Allen Klein

Allen Klein
Allen Klein (center) signing the Beatles
Born	(1931-12-18)December 18, 1931 Newark, New Jersey
Died	July 4, 2009(2009-07-04) (aged 77) New York, New York
Nationality	United States
Alma mater	Upsala College
Occupation	Accountant, record label owner, business manager
Years active	1956–2009
Organization	ABKCO Records

Allen Klein (December 18, 1931 – July 4, 2009) was an American businessman, music publisher, writers' representative, filmmaker and record label executive, most noted for his tough persona and aggressive, innovative negotiation tactics, many of which established higher industry standards for compensating recording artists. He founded ABKCO Music & Records Incorporated. Klein revolutionized the income potential of recording artists, who previously had been routinely victimized by onerous record company contracts. He first scored massive monetary and contractual windfalls for Buddy Knox and Jimmy Bowen, one-hit rockabillies of the late 1950s, then parlayed his early successes into a position managing Sam Cooke, and eventually managed the Beatles and the Rolling Stones simultaneously, along with many other artists, becoming one of the most powerful individuals in the music industry during his era.

Rather than offering financial advice and maximizing his clients' income, as a business manager normally would, Klein set up what he called "buy/sell agreements" where a company owned by Klein became an intermediary between his client and the record label, owning the rights to the music, manufacturing the records, selling them to the record label, and paying royalties and cash advances to the client. Although Klein greatly increased his clients' incomes he also enriched himself, sometimes without his clients' knowledge (the Rolling Stones $1.25M advance from Decca in 1965 was deposited into a company that Klein set up and the fine print of the contract didn't require Klein to release it for 20 years). Klein's involvement with both the Beatles and Rolling Stones would lead to years of litigation and, specifically for the Rolling Stones, accusations from the group that Klein had withheld royalty payments, stole the publishing rights to their songs, and neglected to pay their taxes for five years (necessitating their French "exile" in 1971).

After years of pursuit by the IRS, Klein was convicted of a misdemeanor charge of making a false statement on his 1972 tax return, for which he spent two months of 1980 in jail.

Klein was born in Newark, New Jersey, the fourth child and only son of Jewish immigrants. His mother died of cancer very soon afterward, and Klein lived for a time with his grandparents, then subsequently in a Jewish orphanage, until his father remarried shortly before Klein's 10th birthday. In early work experience with a magazine and newspaper distribution company he showed an astounding facility with numbers, and learned alarming lessons about how profits were often systematically concealed from those who deserved them. Eventually he would realize that much the same situation existed in popular music, where labels routinely took much profit from the transitory careers of the artists who created the profit-generating music, and gave precious little back.