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: Outside Counsel

By Bill Altreuter

There's been a slew of interesting people dying lately: Jacko, of course, and poor Farah, who deserved a weekend news cycle to herself, just on the strength of that Noxzema commercial with Joe Namath. I really should get around to programing a Karl Malden retrospective, and what about Steve McNair?

The obit that really grabs me though is Allen Klein's. Managed the Beatles and the Stones-- and Bobby Darin, Sam Cooke, the Kinks, and a bunch of others. I like this story from the Guardian's obit, which seems to capture the man in full: "His first client was the soul music star Sam Cooke, who was unable to get royalty payments from his record company, RCA. 'Sam said, "Well, what do you think?",' Klein told Cooke's biographer Peter Guralnick. 'I said, "I think they're treating you like a nigger, and that's terrible - you shouldn't let them do it."' Klein succeeded in releasing the monies owed to Cooke and soon established a corporation to own the rights to Cooke's future recordings." In other words, he was a tough negotiator, who really went to bat for his clients, but he was also a double-dealing gonif who didn't flinch from conflicts of interest. He died owning the rights to a big catalog, including a bunch of Stones' songs.

Full post as published by Outside Counsel on July 06, 2009 (boomark / email).