front of 300,000 people in Hyde Park. logical walls. shambled through his house, Their New York debut was one of the saddest concerts I ever squeezed his teabags with his fingers, let me play his guitars, talked like a guy. Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull would point out most emphatically the importance of a man paying his own bills and writing his own checks. ate a plate of ribs while he messed with a piano’s electronics, shocking himself repeatedly but, you know, asking about things and how are you, anyway? Then there were the huffy rock stars. The frequently repeated legend about the Eagles was that they were caught at the Los Angeles airport one night without a limo and called up Lookout Management in a real snit. The office underling who sped out to rescue them was Irving Azoff, who gave them undying, no-questions, take-a-bullet allegiance. Thus a man- ager/tycoon’s career was born. He’s still with them. Azoff’s secret? Sheer relentlessness, of course. But he also has this gusto and amused glint that makes you want to hang with him, play a round of golf, just do something fun. and in 1974. For its cool California image, Lookout Management was brutally ambitious. Geffen created the Asylum in 1970, and in so doing formulated a new manager/ saw. The band was placed on a rotating stage in the middle of producer paradigm that was just as significant as Asher’s. Madison Square Garden where they spun around and around Managers running a record label, however, raised serious while a chintzy sound system emanated a trickle of music. Win- questions about conflicts of interest, requiring that they wood, spooked, high tailed back to his English cottage. Clapton, carefully section off the workload. It seemed to work: They adrift, joined Delaney & Bonnie as a sideman. helped create the Eagles, managed them and watched the , it was clear, wasn’t managed. It was milked. band sell millions of records on Asylum. Clapton, however, was somewhat forgiving. He knew that In two years, they were able to sell the label to Warner earlier in his career, Stigwood had used Cream’s revenues to for $7 million in cash and stock. Geffen, suddenly a major bring the over from . But he felt it was a shareholder of the new Warner-Elektra-Asylum combine, family, and Stigwood didn’t pressure him when he became left management for the highest ranks of moguldom. a junkie. Eventually Clapton would go the way of other top

It wasn’t the first time musical management had acts and just have a manager who worked for him. His main CORBIS branched into production. Robert Stigwood, the Australian- handler at Stigwood, Roger Forrester, was a quiet, efficient born music tycoon based in London, proved to be a seismic man who was utterly dedicated to Clapton’s well-being.

2008 2012 America faces the Great Recession, the worst South Korean singer Psy becomes a global downturn to hit the nation since the Great sensation after his for “Gangnam Depression, according to many economists. Style” exceeds 1 billion views on YouTube.

62 briefings on talent + LEADERSHIP Besides loyalty, the new breed of manager possessed That sort of bullying manner, not to mention the commis- another key trait: They listened to the acts’ music and had sion and the cut of the music publishing, is what drove Dylan bona fide creative suggestions. Two influential managers away at last. Grossman would die during a flight on the Con- came from the ranks of rock criticism. Crawdaddy! writer corde, a man famous to the end for his willingness to say no. Sandy Pearlman was a poet and philosopher who named, configured and launched Blue Oyster Cult. he business has since changed enormously. Record A fellow critic, Jon Landau, wrote a rave review of Bruce labels, kneecapped by digital freebies, are not only Springsteen that earned a phone call from the singer. In no T stingy with the artists, they push hard on what’s called time, Landau was in the studio creating the hit “Born in the “the 360 deal,” wherein the label gets a percentage of the artist’s U.S.A.” and stepping into the role of manager. tour and endorsement income. This works well for someone For every success story like the Springsteen-Landau like who gets one-stop-shopping for career manage- bonding (they are still at it today), the era produced a dozen ment, but for struggling musicians it’s just brutal. less-favorable outcomes, which is only natural when ego and As Gregg Allman sings, “When I think about the old days, fame collide. Lord, it sends chills up and down my spine.” Take the case of , the first kingpin of The continued work of someone like Allman, though, is the folk-music world. A former club operator, he had the reason enough not to call him “geezer.” His new manager, savvy to put together three singers as Peter, Paul & Mary and Michael Lehman, would rather you use the term “heritage” gain further fame as Bob Dylan’s manager. He cut a striking act. The New Jersey-based manager acknowledges that many figure. Tall, with big, sweeping hair and flashy clothes, he of that era are now resigned to make a living just by touring. had a way of standing in front of you like some malevolent “Many of the heritage artists thought maybe their time Buddha. His Dylan connection helped him attract the likes of being creative and making a record was passed.” It was of the Band and Janis Joplin. Lehman who persuaded Allman to write his autobiography His 25 percent fee was 10 percent larger than normal, and (which became a best seller), and it was Lehman who pushed he excused himself by boasting that he automatically made Allman into using the unorthodox T-Bone clients 10 percent smarter. Grossman was an implacable Burnett, who helped create a remarkably original album, negotiator and something of a bully. “Albert loved to say “Low Country Blues,” which became a chart-topper. ‘no,’ ” the Band’s Robbie Robertson once told me with an “There are so many ways they can monetize their music,” evil cackle. But saying “no” is why none of Grossman’s bands says Lehman, who has gotten Allman’s music into a pharma- appeared in the movie “Woodstock.” ceutical campaign and into ads by Bank of America and Geico. Perhaps there was something of the cult leader in the “Michael is a straight-shooter — you couldn’t beat a lie big managers’ hearts. Phil Walden saw himself as the boss out of him,” says Allman, happy at last, as he describes what pathfinder of Southern Rock to be located in a city of his makes music management work. choosing, Macon, Ga. Similarly, Grossman started a studio “They need to keep your best interests foremost in mind. and record label in Woodstock, N.Y., called it Bearsville and They’ve got to know how you feel, your likes and dislikes. bid his musical soldiers to join him there. Michael even knows how I like my coffee. That’s the man- Guitarist Paul Pena recorded a fine album with producer ager’s thing, to know his client second to no other man or Ben Sidran called “New Train,” whereupon Grossman woman. Michael doesn’t accept anything without running it demanded that Pena move to Woodstock. Pena, being blind, past me, even if it’s ‘Hey, we want you to play 10 minutes for could not move to the country. Grossman then refused to half a million.’ ” release the record. The beautifully talented Pena’s career And that, Allman sighs as if it were the end of a song, died on the spot. A song from the unreleased record, “Jet “that’s the way it should be.” K/F Airliner,” made it into the hands of Sidran’s pal, Steve Miller,

CORBIS who then turned it into a hit (even if it was not as good as chris hodenfield, writing for Rolling Stone, traveled with Pena’s original). Pena had only the residuals to keep him many rock bands in the 1970’s and 80’s before moving on to film and warm in his poverty-stricken final years. sports journalism. He is presently wrting a book about 70’s rock.

2013 2013 iTunes surpasses 25 billion paid reaches music downloads, as digital music 1.11 billion monthly sales surpass physical sales. active users.

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