Walter Yetnikoff, in his time as president of CBS Records, in New York, 1978.Carlos Rene Perez / AP
Walter Yetnikoff, arguably the most powerful man in the record industry during his fat cow years, died on Sunday August 8 in a Connecticut hospital from bladder cancer;
he was on the verge of turning 88.
President of CBS Records between 1975 and 1990, he was the architect of the sale of the company to the Japanese group Sony.
More information
Closed mouths
The Record Executive Stories
Yetnikoff, a Jew from Brooklyn, came to CBS Records in 1962, by the hand of Clive Davis, another lawyer who sensed that the future of the record business would go through more equitable agreements with artists, to achieve a climate of harmony that would facilitate maintaining a position. dominant in the market. Davis piloted the company's entry into the burgeoning world of rock, without giving up its ballasts, its Broadway musicals, its
jazzmen
and its classical music performers. After getting hard at drafting contracts in the legal department, Yetnikoff dedicated himself to the international expansion of the company.
The fall of Clive Davis in 1972, the scapegoat of infighting at parent company Columbia Broadcasting System, cleared Yetnikoff's path to the top. In 1975, he was named president and CEO of the recording branch. The New York company then felt besieged by the rise of Warner Bros. Records, a Californian firm that had connected with the
countercultural
zeitgeist
and boasted of granting maximum freedom to its artists. CBS might not be as
cool
as Warner but Yetnikoff decided it should have a bigger presence on the airwaves and in record stores.
To crush the competition ("fuck Warner" was sung in chorus at CBS conventions) anything was allowed. Yetnikoff crossed the border of legality by agreeing with independent promoters in gangster ways, who used the illegal
payola
(radiation in exchange for money and / or gifts) to win the favor of the broadcasters. That was done under the hood, although Yetnikoff was also capable of playing hard to face bare. He terrorized Billy Joel's former manager Artie Ripp into returning the publishing rights to his repertoire. Faced with what was in effect a veto of black artists on the MTV channel, he threatened to cut the supply of CBS videos if they did not program the
Billie Jean.
by Michael Jackson. MTV has never accepted this account of the events but the truth is that its support
for Michael's
crossover
made it easy to turn
Thriller
into the biggest best seller in history.
Jackson's growing megalomania would turn out to be a nightmare for Yetnikoff, who had to deal with such bizarre requests as influencing Grammy votes to prevent Quincy Jones from receiving the best producer award (“He already has too many, I do. I deserve it"). Fortunately, Michael did not feel threatened by Bruce Springsteen, who went from major minority artist to superstar at the time, with the full endorsement of Yetnikoff. Personal relationships counted a lot: the manager detested Paul Simon and did not object much to his transfer to Warner, where he would achieve his greatest success,
Graceland
. He also let Johnny Cash go, convinced that the vocalist was already squeezed.
Yetnikoff understood perfectly with the British figures: separated by the Atlantic, he did not suffer directly from their creative agonies. The company could assume millionaire advances and, when the album arrived, it would fire all its artillery: Pink Floyd, Paul McCartney or the Rolling Stones proved it. It was planted, yes, when George Michael wanted to cancel his contract, claiming that CBS did not want him to change his image and that he had reduced promotional support for his
Listen without prejudice.
That was anathema to a record label like Yetnikoff. As unlikely as he would renounce the privileges of his position: he made no secret that he resorted to alcohol, cocaine, and sex to maintain the necessary dot in that Olympus of manic ego. Still, he was able to steer the 1988 sale of CBS Records to Sony, a transaction that fattened his checking account by $ 20 million. It was believed indispensable but the corporate culture of the Japanese could not compromise with its riot. In 1990, they gave him the kick: he was replaced by one of his disciples, Tommy Mottola, just as crazy but much more discreet.
What came next was sadly predictable.
A
Miles Davis
biopic
project was
wrecked when it became clear that CBS would not give up their music.
Attempts to stay in the game followed through unsuccessful small record labels, painful rehabilitation, dedication to charity.
But he did not lose his sharp teeth or taste for blood.
In 2004, in complicity with the expert David Ritz, he published
Howling at the moon
, a gruesome memoir where, although he acknowledged his excesses, he justified all his actions and settled old accounts.
Discover the best stories of the summer in
V Magazine
.