No not Brian Epstein – the much maligned Allen Klein who also repped The Rolling Stones and others.
Klein, a fierce negotiator, who managed the affairs of soul legend Sam Cooke, The Rolling Stones and briefly The Fab Four died in Manhattan at age 77 from complications from Alzheimers, a rep from Kleing’s company Abkco Music said.
Klein began his career as an accountant for Bobby Darin and Sam Cooke. When the British invasion swept the US in the earky 1960s he quickly inked The Animals, Herman’s Hermits and others produced by UK teen tune whiz Mickie Most.
Despite being hired by the Rolling Stones manager Andrew Loog Oldham to handle theit business affairs Mick Jagger and company soon found Klein to be more of an adversay than an asset, resulting in several legal battles in which Klein bought the rights to both the band’s recordings and music rights. The Stones sued and won the right to retain their own material.
As the Beatles were on the verge of breakup in 1969, Klein began working with the rapidly splintering group and their company Apple. After renegotiating a favorable royalty rate with UK label EMI Klein continued to work with both John Lennon and George Harrison.
He was coproducer of the fabled Concert for Bangla Desh in which Harrison, Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton, Billie Preston and Ravi Shankar performed resulting a to-disc LP and concert film. However, much of the money earmarked for the refugees earned by Harrison’s humanitarian efforts ended up in Klein’s coffers and more law suits resulted, keeping the 1971 Madison Square Garden concert off the market for more than a decade.
In 1979 Klein was convicted of tax fraud and served all of two months in prison.
Klein also worked as a movie producer on The Greek Tycoon about Aristotle Onassis, Alejandro Jodorowsky‘s cult classic The Holy Mountain, Herman’s Hermits Mrs. Brown You Have a Lovely Daughter and a couple of lesser spaghetti westerns.
