Allen Klein: The Man Who Transformed Rock & Roll

by Fred Goodman

  Yet although it contained several memorable tunes, Let It Be wasn’t an artistic success. Coming on the heels of the miraculous ending that was Abbey Road, the album and film were a flat and disappointingly inconsequential coda to the age’s most brilliant career. Let It Be could never quite become more than it was: a collection of tapes missing the Beatles’ spark.

  The original “live” session tapes engineered and produced by Glyn Johns certainly felt as if they were missing something. Before “Let It Be” was released as a single, it was given to George Martin, and the producer fleshed it out with horns and backup vocals and replaced Lennon’s original bass part with an overdub by McCartney. To make the album, the rest of the tapes were given to Spector, who worked on them with Harrison and Starr. McCartney spent much of this period on his farm in Scotland recording the music that would become his first solo album, McCartney. Lennon was not involved. “Paul and I were too bored with the project to give him any help at all,” John said.

  The soundtrack to Let It Be was supposed to be released a month or two after the film’s April 28 New York premiere. But when Spector announced that work had proceeded quicker than expected and that he could deliver the album for simultaneous release, that seemed good news; the album could be in stores at the height of interest. There was just one glitch: Paul’s solo album was also slated to debut in mid-April.

  To maximize their success, the Beatles had always tried to schedule new releases when they had a reasonably clear field; they shared information on upcoming records with the Rolling Stones so the bands could avoid competing with each other. The market was already crowded, particularly in America, where a compilation of Beatles singles, Hey Jude, had been released at the end of February and Ringo’s first solo album, Sentimental Journey, was to come out in early April. Klein and the other Beatles worried that the additional titles would hurt the sales of Let It Be and told Capitol to push back the release date of McCartney. Since Ringo’s album was also being released, he agreed to go and give Paul the letters about the postponement.

  “I thought I would take the letters around to Paul myself,” Ringo said, “expecting Paul might be disappointed and thinking it was right that one of the Beatles personally should tell him.” To Starr’s dismay, McCartney flew into a rage, pushing him and making threats. “I’ll finish you all now,” Ringo recalled Paul saying. “You’ll pay.” When Starr asked McCartney to at least consider postponing the release of his album, Paul threw him out. Shaken, Ringo convinced the others to alter their plans and push Sentimental Journey up to late March and the soundtrack-album and film premiere of Let It Be back to May 8, letting McCartney have his original release date of April 20. “I felt since he was our friend and the date was of such immense significance to him, we should let him have his own way.”

  The new arrangement didn’t mollify Paul. Having already stopped speaking with Klein on the phone, he now pointedly refused to attend any meetings that included Klein, sending solicitor Charles Corman in his stead. Though taken aback, the other Beatles teasingly asked the attorney where his bass was. Still, Ringo said he wished Paul had come and judged Klein’s abilities for himself.

  McCartney also took exception to seeing credits on the back of an American copy of his album describing Apple Records as “an ABKCO Company.” He insisted that ABKCO had nothing to do with his career or his work and that the company’s name had no business being on his record. ABKCO was in fact pressing and administering the records in the United States, but Klein did as McCartney asked and removed the line.

  More significant, Klein and McCartney were soon at daggers drawn over Phil Spector’s postproduction and mixes for Let It Be, particularly over the song “The Long and Winding Road.” The overblown arrangement—with a huge string section, ringing horns, harp, and a choir—surprised George Martin, who considered it so uncharacteristic that it sounded at odds with the group’s body of work. He could also have called it silly, which it was. Spector, who had no great love for McCartney, later suggested he had added the arrangement to cover a sloppy bass part by Lennon, although why he didn’t just erase it as Martin had done on “Let It Be” is a mystery.*

  Incensed to hear his song buried under Spector’s wall of bombast, McCartney indignantly said no one had the right to alter his work without his approval—although whether that was actually what happened is debatable. Both Harrison and Starr would later publicly say that all the Beatles had received acetates of the Spector mixes and that McCartney had okayed them. But if he had ever been satisfied, that was certainly not the case as the album came to market. “We heard no more about it from him until it was too late to do anything,” Ringo said.

  Regardless, Paul was now livid. Michael Kramer recalls seeing a nasty note from McCartney to his uncle Allen concerning the track. “It was addressed ‘Dear Fuck Klein,’” he said. For his part, Klein twisted the knife by having “The Long and Winding Road” released as the Beatles’ next single, guaranteeing it would be omnipresent. It became the band’s final number-one hit in America, where it spent ten weeks on the charts. The track stood as it was—or at least it did for thirty-three years until Let It Be . . . Naked was released with the original, nonorchestrated performance used in the film.

  While McCartney railed that Klein and Spector had perpetrated “the shittiest thing that anyone’s done to me,” the other Beatles were displeased by what they viewed as a betrayal perpetrated by Paul: in a mock interview included as an insert in the first copies of McCartney sent to the press, Paul announced that he had quit the band and that the Beatles were no more. The others remembered when Lennon had privately told them he was done with the Beatles and had agreed to keep it quiet for financial and promotional reasons. Declaring his independence while promoting his solo record, McCartney seemed to be separating himself from their shared interests—a substantive change. Indeed, McCartney now wanted to change the way income from their solo projects was divvied up.

  Under the original plan for Beatles and Company, the corporate predecessor to Apple, all Beatles’ income paid into the company was ultimately split four ways—and that included earnings on solo projects. That was fine with the others. Lennon didn’t care when the $1.5 million windfall from Live Peace in Toronto went into the general kitty; Harrison was happy to split the sizable royalties on his best-selling box set All Things Must Pass with his former band mates. But McCartney took a different view. He may simply have been ready to bet on himself, believing his own career going forward would be worth more than a quarter share in an ongoing partnership with Lennon, Harrison, and Starr, and his secret purchase of Northern Songs shares suggested he had been thinking of himself as a separate agent for some time. But one thing was certain: Paul did not trust Allen Klein and didn’t want him anywhere near his work, assets, or money. He made that abundantly clear in the interview sent out with review copies of McCartney.

  Q: Is it true that neither Allen Klein nor ABKCO have been nor will be in any way involved with the production, manufacturing, distribution or promotion of this new album?

  A: Not if I can help it.

  Behind the scenes, John Eastman hoped for a quick and amicable resolution. Though the Eastmans had repeatedly tried to frustrate Klein’s plans with Northern Songs, Capitol Records, and United Artists, John now struck a conciliatory tone, essentially saying, Let McCartney go his way and you can go yours. “My sole purpose was to make sure my client gets his twenty-five percent,” John Eastman said. “I talked to Allen and said, ‘We can resolve this.’ We would have made a deal at any time to disgorge Paul’s twenty-five percent. Paul had no qualms about letting Allen handle the others—let them do as they please. Klein was incapable of making a deal.”

  Though it would have been close to impossible to bring a quick and legal end to the Beatles’ partnership, Eastman’s remarks suggest a workaround agreement likely would have satisfied McCartney (although precisely how Paul could informally separate himself from ABKCO’s relationship with Apple is unclear
). In any event, Klein wouldn’t budge; he was managing the Beatles’ affairs by majority consent of the Apple principals and he was going to follow the agreements. Whether McCartney liked it or not, it was Klein’s position that he had signed on to those agreements and he couldn’t just change his mind now. Clearly there was never going to be a rapprochement.

  To manage the Beatles had been the great crusade of Allen’s career, the act that would vindicate him personally and professionally. And while he’d achieved the holy land, he hadn’t quite conquered Jerusalem. Yes, he had a contract to manage the affairs of the Beatles. Unfortunately, there were no longer any Beatles to manage. He was John Lennon’s regent in a now unavoidable divorce.

  11

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  Mr. Popularity

  IN THE SPRING OF 1970, the Rolling Stones’ contract with Decca Records—the deal that had changed their fortunes and ushered in Allen Klein as their business manager—was about to come to an end. They began searching for a new record company.

  Now deeply immersed in the business of the Beatles, Klein discussed the Stones’ impending availability with executives at RCA, EMI, and Capitol, but it was Jagger who personally handled the discussions with the executives and labels the band seemed most interested in, Ahmet Ertegun at Atlantic Records and Clive Davis at Columbia. In mid-July, Allen accompanied Mick Jagger to a meeting with executives from Capitol Records, but the odds were slim the Stones would sign there. Capitol already had the Beatles and Apple—why would the Stones go into any deal where they weren’t the biggest act?

  Of course, they already knew they were seen as smaller than the Beatles, not just by the world at large, but by Allen Klein in particular. “The moment Klein got the Beatles he began to ignore and spend less time on the Stones business,” said Harold Seider. So it shouldn’t have surprised Klein when, less than two weeks after he visited Capitol with Jagger, a letter arrived from the Rolling Stones’ lawyers informing him that ABKCO would not be negotiating the band’s new record deal and that Prince Rupert Loewenstein would henceforth handle all financial affairs.

  Yet Klein was surprised.

  “Allen lives by denial,” said Seider, adding that Klein believed he could ultimately overcome any obstacle, even the unnecessary ones he had created. Now suddenly eager to hang on to the Stones, Klein launched a charm offensive, inviting Jagger to a sit-down in his suite at the Dorchester Hotel. Jagger was happy to oblige and used the meeting to pry an advance out of Klein. “He knows he’s going to leave and he just wants to get cash out of Allen,” said Seider, who was at the meeting. “It was that kind of thing.”

  Klein’s surprise and dismay at finding the Stones, and Jagger in particular, unhappy is perplexing. He had given them short shrift in favor of the Beatles, and there were several other issues as well. Allen had recognized early on that Oldham’s financial overreach and lack of support during the drug arrest and trial had contributed to the end of that relationship with the Stones, and Allen’s own financial interests in the band were similar to Oldham’s; in fact, they were deeper, more valuable, and more complicated.

  In his earliest days with them, Allen truly cost the Stones nothing; his 20 percent commission was paid out of Easton and Oldham’s cut. However, after Klein bought out Oldham’s interest in the Stones and settled the various lawsuits brought by Eric Easton against the band and their representatives, ABKCO emerged as the owner of all recording rights previously held by Easton and Oldham—which is to say that ABKCO now received 50 percent of all royalties on every Rolling Stones record released on Decca or London. Jagger hadn’t liked Oldham and Easton making five times as much as he did on his own records, and he couldn’t have been pleased to have Klein replacing them.

  When asked why he didn’t sell his interest in the records to the Rolling Stones, Andrew Loog Oldham said he didn’t believe they’d be willing to pay for them. Whether that means he thought the band had come to view their original management agreement as unconscionable and indefensible or that there was just too much bad blood for them to make a deal with him—or both—he knew that Klein had the money and the desire to acquire the rights. And as Oldham said, he believed making a deal with Klein would also preserve some of his leverage in the business.

  The questions in Klein’s case are just as fraught. He could fairly say that his legal obligation to the Rolling Stones had limits; he was not a CPA and did not have a contract to advise the band. Yet when Oldham departed, he and Jagger had clearly come to an agreement for Klein to look after the Stones’ interests, particularly in America. If Klein himself wanted the suddenly available 50 percent interest in the Stones’ recordings, didn’t he have an obligation as their business manager to recommend the same deal to them? Oldham may very well have been right in believing that Jagger and company would not be willing to pay for something that they felt shouldn’t have been taken from them to begin with, but there’s nothing to indicate Klein ever asked them, let alone advised them of the wisdom of buying out Oldham and Easton.

  Once Klein acquired them himself, there was a clear conflict of interest. “You can’t manage on one hand and have the artist signed to you on the other,” said Michael Kramer. “When [Allen] bought the rights to the Stones’ masters from Andrew, he became an owner as well as the business manager. It can’t end well. That becomes part of the Stones’ dissatisfaction later. ‘Hey, Allen Klein—you were our business manager. Why didn’t you buy it for us?’”

  Klein’s conflict wasn’t unique; if anything, it was typical of the record business. A record contract made the company the owner of a performer’s recordings, and often the publishing rights as well, and paid the artist the lowest royalty possible, which meant that the vast majority of any money earned on a hit and all its asset value remained with the company. The artist’s manager could be expected to create career-long ties to the artist, either by becoming a partner in ventures such as publishing or production companies or by retaining an interest in any contract he negotiated even if the artist ceased to be his client.

  A manager who came early to a rapidly developing commercial music scene or who was able to negotiate better deals than other managers—and Klein was both the first and sharpest of the managers of the modern rock era—could demand the biggest fees and the best percentages. Before Klein, in the 1950s, Elvis Presley’s manager, Colonel Tom Parker, had been a fifty-fifty partner with his client. After Klein, the next major businessman in the record industry, David Geffen, grew enormously wealthy and powerful by being even bolder; he acted as agent, publisher, and record company for the artists he managed, and the obvious question—who is looking out for the artist’s interests when the manager owns the record company and the publisher?—was never asked. Or at least, it wasn’t asked until the artists became successful and those rights valuable. Until then, Geffen’s clients were happy to have him help them produce records, play concerts, find an audience, and make money.

  The situation was much the same in the concert business. The contemporary whose professional practices and career most resembled Klein’s was Bill Graham, the impresario who owned the Fillmore East and West and who did more than anyone else to invent the modern rock concert.* Like Klein, Graham was the first hardball player in what had been, until then, a slow-pitch league. Graham created an appropriate format for presenting bands and then helped make rock concerts a real industry. And while he treated concertgoers well by providing a professional show at a fair price, woe to the band or manager who did not recognize that Graham was in business; bad contracts and fictitious ticket counts were the usual result. Nor was he averse to using his leverage to block bands from taking gigs with rival promoters or bullying them to sign their merchandising rights to his Winterland company. The band Santana owed much to Graham, who insisted that the then unknowns be given their career-making slot at Woodstock. But they split with Graham after he made himself both their booking agent and their manager, which was illegal. The Grateful Dead spent decades going back and forth between
collaborating and fighting with Graham, and the promoter was ultimately supplanted at the top of his industry in 1989 when the Rolling Stones spurned him for the more financially inventive Canadian promoter Michael Cohl, a one-time manager of Ontario strip clubs, at least in part because Mick Jagger was said to have tired of Graham’s funny ticket counts.

  Like Graham, Klein didn’t change with the times. In the early days, when each was ahead of the pack, they created the market and dictated the terms. Later, when others saw how it was done and the artists began to better appreciate the financial value of their own work, they didn’t make appropriate adjustments. Or maybe Klein just didn’t care if the Rolling Stones became unhappy. Though he never said as much, he could have concluded that owning a piece of the Rolling Stones was a far better and more lucrative approach than trying to stay in their good graces for the rest of his life.

  Whatever Klein’s motives, his decisions would lead to nearly two decades of litigation with the Rolling Stones marked by few real financial victories for the band. In public, Jagger was at first cordial and politic, telling a reporter three weeks after breaking with ABKCO that he was “grateful to Allen for what he has done for us” and volunteering that the split had nothing to do with the Beatles. “His involvement with Apple was not what worried me,” he said. Yet behind closed doors, Mick was seething. According to Prince Rupert Loewenstein, Jagger believed Klein had made him look like a fool. “He felt very aggrieved,” said Loewenstein, adding that Jagger had to be physically restrained from attacking Klein in a meeting. Nor was the 50 percent interest in the Rolling Stones’ royalties the only annoyance. Aside from being Jagger and Richards’s music publisher for all songs written through 1971, ABKCO was the sole controller of the Rolling Stones’ master recordings in America, meaning it oversaw manufacturing. Though the records couldn’t be moved from London Records or its successors, first PolyGram and then Universal Music Group, there was still money to be made and it was to become a flash point for both sides in their subsequent battles.