BY: Hillel Italie / Associated Press
Foto: Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)
Mo
Ostin, a self-effacing giant of the music business who presided over
Warner Bros. Records’ rise to a sprawling, billion-dollar empire and
helped discover and nurture artists from Jimi Hendrix to Green Day, died
July 31. He was 95.His death was announced in a statement by Warner Records, which said he died “in his sleep” but did not cite a cause.
Short and bald and mild in demeanor, “Chairman Mo” was never as famous as such rival moguls as Clive Davis or Walter Yetnikoff,
but few equaled his power or prestige as rock music officially became
big business. For decades, he thrived on the simple, underused idea of
taking on talented and original performers and letting them remain
talented and original, including Neil Young and Fleetwood Mac, as well
as Paul Simon and R.E.M.
“Mo Ostin was one of a kind,” Davis tweeted.
“The company he chaired was truly unique in its very special management
of artists and the extraordinary depth and range of talent on its
roster.”
Under
Mr. Ostin’s leadership, Warner signed Hendrix when the guitarist was
hardly known beyond the London club scene, Fleetwood Mac when they were a
blues act and the Grateful Dead when their legend was confined to the
Bay Area. John Lennon and Yoko Ono, George Harrison, Nirvana, Madonna,
Eric Clapton, James Taylor, Prince, R.E.M. and Guns N’ Roses were among
the other performers who joined Warner during his reign.
“Intimidation is not the answer,” Mr. Ostin, in a rare interview, told the Los Angeles Times in 1994.
“I don’t know why, but corporate people have a tendency to think in
terms of immediate gratification. Sure, you can squeeze another dollar
out of anything, but that’s not what makes a record company run
profitably.”
He
also assembled an elite and trusted team of executives, including
producer and Warner president Lenny Waronker and advertising-marketing
head Stan Cornyn. David Geffen, whose Geffen label was distributed by
Warner, would eventually hire Mr. Ostin to run the DreamWorks music
division.
Mr.
Ostin started at Warner in 1963, became president in 1970, chairman
soon after and rarely faltered over the next quarter century as the
once-marginal label eventually included Elektra, Atlantic, Sire,
Geffen’s Asylum and Madonna’s Maverick Records, among others.
With
corporations finally embracing the music they once disdained, Warner
competed fiercely with CBS Records — and its leader, Yetnikoff — for
industry leadership. Mr. Ostin’s prime was an era of high-level bidding
and poaching, whether Warner’s taking Simon from Columbia or Columbia’s
convincing Taylor to leave Warner.
Mr.
Ostin was praised for his judgment and for his patience, sticking with
artists such as Simon and Van Morrison even when their albums didn’t
sell. He even inspired some songs, including Young’s “Surfer Joe” and Harrison’s playful ballad “Mo,” featured on a compilation album that Mr. Ostin helped release.
His
ouster in 1994 led to new tributes. “Mo, Mo, why do you have to go? /
You’re the first record company guy / That looked me in the eye,” wrote
Flea of the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Numerous artists and executives left
Warner after his departure.
Mr.
Ostin did have occasional conflicts with artists. Mick Fleetwood of
Fleetwood Mac would recall his unhappiness when the group followed its
megaselling “Rumours” album with the experimental double record “Tusk.”
Some of Prince’s greatest hits, including his albums “Purple Rain” and
“1999,” came out through Warner. But Prince fought with the company over
control of his master tapes and how much music he could release. For a
time he changed his name and was called the Artist Formerly Known as
Prince. He appeared in public with the word “slave” written on his
cheek.
“It bugged me, but I understood where he was coming from,” Mr. Ostin told Billboard in 2016, adding that he remained in awe of the late musician. “The guy was so unbelievably talented it was overwhelming.”
Morris
Meyer Ostrofsky was born in New York City on March 27, 1927. His
parents were Jewish immigrants from Russia, and the family moved to Los
Angeles when he was 13 and ended up next door to the brother of jazz
impresario Norman Granz, whose Verve label included Duke Ellington, Count Basie and Charlie Parker.
As
an undergraduate at the University of California at Los Angeles, Mr.
Ostin helped Granz sell concert programs. He dropped out of UCLA law
school in the mid-1950s to manage the finances at Verve, which was then
known as Clef, and shortened his name soon after entering the record
business,
Mr.
Ostin fit well into Verve’s sympathetic environment and was noticed by a
superstar who in the late ’50s had attempted to buy the label: Frank
Sinatra. When Sinatra instead formed his own company, Reprise, he
brought in Mr. Ostin to run it.
“Frank’s
whole idea was to create an environment which both artistically and
economically would be more attractive for the artist than anybody else
had to offer,” Mr. Ostin told the Times. “That wasn’t how it was
anywhere else. You had financial guys, lawyers, marketing guys.”
But
Mr. Ostin became frustrated by Sinatra’s aversion to rock music and
moved over to Warner, which had purchased Reprise. He signed up one of
Britain’s hot new bands, the Kinks, and followed over the next few years
with Hendrix, the Dead, Morrison and others. He took on heavy metal
acts (Black Sabbath), light pop (the Association), country rock (the
Allman Brothers), comedians (Steve Martin) and novelty performers (Tiny
Tim).
His
good name and deeds helped him again and again. When Gene Simmons of
Kiss learned of an upcoming band from the Los Angeles area, he alerted
Mr. Ostin; Van Halen soon had a record deal. In 1990, Mr. Ostin was
outbid for the Chili Peppers by Sony/Epic, but still called
singer-songwriter Anthony Kiedis to wish him well. Kiedis was so
surprised that the band ended up dropping Sony and moving to Warner.
Mr.
Ostin had a close relationship with corporate boss Steve Ross,
president of Kinney National Services when the former parking company
purchased Warner in 1969. But Ross died of cancer in 1992 and Mr. Ostin
clashed with Warner Music Group Chairman Robert Morgado, who believed
the company needed to cut expenses.
A breaking point was Ice-T’s single “Cop Killer,”
for the band Body Count, which led to widespread demands that it be
pulled. The rapper’s critics included law enforcement agencies, President George H.W. Bush
and actor and conservative activist Charlton Heston. Ice-T left Warner
in 1993 after agreeing not to put the song on his most recent album, and
the fallout was widely believed to have weakened Mr. Ostin’s standing.
In 1995, Geffen convinced Mr. Ostin and Waronker to head the music division of the newly-formed DreamWorks company. George Michael,
Nelly Furtado and comedian Chris Rock were among the artists signed
before DreamWorks was purchased by Universal Music in 2003.
In
recent years Mr. Ostin was a consultant at Warners and donated $10
million to UCLA to help establish the Evelyn & Mo Ostin Music
Center, named in part for his wife of 55 years, Evelyn, who died in
2005. Their three sons — Michael, Kenny and Randy — have all been Warner
executives. Kenny and Randy died in 2004 and 2013, respectively.
Complete information on survivors was not immediately available.
Mr. Ostin was voted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2003. In 2014, he received an honorary Grammy Award for lifetime achievement, cited as
“a true pioneer of the contemporary music era whose life’s work has had
a profound impact on the artists he has helped develop and the fans
around the world who have benefited from their inspired creativity.”
