Allen Klein: The Man Who Transformed Rock & Roll

by Fred Goodman

  Eric Easton, not Oldham, had negotiated the band’s publishing and recording contracts, and Klein couldn’t be sure there weren’t extensions in the works or even contracts and discussions that Andrew didn’t know of; Oldham had already moved out of Easton’s offices and stopped speaking to him. Andrew—and not the Stones—was Allen’s client, and Klein wasn’t sure that gave him enough authority to negotiate on the band’s behalf. He knew he wouldn’t get anywhere without the Stones’ imprimatur.

  He told Oldham he was sure he could get the Stones rich new record deals in both Britain and the U.S. but that he wouldn’t negotiate without their permission. Andrew said they should speak with Mick Jagger.

  There were a lot of reasons to pick Jagger. Brian Jones, the founding force behind the band, had been the original leader and the one who’d made the production and management agreements with Andrew and Eric, but the others quickly stopped trusting him when they discovered Jones had negotiated an additional five-pound-a-week bonus for himself. Worse, success didn’t agree with Brian. He had a yen for the spotlight, scant self-discipline, and a taste for drugs that he couldn’t handle. Whatever real enthusiasm he had for the music, Brian was a nightmare of a band mate and increasingly undependable. When he discovered LSD during an early American tour, he simply disappeared for days on end and failed to show up for concerts. Before long, the others, particularly Jagger and Richards, were imagining how much nicer life would be without him.

  “I never saw a guy so much affected by fame,” Richards said. “He became a pain in the neck, a kind of rotting attachment.” Oldham, who shared their frustrations, was busily monitoring and manipulating the band’s factionalism, particularly as it related to Easton. He viewed both Jones and Wyman as Easton supporters. “Bill and Brian did not feel threatened by Eric Easton, but they did feel threatened for different reasons by me, Mick, and Keith,” Oldham said. “Brian had been ‘the leader’ of the group at a time when he was carrying on the negotiations with Eric and I, and he enjoyed the power of going back and telling them what had been said. He just didn’t like letting that go. He was definitely siding with Easton.” For his part, Andrew counted on Richards and Jagger continuing to emerge as the driving force behind the band’s records and, consequently, the ones whose opinions mattered most. Keeping their confidence was very much on his mind, particularly in regard to the Decca contracts. “Mick and Keith were looking at me to see what I could do about it or would I turn into somebody that was disposable,” he said. “Meeting Allen changed that. I was back on probation for a couple of years.”

  Jagger was vacationing in the U.S., enjoying the fact that the Stones’ latest single, “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction,” had just topped the American charts and given them their long-sought U.S. number-one hit. He agreed to fly to Miami, where Klein and Oldham were attending the CBS Records convention at the Doral Hotel. Perhaps because of what Oldham had said to Jagger about Klein’s negotiating prowess beforehand, the meeting was brief. “[Jagger] came into this bungalow and I said, ‘Listen, do you want me to help Andrew do this thing?’” recalled Klein. “He said yes. That was it.”

  Using Klein was the obvious call. For starters, the band didn’t have the financial knowledge and business experience to stand up to Decca; they desperately needed a gunslinger, and Klein’s reputation preceded him. Closer to home, while “Satisfaction” spent a month atop the American charts, Jagger couldn’t have missed the fact that the dreadful record chasing it, “I’m Henry the Eighth, I Am,” was by Herman’s Hermits—an act Klein handled. And it certainly didn’t hurt that neither Jagger nor the other Stones would have to pay Klein’s fee. Allen was Andrew’s business manager and his 20 percent payment was to come from management. “I did not get one penny from the Stones,” Klein said. “My money came out of Easton and Oldham’s end. And each one of the principals, the five Stones and Oldham, got paid their money directly from Decca. I never touched them. I had nothing to do with that.”

  As soon as the convention ended, Allen went back to New York, picked up attorney Marty Machat, and took the redeye to London. Arriving Monday morning, they checked into the Hilton and met that day with the Stones. They had already been briefed by Oldham, who’d insisted Klein was the man to get them what they deserved from Decca. Wyman, the Easton stalwart, was the only one to raise an objection, and he was quickly and loudly overruled by the others. “Don’t be so fucking mercenary!” said Richards. “We’ve got to trust someone.” Nonetheless, it proved hate at first sight for Wyman—or at least a toxic mix of mistrust and snobbish condescension. Though ostensibly one of the bad boys of rock ’n’ roll, the bassist found Klein—who opened the door to his Hilton suite dressed in a red T-shirt and sneakers—indefensibly déclassé. But when Klein piled everyone into a pair of rented Rolls-Royces for a five o’clock meeting with Decca chairman Sir Edward Lewis at the company’s headquarters, he marshaled the Stones like a field commander. Everyone, including Wyman, did as he was told.

  “I don’t want you to say anything,” Allen said. “Let me do the talking. You just sit there and look angry.” That was fine with the Stones; it was one of the things they did best. Anyone with sunglasses was encouraged to keep them on during the meeting, but there was to be absolutely no talking under any circumstances.

  Klein, who still wasn’t sure if he really knew everything that was in the existing contracts, seemed to be having his own last-second gut check. Just as all of them were about to enter the conference room at Decca, he grabbed Oldham and dragged him into the men’s washroom.

  “Who makes the records?” Allen asked him.

  Andrew, who had been known to exaggerate his role, gave them all the credit. “They do,” he said.

  Klein nodded. “Let’s go.”

  Sir Edward, flanked by his attorney and label executives, was waiting in the office. The Stones played their roles to the hilt, silently filing in and leaning sullenly against the back wall. Klein knew Andrew had left all of the prior dealings with Decca up to Easton, and he assumed the negotiations had been cozy and gentlemanly, so he did what he always did: he put the executives on the back foot by speaking brusquely and seizing control of the meeting.

  “I’m Allen Klein,” he said, sitting down. “I speak for everyone.”

  “Where’s Eric Easton?” Sir Edward said.

  “I asked him to come. He didn’t come.”

  “Well,” said a manufacturing executive, “we don’t want to have a talk without Eric Easton.”

  “Why? Does he play an instrument?”

  The room was silent for a moment.

  “What do you want?” Sir Edward asked.

  “I want to see royalty statements. You signed the band in 1963. It’s 1965 and they’ve never received a royalty statement. I’d also like to see the license agreements for every territory. It’s Monday. I’ll be back tomorrow at the end of the day.”

  “We’re still curious why Eric didn’t come,” one of the executives said.

  Klein shrugged and stood up. “You’ll have to ask him. We’re leaving. Just get me the royalty statements and get me the contracts. I’ll be here tomorrow night.”

  On Tuesday Klein received everything he’d asked for as well as a new contract the company had proffered to Easton. It gave the Rolling Stones an opportunity to make $300,000 if they continued to sell in the future, but it was very much in Decca’s favor, with none of the money guaranteed or paid as an advance against future royalties. Klein considered it a ridiculous and insulting offer, one that Oldham agreed was likely financed with money the group had already earned. By the end of the week, Klein had a vastly different arrangement in hand: $600,000 guaranteed as an advance against royalties for a one-year contract, to be paid over several years to ease the tax burden. The day the Rolling Stones signed the contract, Klein gave the jubilant musicians checks for the first year’s advance.

  But that wasn’t the half of it. In a repeat of the strategy Klein had employed for Mickie Most, he severed the
Stones’ American contract. That meant if Decca’s American subsidiary, London Records, wanted to continue to release Stones records in the U.S. and Canada, its executives would have to make their own deal. They soon did—for the same price Decca was paying to get the rest of the world.

  The idea to limit the contracts to one year was also Klein’s; he was assuming that a formal split with Easton would be finalized in a year, and he wanted to exclude him from claiming a portion of any subsequent contracts. Indeed, Klein would soon renew the two contracts for the following year under essentially the same conditions, this time for $700,000 each. Suddenly the Rolling Stones, who had never received a meaningful advance, were guaranteed $2.6 million.

  It was a fortune—far more than the Beatles were guaranteed, as Klein made sure to point out to the press. And though he couldn’t know it, the dart hit its mark; upon learning of the deal, Paul McCartney threw it up to Brian Epstein, wondering why the Rolling Stones had a better deal than the Beatles—and whether Epstein should have hired Klein himself.

  McCartney may have been frustrated, but Oldham and the Stones were ecstatic. Keith Richards judged the hiring of Klein “the best move Oldham made . . . he was brilliant at generating cash.” Jagger was less effusive but clearly happy. Oldham was off probation. Cut out, Easton promptly sued Klein and Marty Machat for inducing the Stones to breach the recording and management agreements signed by Brian Jones.

  With the record company settled and cash in hand, Klein turned his attention to Andrew’s management and production contracts. In Allen’s opinion, Easton and Oldham had overreached, paying themselves too big a share. It was bad enough that the managers got a larger cut of the royalties than the band, but taking a 25 percent commission on top of that was double-dipping and unconscionable. It was also unlikely to stand legal scrutiny if any of the Stones wanted to challenge it. At Klein’s insistence, the band received a pair of letters from Oldham. The first said their royalty was being changed from 6 percent to 7 percent “because of your phenomenal success in the recording business, which we appreciate.” The second, explaining that a commission on royalties would no longer be charged, was more forthright. “As we are receiving producing royalty on these same gramophone records it would not be ethical or fair for us to receive the 25% commission on your share of the royalties. We therefore consider that portion of the Agreement eliminated.” Even Bill Wyman was impressed.

  Marianne Faithfull, who was also managed by Oldham and signed to Decca, was given a similar adjustment. “[Klein] raised my royalty rate from two percent to twelve percent,” she said. “That’s still not really great—I get a lot more on my current recording contract and he wouldn’t be Allen Klein if he gave you everything, would he?—but it’s much better and it’s good because that’s when I had my hits. I liked Allen—it was a very good relationship.” It didn’t hurt that Allen had a tremendous crush on her.

  Klein set up a new U.S.-based publishing company for the Stones’ songs, Gideon Music. The company owned the copyrights previously held by several earlier Stones’ publishers as well as the rights to any new songs Jagger and Richards wrote. Klein, who had come onboard just as “Satisfaction” became an enormous worldwide hit, believed in Jagger and Richards as songwriters. Already the owner of several publishing companies, he offered to be their publisher and administer and finance the work himself.

  “I hadn’t seen them perform,” Klein said of the Stones. “And I didn’t really like ‘Satisfaction,’ because I’m not a dancer. But I was impressed with ‘As Tears Go By’ and loved ‘Play with Fire.’ I said, ‘Whoa—they’re good writers!’ That’s what did it for me.”

  The deal Klein offered the Stones was better than anything they were likely to get from another publisher. Whereas the typical publishing agreements of the time were split fifty-fifty between a publisher and a successful songwriter, Gideon Music paid seventy-two cents on every dollar earned to Jagger, Richards, and Oldham, with Andrew receiving 15 percent of that and the rest split evenly between the two songwriters. Klein also guaranteed them a minimum of a million dollars—a huge advance for 1965 and a figure that, with the Stones’ increasing success, soon went up to three million. As with virtually all the band’s deals engineered by Allen, the guarantee was paid out annually in twenty installments to minimize the tax bite. Any additional money earned would be paid out at the end.

  “I thought he was crazy to make that deal and I told him so,” said Klein’s nephew Michael Kramer. Then a young assistant in the office, Kramer was a fan of the Stones but warned his uncle they weren’t a pop act built for top-forty radio. “The Stones didn’t sell huge. Herman’s Hermits killed the Stones on singles.” Kramer asked Klein, “What are you banking your twenty-eight percent on? The guys who wrote one big hit, ‘Satisfaction’?” In fact, Klein wasn’t risking much at all; he quickly arranged for Essex Music, a British company owned by American music publisher Howard Richmond, to act as Gideon’s worldwide subpublisher outside North America. The advance from Essex covered the first payment promised to Jagger, Richards, and Oldham.

  As pleased as the Rolling Stones were, the piece of the puzzle they really hoped Klein could deliver was America. In every key aspect—touring, record sales, and airplay—the Stones still lagged badly behind many of the other British Invasion bands. “Satisfaction” looked like the watershed hit they’d been waiting for, and they were eager to seize the moment.

  The record December’s Children (and Everybody’s), released exclusively in the U.S., was less an album than a grab bag of tracks both old and new, and it coincided with an American tour. Unhappy with the way the group’s first U.S. tours had been handled by Easton and their American agents at GAC, Klein suggested the Stones switch to Jerry Brandt at the William Morris Agency. Eager to have them, Brandt, along with Klein, convinced WMA president Abe Lastfogel that the band was a key signing and would generate so much money that the agency should move off its standard 10 percent commission and charge the Stones only 7.5 percent—a unique discount not even given to Frank Sinatra. The savvy Brandt, who later owned and operated two of New York’s watershed rock clubs, the Electric Circus and the Ritz, proved an ideal agent for the Stones, even going on the road with them. Also traveling with the band were Allen’s nephew Ronnie Schneider, whose job was to settle accounts with promoters after every show, and promotion man Pete Bennett, hired by Klein to ensure the Stones’ records were played on the radio. The band quickly took to calling Bennett “our Mafia promo man,” but it was an indication of how many services Klein provided. Essentially a financial manager, Klein knew he had nothing to contribute to the Stones’ music and was grateful that Oldham was there to deal with creative and recording issues, but Klein’s company oversaw all of the Stones’ American manufacturing, promotion, and publicity, which it arranged with established PR firms like Solters, Roskin, and Friedman. Catch-as-catch-can American tours were now a thing of the past; the Stones found themselves kicking off a six-week North American tour at the cavernous Montreal Forum, playing shows—sometimes twice a day—in large arenas with a minimum guarantee of $10,000 a performance, and traveling by private chartered jet. For good measure, Klein bought the same Times Square billboard he’d used for Sam Cooke and Bobby Vinton and plastered on it a giant reproduction of the cover of December’s Children. The Stones were so mobbed by fans in front of New York’s City Squire Hotel, it took them fifteen minutes just to get from their cars to the lobby. For Keith Richards, it was the difference between night and day. The Rolling Stones were finally—finally!—stars in America, and their hooking up with Allen Klein was a good bit of the reason.

  “Klein was magnificent, at first, in the States,” he said. “The next tour, under his management, was cranked up several gears. A private plane to get us about, huge billboards on Sunset Boulevard. Now we’re talking.”

  Marianne Faithfull, then Jagger’s girlfriend, agreed. “Letting Allen Klein have that much financial control probably wasn’t a good thing for the Rolling
Stones,” she said. “But it wasn’t a bad thing either, because it meant that the work got out in America. It’s worth whatever it costs to be properly sold in America. Because otherwise they might never have been more than another little British band.”

  The thirty-eight-date tour netted each of the Stones $50,000. The next U.S. tour, in the summer of 1966, took them from Massachusetts to Hawaii and proved even bigger. By then the band had racked up two more American number-one hits, “Get Off of My Cloud” and “Paint It, Black.” For the New York show at Forest Hills Tennis Stadium, Klein, the master of the exaggerated gesture, hired a helicopter to ferry the band from their midtown hotel to the concert; he dragged a queasy Oldham, who suffered from vertigo, up to the stadium’s corrugated roof to watch the performance.

  At tour’s end, Klein chartered the Princess, a seventy-foot yacht docked at the Seventy-Ninth Street Pier, for the Stones to unwind on. For two weeks, the band used it to cruise New York Harbor and as the site of their first New York press party.* When the Beatles performed at Shea Stadium in late August, Klein, the Stones, and Bobby Vinton took the Princess to Queens. Allen, who still longed to step into the Beatles’ business, was angling to host a shipboard party for both bands after the concert. But the scene at Shea proved far too hectic, and not just because of Beatlemania. Vinton recalled that several Beatles fans—“Brooklyn guys”—recognized Jagger and tried to take a swing at him.

  “The Rolling Stones weren’t as big as the Beatles then but they were coming up,” Vinton said. “People were buying their records, but they were kind of the bad guys. We’re walking along with Jagger and it seemed like everyone wanted to take a punch at him! So Allen started running, I started running, and Mick Jagger started running. They were just punching Mick Jagger but you figured maybe they’d start on us next.”