The Money Side of the Street

Six years ago, young Songwriters Charlie Koppelman and Don Rubin were working for a Manhattan music publisher for $25 a week. It wasn't much, but then, as Koppelman says, "We really weren't that good as songwriters." After a while, they prudently turned to publishing other composers' songs, and eventually went on to produce recordings of those songs. Last week, after having turned out a string of 17 gold-record hits (sales of a million copies) by such performers as The Lovin' Spoonful, Bobby Darin and The Turtles, Koppelman, 28, and Rubin, 29, sold out their publishing and production enterprises to a holding company for a reported $3,000,000.

Their success would be remarkable enough if it were an isolated case; in fact, it symbolizes an upheaval that has churned the entire record industry since the advent of rock music. It began when the established record companies wanted to capture the new sounds for their labels, but found that their over-30 staff producers--the men who select songs, assign arrangers, hire musicians and supervise recording sessions--were not tuned in. As 46-year-old John K. Maitland, President of Warner Bros.-Seven Arts Records, puts it: "Our Brooks Brothers suits couldn't link up with these hippie artists."

Out of the impasse was born a new, freewheeling type of rock producer--usually as young and offbeat as the musicians themselves, steeped enough in the idiom to collaborate on songs, arrangements and electronic effects, and keenly attuned to "the street" (pop music's term for the fast-shifting mass market). Some of them went on record-company payrolls but most have remained independent, sometimes even wrapping up the complete record "package" before peddling it to the companies. Today roughly 70% of the releases that reach the bestseller charts are produced by the 100 or so independents now at work across the country. All but invisible to the general public, these producers constitute one of the most potent influences in pop music. Among them:

> George ("Shadow") Morton, 26, is so nicknamed because he is likely to excuse himself from a business conference, ostensibly to go to the men's room, and not be seen again for four days. Raised in Brooklyn, he had "about 40" jobs (bouncer, ice-cream vendor, hairdresser) before launching his record career in 1964 with a hit song that he wrote in twelve minutes (Walking in the Sand). Now he produces the Vanilla Fudge, the New York Rock & Roll Ensemble and Janis Ian (Society's Child), is training three proteges at his own commune-style firm on Long Island. An autocrat in the studio, he does his own arranging and most of his engineering, proclaims: "I am the greatest producer in the business. I am also an egomaniac."

> Bob Crewe, 37, a former interior decorator, model, singer and songwriter, is a rare example of an "older" independent producer who successfully adapted to rock. His 62 hits and total of 100 million sales span several styles (Mitch Ryder, Lesley Gore), but all reflect his desire to "avoid the naked, irritating sounds while using the basic force of the beat." Crewe's three-floor Manhattan penthouse--decorated with mirrored ceilings, carved panels from the Indonesian pavilion at the New York World's Fair, and kangaroo-skin bedspreads--is also the nerve center for his group of eight production, publishing and management companies (1967 gross: $4,000,000), which he recently reorganized on the advice of his astrologer.

> James William Guercio, 22, is not only one of the youngest producers but also one of the most ambitious: he has already built up a Crewe-like cluster of companies in Los Angeles that may gross over $1,000,000 this year. On the strength of his composing, arranging, conducting and producing for The Buckinghams--five singles and two albums, all of which reached the charts--he recently signed a contract to develop new talent for Columbia Records. Guercio quit college "when John Kennedy died and the Beatles were born," went on the road with such groups as Chad & Jeremy and The Mothers of Invention. Like his idol, the late avant-garde composer Edgard Varese, he is given to such pronouncements as, "A record is sound forever, not just a disk of plastic," and, "I'm desperately trying to wake the world up."

Flourishing as their recording ventures may be, most of the new producers are already restlessly expanding to other fields. In what appears to be the major trend, Crewe is moving into the production of television specials and films, and Koppelman and Rubin are preparing a musical series for network TV next fall. Morton also plans to make television shows, publish a sex magazine and, he adds, become a movie actor. Among other things, these departures may be a hedge against the danger that grows with every year that a producer ages: "cooling," or losing the golden touch. But the way they are rolling now, these producers need not worry too much. When asked what they will do when they get older, Koppelman and Rubin reply: "We hope to be on the Riviera by then."

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