This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.
Business News Industry People Labels & Publishers
Stein expands role as Tortella exits Warner Music
By Chris Cooke | Published on Tuesday 11 June 2013
American record industry veteran Seymour Stein has confirmed he is expanding his role at Warner Music by also supporting the major label’s independent distribution arm the Alternative Distribution Alliance.
Stein has been a senior A&R within Warner Bros Records for decades while also overseeing Sire Records, the imprint label that he co-founded as an independent back in 1966. In his new role, as well as seeking artists to sign directly to the major, Stein will also advise on indie labels and self-releasing artists which ADA might want to work with. And while remaining US-based, this will include labels and artists Stein discovers on his various international travels, especially in emerging markets.
Discussing his newly expanded role, Stein told reporters: “Technically, I’ve not been an indie since Sire joined Warner back in the late 70s, but that indie spirit has always been very much in my heart, soul and mind. To me, being an indie is being out there in the streets, the way my mentors like Syd Nathan at King Records, Jerry Wexler and Ahmet Ertegun at Atlantic, George Goldner at Red Bird and Leonard Chess were identifying talent and changes in music long before the majors. In fact, I never saw Warner Music as a major label on its own, but rather a coalition of three great indie labels; Atlantic, Reprise and Elektra, headed by pioneers such as Ahmet and Jerry as well as Jac Holzman, Mo Ostin and Joe Smith”.
Elsewhere in Warner Music executive movements, Livia Tortella, COO at Warner Bros Records in the US, is departing the major. Her exiting follows that of her colleague and ally at the Warner division Todd Moscowitz, who was Warner Bros CEO until last December. Since his departure Tortella has reported into Cameron Strang, the boss of Warner’s music publishing business who has risen in power at the major in the last year, taking over responsibility for chunks of the company’s American recorded music operations too.
