Controversial manager Allen Klein, whose clients famously included The Beatles and The Rolling Stones, has died in New York at the age of 77. He had been suffering from Alzheimer's disease.
He began his career in the financial sector, auditing accounts for showbiz types, unearthing owed royalties, and splitting the proceeds with the artists. It was when he worked for Sam Cooke in the early sixties that he began to be more directly involved in the music industry, becoming the singer's business manager. From there, he went on to buy a record label, and subsequently become co-manager of The Rolling Stones. He famously fell out of favour with Jagger et al in the late sixties, and in subsequent litigation was awarded the rights to most of the songs the band recorded prior to 1971.
By the end of the sixties, Klein was working for The Beatles, who hired him, at the suggestion of John Lennon, to sort out the financial mess the band found themselves in following the death of Brian Epstein. Paul McCartney never trusted him, however, and many working with the Beatles at that time were shocked by Klein's abrasive management style and his ruthless cost cutting measures at the band's Apple company.
Klein's family controlled ABKCO Music & Records, is one of the larger music companies in the independent sector, and is presently run by his son Jody. Its assets include the aforementioned Stones recordings, as well as the rights to material by the likes of Ray Davies and Pete Townshend.
Klein's business practices and ruthlessness were notorious, and reviled by many, but the businessman was unrepentant. He told Playboy magazine in 1971: "Don't talk to me about ethics. Every man makes his own. It's like a war. You choose your side early and from then on, you're being shot at. The man you beat is likely to call you unethical. So what?"
It's also claimed that he kept a misquoted bit of text from the bible on his desk: "Though I walk in the shadow of the valley of evil, I have no fear, as I am the biggest bastard in the valley".