Sunday, July 05, 2009

Allen Klein Dies

Picture is Copyright AP

Everyone blames Yoko Ono for the break up of the Beatles, but I think if anyone outside the group itself is to blame it's probably Allen Klein. Klein was a manager hired by John Lennon and than agreed to by George and Ringo, but fiercely opposed to by Paul McCartney. This had more to do with their eventual split than anything Yoko did.

Klein started his career as an accountant. His first major act was Sam Cooke, who he managed to get Sam Cooke the rights to all his future recordings. Later he bought out Andrew Long Oldham, the manager of the Rolling Stones, to become the Stones manager. Within a few years the Stones fired him, but he managed to retain the copyrights to the majority of their songs recorded before 1971.

He started a company, ABKCO (Allen and Betty Klein Company) that ended up owning the copyrights to thousands of popular songs, from the Stones to the Animals, Herman's Hermits, Chubby Checker and many others.

Klein died July 4 in New York City of Alzheimer's Disease.


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3 comments:

Vinny "Bond" Marini said...

He had his fingers in the breakup...no doubt.

Travis Cody said...

I read about his death, but I didn't know much about the history.

Aaron said...

oh dear :(


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