THE FIFTH BEATLE
ALLEN KLEIN
Though I walk in the valley of the shadow of evil, I have no fear, as I am the biggest bastard in the valley.
– Allen Klein’s desk display
Allen Klein was born in New Jersey on 18 December 1931, the fourth child of Hungarian Jewish immigrants. When he was very young, his mother died, and he and his sisters were placed in an orphanage until his father remarried when Klein was ten years old.
After he graduated from high school he found work with a magazine and newspaper distributor and enlisted in the army, serving as a clerk in New York. After his service he studied accountancy at Upsala College, and found a job with a Manhattan accountancy firm charged with auditing music publishers and agencies. His unique skill was his ability to find money owed to artists; he famously made Bobby Darin his first million and renegotiated Sam Cooke’s contract with RCA. He worked with The Animals, Herman’s Hermits, Donovan and The Dave Clark Five, then renegotiated The Rolling Stones’ deal with Decca, which ensured that they, despite selling fewer records, made more money than The Beatles.
Klein had always wanted to manage pop’s biggest prize asset, and he’d approached (and was rebuffed by) Epstein in 1964. After reading John’s comments to Ray Coleman, Klein phoned Apple to ask to speak to The Beatles. In a placatory move after endless phone calls, Derek Taylor suggested he meet John and Yoko in The Dorchester. Klein bowled them both over with his knowledge of John’s songs and Yoko’s art, and with his street-smart attitude, something that impressed George and Ringo too when John introduced Klein to the rest of the band. Paul was not quite so captivated; he was keen that his new in-laws would look after The Beatles’ financial interests, and even tried to bring in Mick Jagger to persuade them that Klein’s business dealings were not always above board. Jagger was not an effective voice of dissent, and John, George and Ringo, suspicious that keeping it in the Eastman family would mean favourable treatment to Paul, were still convinced that Klein should manage the group. While unable to resolve this uneasy stand-off, Klein was tasked to examine the finances of Apple and The Beatles’ contracts with EMI and Capitol, United Artists, Northern Songs and NEMS, while the Eastmans were allowed to offer legal advice on the future of Apple. It was an uneasy compromise, their cooperation marred by paranoia and secret scheming.
At Apple, amongst many belt-tightening measures, there were multiple firings. Out went Ron Kass, Alistair ‘Mr Fixit’ Taylor, Brian Lewis, Magic Alex and a swathe of secretaries and PAs as well as the in-house translator and kitchen staff. Peter Asher left in protest, taking James Taylor with him. Apple also ended its schools programme, the film and electronic divisions, and, despite having work deep in production on spoken word label Zapple (including recordings from Ken Kesey, Charles Bukowski, Ken Weaver of The Fugs, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Richard Brautigan and other countercultural luminaries) it was also shut down. Many of the Zapple recordings were released by other labels.
Allen Klein with John and Yoko in the Apple offices. Getty Images
Then, NEMS sold seventy per cent of their shares to Triumph Investment Trust resulting in EMI freezing The Beatles’ royalties until Klein, who had boasted to the band that he could get them NEMS for nothing, negotiated a deal with Triumph that cost the band more than the £1 million offer the Eastmans had originally suggested.
While dealing with NEMS and Triumph, Dick James, who had started Northern Songs to look after the Lennon-McCartney publishing rights back in 1963, sold his shares to ATV. Now, both The Beatles and ATV owned thirty-five per cent each of the company, and it was up to Klein to make sure The Beatles became the majority shareholders by negotiating with the consortium that owned the remaining shares. He failed. The consortium sold to ATV, and by the end of 1969 ATV owned ninety-two per cent of the company.
However, Klein did manage to salvage his reputation when he renegotiated The Beatles’ contract with EMI and Capitol in a history-making deal, one that even Paul admitted he could find no fault in. Paul finally succumbed, and agreed, with some caveats, on a management contract with Klein.
Klein continued to manage The Beatles after their official split in 1970, and assisted John and Yoko with the Imagine film, and George with the Concert for Bangladesh. However, his relationship with John, George and Ringo soured due to the financial arrangements he made for the concert and film, and they fired him as their manager. He sued them for $19 million, but settled for $4.2 million in 1977. That same year he was charged with income tax evasion – though only one charge stuck in the end – and he spent two months in jail in 1980. He later managed Phil Spector’s business affairs, and forced The Verve to sell the rights to their hit single ‘Bittersweet Symphony’ to him for $1 due to their sample of the strings of the Andrew Loog Oldham Orchestra’s version of ‘The Last Time’ owned by his company ABKCO. He died of Alzheimer’s disease in New York in 2009.
