I received an advance copy of this book. Following is my Amazon review:

I am not quite sure how to review this book. Allen Klein was a businessman, not a rock star. He made his name as ruthless accountant / auditor who "found" money for his early music industry clients and later was a pioneer in negotiating artist-friendly recording contracts. Therefore, this is a biography of an odd, interesting, successful and notorious businessman. If that is your kind of thing, you should read it.

However, most people know his name via his very troubled relationship with the Rolling Stones. Much of the book does concentrate on his mutual love / hate relationship with the Stones and the Beatles as well as a deep dive into his record company, ABKCO. If you are a Stones fan, you have heard much of this before although there are some interesting insights into the nitty gritty of their business relationships with Klein, Eric Easton and Andrew Loog Oldham. In fact, this book goes into detail on the Klein / Oldham relationship and winds up supplying a fairly thorough biography of Oldham as well. The author also offers
some interesting insight as to how 1970's ABKCO-released Stones albums like Metamorphosis and Hot Rocks came about.

Much of the Beatles-related content focuses on the fractious Apple-era business representation conflict between the 3/4's allied with Klein (John Lennon, George Harrison, Ringo Starr) and Paul McCartney with the Eastman family (future father-in-law Lee and future brother-in-law John). There are also some interesting tidbits that shed some new light (at least new to me) on John's relationship with Yoko and his near-involvement with George's Concert For Bangladesh.

The author, Fred Goodman, is up-front in explaining that he we was offered this project by Klein's son, Jody Klein, who was uncomfortable with how his father was portrayed in the press after his death in 2009. Goodman was given unfettered access to Klein's records, associates and ABKCO documents and yet keeps his journalistic integrity intact by not delivering a white-wash. This is a warts-and-all account.

My main beef with this book is that the most likely audience for this account of Klein's life is hardcore-stones fans and yet he does not answer burning questions easily discovered by a cursory review of the main message boards such as IORR, ROCKS OFF and SHIDOOBEE:

1. What unreleased Rolling Stones treasures are left in the ABCKO vaults?

2. Insight into the rapprochement between the band and Allen Klein that led to the 2002 ABCKO remasters and the career-spanning Forty Licks compilation?

3. Insight into the 2009 Get Your Ya Ya's Out 40th anniversary box set release. Did Jody spearhead this or was Allen still involved this late in the game?

4. The story behind the scrapped Bill Wyman-selected Black Box compilation from the ABCKO perspective.

5. Can we expect to see more previously unreleased ABKCO material in the future?

If Goodman were a Wall Street Journal business writer he could be excused for some of these lapses but as a former Rolling Stone editor, WTH! I am glad I read this book, though I would not call it riveting. Fundamentally, this is a biography of an accountant; a colorful accountant but an accountant all the same.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2015-06-19 20:01 by cbtaco19.

Interesting, thanks for the review.

all the business summed up in one photograph:

Something to get from the library and read in the W.C.

made the stones i think not .more like ripped them off big time .he should have went to the graybar .

Excellent review!

Thanks for posting the review CBTACO. I have two great libraries in Los Angeles who get me everything immediately because I'm such a fast reader.
I'm picking it up from one of them next week.

I'm in one of my "chatty Kathy" moods so I might as well admit to my shame.
I KNEW Allen Klein. For six months or so, he drove me crazy day and night.
He persuaded me to be involved with the "Concert for Bangla Desh." I was not
at the concert. He called me a week later to talk to me about editing and marketing essentially representing George Harrison at that time.

The good thing about it was that I became good friends with the two NY editors
(Howie and Roger) who really liked me, didn't know much about LA. So I ended up sitting on a vast stage seeing all the concert film hour after hour for
days and weeks. Loved those songs for the most part. Would say things to Howie like "Dylan looks terrible in most of his stuff. Can you get better
close-ups of his face even if he's not playing...etc. etc. We ate dinner
together every night and as people like Jack Nicholson and Warren Beatty kept
dropping by the editing room we ended up having small cocktail parties where
Warren and Jack cruised for girls. I got to know Phil Spector quite well
during this time; he was at his best then. I always think of Phil as one of
the few people in the music business who would call me and say 'Thank You'

The families of most of the musicians called...frequently. They were so excited waiting to see the finished film. I began to feel like a member of
Billy Preston's family as they waited and then more calls after they'd seen it. But no one could beat Allen Klein's record for phone calls at least
five times day and night. Once he called me from JFK Airport on his way to
London and explained to me how, "It's so LONELY at the top." The minute he
landed, he called again. "I'm NOT lonely, Allen," I told him. "I'm BUSY."
He was thrilled and felt VERY IMPORTANT that his project was associated with
the United Nations.

A few weeks after the LA premiere, George Harrison phoned from London. I really didn't know him except for a couple of short conversations on tour with the Beatles and at Apple in London. This time, he said. "I have been busy with my little film company in England and everyone who was in the film or
worked on it keep talking about how organized you've been around the clock."
I do appreciate it!" "It's a very special project you put together, I said.
And George was off to the next phone call.

I did truly love that "Bangla Desh" project and hoped it would somehow make
a difference in terms of helping that mixed-up situation in Bangla Desh.

Trying not to let this post run too long!..



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2015-07-14 17:19 by stonesrule.

The title of the book is so pretentious it makes me want to puke. If Allen Klein transformed Rock and Roll then my horse taught Mick Jagger how to dance.

Excellent review though. I think I'll pass on this one.

Also super post stonesrule! That Concert film is one of my all time favorite movies, just amazing. Such an important historical concert in term of benefits and man was Leon Russel smokin' hot that night! Thanks for anything you had to do with making it happen and thanks for the long post, wish you would do that more often.

peace



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2015-06-19 23:21 by Naturalust.

Quote
Naturalust
The title of the book is so pretentious it makes me want to puke. If Allen Klein transformed Rock and Roll then my horse taught Mick Jagger how to dance.

that's some Horse!
As one of the guiding lights to Mick Jagger, has anyone asked him "Why the long face?"?

stonesrule: You can be long-winded anytime you like! I always appreciate your insight & perspective.

Thanks for being willing to share it with us!

Peace,
Mr DJA

Quote
CloudCat

Quote
Naturalust
The title of the book is so pretentious it makes me want to puke. If Allen Klein transformed Rock and Roll then my horse taught Mick Jagger how to dance.

that's some Horse!
As one of the guiding lights to Mick Jagger, has anyone asked him "Why the long face?"?

Nothing against you and your horse but, I think I like Hanna & her horse a bit more.

Peace,
Mr DJA

oops



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2015-06-19 23:20 by Naturalust.

The LOS ANGELES TIMES reviewed it today >>> [www.latimes.com]

Quote
24FPS
Something to get from the library and read in the W.C.

From The Wall Street Journal. Includes some Stones stuff.

The Man Who Broke Up The Beatles

Paul McCartney sued his bandmates in large part to rid himself of their hated business manager.

By ERIC FELTEN
July 10, 2015 3:35 p.m.

If, in 1969, the Beatles were the undisputed rulers of pop music, they were monarchs whose exchequer was dangerously depleted. The music-fashion-publishing company that the band had launched with fanfare just a year before—Apple Corps—had proved a catastrophe, less a corporate conglomerate than a clubhouse for hangers-on. “If it carries on like this,” John Lennon blurted to a journalist, “all of us will be broke in the next six months.” It was the opening Allen Klein had been waiting for.

Klein was a New York-based entertainment manager notorious, even in the less-than-genteel music racket, for being ruthless and abrasive. He had represented soul singer Sam Cooke, crooner Bobby Vinton,and British acts including the Dave Clark Five, Donovan, the Kinks and, most notably, the Rolling Stones. Long having eyed the Beatles as the game’s big prize, he would now reel them in by promising to clean up their books, sack the leeches, collect monies they were owed, and hammer out new and lucrative contracts.

And he did fulfill such promises, up to a point. Even so, the relationship with the Beatles would end in litigation and grief—as would Klein’s dealings with the Stones. Worst of all, Klein (1931-2009) would be the caustic agent that dissolved what was left of the bond between John Lennon and Paul McCartney, hastening the band’s end.

In his new book, Fred Goodman does his best to rehabilitate the infamous manager. Instead of characterizing him as the man who broke up the Beatles and ripped off the Rolling Stones, he gives his book the provocative title “Allen Klein: The Man Who Bailed Out the Beatles, Made the Stones, and Transformed Rock & Roll.” He argues that much of Klein’s bad reputation was a matter of class consciousness and anti-Semitism, that snooty Brits detested Klein for being a “New York Jew.”

Such bigotry played a part, no doubt, but Klein’s outsider status also worked to his benefit. He wooed Lennon with tales of his hardscrabble childhood, of the years spent in Newark’s Hebrew Orphanage and Sheltering Home. No less important, Lennon, George Harrison and Ringo Starr were pleased that Klein wasn’t the father of Paul’s girlfriend, as was case with the other candidate being considered in early 1969 to manage the Beatles. Mr. McCartney was outvoted.

In the beginning, Klein seemed the man for the job. “People were robbing us and living on us,” Lennon said of the Apple crowd, “all just living and drinking and eating like f—in’ Rome.” Klein put a quick end to that nonsense and stanched the bleeding. Then he renegotiated the Beatles’ record deals. The band enjoyed an initial blast of much-needed cash: “Allen’s got me more money, real money in the bank, than I’ve ever had,” Lennon told Rolling Stone magazine’s Jann Wenner in 1970.

But rare was the artist who stayed happy with Klein for long. As Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards put it, “Klein was magnificent, at first.” Sam Cooke, Klein’s first major client, didn’t live long enough to have a falling out with the manager. After the singer was gunned down in a Los Angeles motel in 1964, Klein acquired the rights to Cooke’s catalog and rolled them into the company he had founded, the clumsily named Abkco. The windfall spawned wild follow-the-money rumors suggesting that Klein had something to do with Cooke’s death.

But Klein didn’t have to kill anyone to tap into their riches. As Mr. Goodman explains, Klein’s goal was always to “make money from the money”—structuring deals so that he held artists’ assets, paying the musicians fixed amounts while keeping whatever profits could be made on the float. Klein would always say that “the artist doesn’t get hurt at all” in such schemes, but it’s not a persuasive claim. A proper business manager tries to figure out how to make money from the money for those he represents, not how to do it for himself.

After Klein took over managing the Rolling Stones in the mid-1960s, Mr. Goodman writes, “ABKCO emerged as the owner of all recording rights previously held” by the band’s original managers—“a clear conflict of interest.” Michael Kramer, Klein’s nephew, who was the in-house attorney at Abkco, acknowledges the conflict: “You can’t manage on one hand and have the artist signed to you on the other. . . . It can’t end well.” And it didn’t. The Rolling Stones would mount more than a decade of litigation against Klein, trying to claw back ownership of their 1960s music.

The Stones’ frustration wasn’t just that Klein had amassed a fortune they thought should have been theirs but that there was no getting rid of him: “Allen Klein wasn’t their business manager—he was their partner. Forever,” Mr. Goodman writes. Mick Jagger would complain: “He wanted a hold on us, on our futures.” Long after giving up his hold on the Stones themselves, he kept control of their ’60s recordings.

Restructuring the business of the Beatles’ rotting Apple Corps, Klein gave his own company the rights to press the Beatles’ discs in the U.S. Mr. McCartney was mortified to discover, in 1970, that the American version of his debut solo album designated Apple Records as “an ABKCO managed company.” He eventually sued his bandmates to dissolve the Beatles’ partnership, in no small part to free himself from the hated manager to whom he had been yoked. The Beatles may well have come apart without Allen Klein, but with him it was a sure thing.

By the time the other Beatles soured on the hustler—they chose not to renew their contracts with him in 1973—they had discovered that “it was going to cost them millions of dollars to finally be done with Klein,” as Mr. Goodman puts it. Lennon started calling Klein’s company “grABKCo” and even, uncharacteristically, allowed that “possibly Paul’s suspicions were right.”

In an ignominious finish to his Beatles association, Klein would be prosecuted in the late 1970s on charges that he had conspired to sell, off the books, promotional copies of Beatles records. Convicted of a misdemeanor, he was sentenced to two months in jail.

Over the next couple of decades, Klein collected royalties on the many compositions and recordings that Abkco had acquired, but he never again managed a roster of prominent musicians. Part of this decline was due to the toxic reputation he had built for himself, but part was due to a change in the music industry: It had gotten wise to the ways and means that Klein had pioneered. Klein lost his advantage, as one producer said, because now “everyone is aware, and advised by people who are aware.” Klein was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease a few years before died in 2009.

For all of Klein’s cunning, the real villain of the piece is the tax man. British Invasion bands labored under the confiscatory U.K. taxes of the 1960s, with marginal income-tax rates of 90% or more. Klein was able to make Abkco the holder of so many musicians’ assets because it seemed an attractive way for the bands to avoid having the assets taxed as income. Apple itself—the fiasco that provided Klein with his long-sought opening to the Beatles—had never made sense as anything other than a dodgy tax scheme. “We didn’t really want an Apple, or to go into f—ing business,” Lennon would later gripe, saying that the band had been told: “If you don’t do this, it will go in taxes.” Britain’s Inland Revenue made Broadway sharpies look like pussycats.

Mr. Goodman does his best to present Klein as something other than what Paul McCartney called him, a “trained New York crook.” It is a bold effort at historical revision but ultimately unconvincing—because Mr. Goodman is honest and unsparing in presenting the evidence. Though his book may not succeed in improving Klein’s reputation, it does succeed both as a compelling work of rock-’n’-roll history and as a cautionary business primer.

How cautionary? Andrew Loog Oldham, the early Rolling Stones manager whose mistake it was to subcontract Klein’s services, summed up the fool’s bargain he had made: “Allen comes in when your harvest is not as plentiful as your expectations on the sow. And part of the price is that he gets the farm."

—Mr. Felten is a writer and musician in Washington, D.C.

Quote
stonesrule
Thanks for posting the review CBTACO. I have two great libraries in Los Angeles who get me everything immediately because I'm such a fast reader.
I'm picking it up from one of them next week.

I'm in one of my "chatty Kathy" moods so I might as well admit to my shame.
I KNEW Allen Klein. For six months or so, he drove me crazy day and night.
He persuaded me to be involved with the "Concert for Bangla Desh." I was not
at the concert. He called me a week later to talk to me about editing and marketing essentially representing George Harrison at that time.

The good thing about it was that I became good friends with the two NY editors
(Howie and Roger) who really liked me, didn't know much about LA. So I ended up sitting on a vast stage seeing all the concert film hour after hour for
days and weeks. Loved those songs for the most part. Would say things to Howie like "Dylan looks terrible in most of his stuff. Can you get better
close-ups of his face even if he's not playing...etc. etc. We ate dinner
together every night and as people like Jack Nicholson and Warren Beatty kept
dropping by the editing room we ended up having small cocktail parties where
Warren and Jack cruised for girls. I got to know Phil Spector quite well
during this time; he was at his best then. I always think of Phil as one of
the few people in the music business who would call me and say 'Thank You'

The families of most of the musicians called...frequently. They were so excited waiting to see the finished film. I began to feel like a member of
Billy Preston's family as they waited and then more calls after they'd seen it. But no one could beat Allen Klein's record for phone calls at least
five times day and night. Once he called me from JFK Airport on his way to
London and explained to me how, "It's so LONELY at the top." The minute he
landed, he called again. "I'm NOT lonely, Allen," I told him. "I'm BUSY."
He was thrilled and felt VERY IMPORTANT that his project was associated with
the United Nations.

A few weeks after the LA premiere, George Harrison phoned from London. I really didn't know him except for a couple of short conversations on tour with the Beatles and at Apple in London. This time, he said. "I have been busy with my little film company in England and everyone who was in the film or
worked on it keep talking about how organized you've been around the clock."
I do appreciate it!" "It's a very special project you put together, I said.
And George was off to the next phone call.

I did truly love that "Bangla Desh" project and hoped it would somehow make
a difference in terms of helping that mixed-up situation in Bangla Desh.

Trying not to let this post run too long!..

Stonesrule, with all respect, I do not understand how you have had such longstanding, deep personal relationships with so many music industry notables whilst I have never seen one mention or photograph of you in any publication I have ever read. My Stones library is very large, going back to the 1960s up to the present. Many, many people connected with the Stones in a variety of roles have been mentioned, quoted and pictured. But not you.

What evidence is there that any of the events you have described over the last years ever occurred, apart from your elaborate accounts like the one quoted above?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2015-07-27 11:33 by Bliss.

People who cares for Money is not rock n roll..
Come On


2 1 2 0

Quote
Come On
People who cares for Money is not rock n roll..
Come On

I guess that weeds out a lot of 'rock stars'.

Quote
Bliss
Stonesrule, with all respect, I do not understand how you have had such longstanding, deep personal relationships with so many music industry notables whilst I have never seen one mention or photograph of you in any publication I have ever read. My Stones library is very large, going back to the 1960s up to the present. Many, many people connected with the Stones in a variety of roles have been mentioned, quoted and pictured. But not you.

What evidence is there that any of the events you have described over the last years ever occurred, apart from your elaborate accounts like the one quoted above?

Hey Bliss, pretty outrageous to question stonesrule's credibility here. I don't think she needs to prove anything to anybody. If you don't believe her's or anyone else's posts here no worries but this kind of thing just scares off people who have interesting things to say. Perhaps if you get her Hendrix book and read it you will understand she was around a lot of the players in those fertile times. Plenty of people who were there and involved stay out of the public eye. Hell plenty of people who are involved today stay out of the public eye, something even harder to do with all the media mania.

Quote
Naturalust

Quote
Bliss
Stonesrule, with all respect, I do not understand how you have had such longstanding, deep personal relationships with so many music industry notables whilst I have never seen one mention or photograph of you in any publication I have ever read. My Stones library is very large, going back to the 1960s up to the present. Many, many people connected with the Stones in a variety of roles have been mentioned, quoted and pictured. But not you.

What evidence is there that any of the events you have described over the last years ever occurred, apart from your elaborate accounts like the one quoted above?

Hey Bliss, pretty outrageous to question stonesrule's credibility here. I don't think she needs to prove anything to anybody. If you don't believe her's or anyone else's posts here no worries but this kind of thing just scares off people who have interesting things to say. Perhaps if you get her Hendrix book and read it you will understand she was around a lot of the players in those fertile times. Plenty of people who were there and involved stay out of the public eye. Hell plenty of people who are involved today stay out of the public eye, something even harder to do with all the media mania.

Naturalust, please can you provide the title?

.....

Olly.

Quote
Olly
Naturalust, please can you provide the title?

"The US hardcover was published in 2005 by Harper Collins "Jimi
Hendrix The Man, The Magic, The Truth. HC did same book in paperback in
various titles. "Betrayed: The Intimate story of Jim Hendrix" and "The True Story of Jimi Hendrix" or something similar."

Quote
Naturalust

Quote
Olly
Naturalust, please can you provide the title?

"The US hardcover was published in 2005 by Harper Collins "Jimi
Hendrix The Man, The Magic, The Truth. HC did same book in paperback in
various titles. "Betrayed: The Intimate story of Jim Hendrix" and "The True Story of Jimi Hendrix" or something similar."

Thanks.

.....

Olly.

Re Stonesrule's Hendrix book, I have read it a long time ago, NL, and as I recall, it's just the same - unprovable anecdotes, 'remembered' conversations which occurred 45 years ago.

I find it extraordinary that there is not one quote, one mention, or one photo of this person's elaborately self-described involvement with the Stones and numerous others in the industry when there has been a vast amount of publications and photographs from that era. Everyone else here who claims similar contacts has had no issue with substantiating their claim.

Quote
Bliss
Re Stonesrule's Hendrix book, I have read it a long time ago, NL, and as I recall, it's just the same - unprovable anecdotes, 'remembered' conversations which occurred 45 years ago.

I find it extraordinary that there is not one quote, one mention, or one photo of this person's elaborately self-described involvement with the Stones and numerous others in the industry when there has been a vast amount of publications and photographs from that era. Everyone else here who claims similar contacts has had no issue with substantiating their claim.

Often people who feel like they have nothing to prove are the most credible. I just don't think it's necessary to call them out here. She not telling you anything that is going to change your plans, I would just enjoy the stories and hope more come along, if you choose not to believe them, no harm done. I think we're lucky to have her here, not many people around back then choose to share any stories on a public board, especially when people call them out on them. I think you understand, put yourself in her shoes. It's the same kind of respect we give people on here not to reveal their sources.

You're very tolerant, NL, but after nearly 10 years of reading what I will generously call fantasies, my own tolerance has worn rather thin. But who knows - perhaps some evidence will be forthcoming.

TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN:

I started my career as a reporter for United Press International.

My assorted books on various subjects have been published by leading publishers in the US, UK, Australia, France, Finland, Brazil etc. etc. after first being vetted by respected lawyers.

Sharon Lawrence

Oh dear, this thread isn't helping my headache and I have no desire to read this book.

I don't need to read a book about Alan Klein. Just that title of him bailing out the stones and saving The Beatles is just such revisionist clap trap. The guy was a shyster. He fleeced so many in the music business, and man, to steal from the UNICEF charity after the concerts for Bangladesh is just atrocious. The guy should have done more time. He was a criminal.

If it hadn't been for Allen Klein, think of all the classic Stones albums from the sixties that would have been given deluxe treatments that would have either been released by now or in the works, but that we'll never see. However, the trade-off is that ABKCO's 2002 remaster series is the definitive sounding versions, and I would have hated for those albums, particularly the mid-sixties catalog, to have been subjected to modern "brickwalling".

What an interesting coincidence that Allen Klein and Tom Keylock, two of the darkest and shadiest figures to be associated with the Stones, should die within 2 days of each other.