The start of his career in the industry to making it to the head of Columbia Records

I was the, uh, chief Lawyer for Columbia Records, uh, from 1960 to 1965. In 1965, my boss mentor Gutted Libson, was made a group president and. Because during that period on the grounds of Code Synergy, we bought Steinway Piano and Leslie Speakers and Fender Guitars. And it’s not that he or I ever had aspiration for music.

I got into music accidentally. Um, Never dreamt I’d be part of the music world.

And God, it comes to me, not pers knowing that I might have ears. Didn’t even occur to either of us. He offered me the head of the musical instrument division because I was the lawyer and I put together all those deals for Fender guitar, for Leslie speaker, for Steinway piano. But it would mean that I would have to move to L.A. and I was recently divorced and it wouldn’t work. With our custody, um, provision. So I came in the next morning prepared to deny the request even though it was a great offer economically, and God had said, by the way, overnight, our executive Vice President Norman Adler, really would love to live in La Jolla.

So, I’m making him head of the musical instruments group division. And you’ll be the head of Columbia Records. The head of Columbia Records. It never dawned on me. Didn’t, uh, trigger any thoughts of musical ears whatsoever. But, I obviously started listening to them. the radio then, far more closely. And I realized that those A& R men that were dealing like Mitch Miller with Johnny Mathis and Andy Williams and Barbra Streisand, they were committed to middle of the road music.

They didn’t have respect for what the future of rock would be. Uh, in fact, Mitch Miller was famously quoted as saying he thought it was a passing fad.

I was put to the test and had my life’s epiphany at the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967. Two years after I had been appointed. I went there because I really had made my first deal with Lou Adler for, uh, A record called, if you’re going to San Francisco, be sure to wear flowers in your hair. I really didn’t know what that meant.

I was shocked when I got to Monterey with the flowing robes and the flowers and the hair. I was wearing my khaki pants and a tennis sweater. I was the one that stood out. I had no idea they’d be showcasing. Brand new orders. I just thought Simon and Garfunkel, the Mamas and Papas, would be a pop, first of its kind festival.

But there I was, sitting in the afternoon, and Big Brother and the holding company, with Janis Joplin, no separate building for her, comes on stage. And it changed the rest of my life. I’d never seen anyone like her.

Hypnotic, charismatic, electrifying, white soul system. And I vowed, you know, there were no other A& R people there. It was just a pop festival. And I vowed I was going to sign. I never thought of signing an artist.

And I did. She had never made a record. And I bought a contract for 200, 000. Half recoupable, half absorbed by Columbia.

And I signed the group The Electric Flag with Mike Bloomfield on guitar and Buddy Miles on drums. A few weeks later, I go to the village gate and I hear blood, sweat, and tears. Al Cooper then, dazzlingly different, combining jazz, blues, rock. But I was equipped, I had seen them at the Monterey Pop Festival, horn section. I said, well, I mean, nervously, But I didn’t have a NA and R staff, they were all working on wonderful projects with Streisand and Andy and Mathis.

There wasBob Dylan, but he was not, he was greatly a songwriter then for Peter, Paul and Mary and the Birds, more than an artist.

So it was only when I built a track record, when all these artists broke, and I hired a whole new staff at Columbia, who had grown, who would be able to feel and market and sell and promote. What was becoming a rock revolution. And we were on fire. Every act made it. Aerosmith. Chicago. Santana, Blood, Sweat and Tears.

Santana with All You Come About. Black Magic Woman. Evil Waves. Everything hit. So, I couldn’t believe it because I I don’t read music, I don’t play music, I didn’t have that aspiration. And all of a sudden, everything was coming through, without exception.