Allen Grubman is one of music’s renowned dealmakers. On Nov. 5, the chief partner in the entertainment law firm of Grubman Shire Meiselas & Sacks will be the last of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s original founders to be inducted into the institution he helped launch with none other than Ahmet Ertegun, Jann Wenner and Seymour Stein.
When asked about his biggest contributions over his half-century in the music industry, Grubmandoesn’t hesitate with his answer. His work boils down commanding respect for the work of artists.
“If you ask me what my contribution has been, it’s that talent is properly compensated, properly treated, properly respected by the people they’re dealing with,” Grubman says of his firm, which now numbers 50 lawyers. “It’s my job to get the most in those areas … whether it’s money, respect or exposure.”
Grubman prefers to keep an arms-length, professional relationship with his clients, though he does admit to becoming close to Bruce Springsteen over the past few years.
“I don’t come from the school where your clients have to be your best friends,” he says. “I don’t know if that’s always healthy.” Last year alone, Grubman represented mega-million-dollar catalog sales for Springsteen, Sting, Paul Simon and the David Bowie estate. “These artists are getting older and becoming very concerned with estate planning,” he says. “They want their ‘babies,’ which I call their work, taken care of when they’re gone.”
Grubman’s induction as part of the ceremony at the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles makes him one of a handful of industry leaders to be recognized with the Ahmet Ertegun Award, named in honor of the Atlantic Records cofounder who died in 2006. John Mellencamp will do the presentation for his lawyer and friend of 40 years.
For Grubman, the event is a significant personal and professional milestone. “I’m very happy, very proud,” he says, recalling the Rock Hall’s humble beginnings.
“We got together in a Chinese restaurant named Pearl’s. They needed a lawyer to set it up,” Grubman says. “But none of us could have anticipated it would become this iconic institution. When an inductee passes away, it’s the first line in their obituary.”
When he was a pre-teen, Grubman himself got a taste of showbiz. Between the ages of 11 and 13, Grubman was a regular singer on the “Horn & Hardart Children’s Hour,” which aired Sunday mornings on ABC. “When my voice changed, that was the end of my career,” he laments.
Growing up middle-class in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, the son of a garment salesman and a homemaker, Grubman was a small kid with a big voice, belting out the Broadway show tunes of the time before rock ’n’ roll. “When I started singing, people were surprised,” he recalls of being 4’8” at his bar mitzvah.
While attending City College of New York and then the private Brooklyn Law School, he worked nights in the mailroom at the William Morris Agency and as a page at CBS on “The Ed Sullivan Show.” Eventually, he got hired by Walter Hofer as a lawyer for his music firm for $125 a week.
Ever ambitious, by 1975 Grubman left to start his own entertainment business practice “with a bridge table, bridge chair and a telephone” on East 55th Street, representing such clients as KC and the Sunshine Band, the Village People, Kool & the Gang and Boardwalk Records.
A few years later, disco was dead and Grubman started representing future superstars such as the Police and Springsteen. Later he would add Madonna, Rod Stewart, AC/DC, Elton John, Mariah Carey and Andrew Lloyd Webber to his client list, while under his tutelage, partner Kenny Meiselas would bring in Lady Gaga, Lizzo, Sean “Puffy” Combs, Jennifer Lopez and the Weeknd, along with various music executives represented by the firm.
Grubman says a big key to his success can be described as having the right amount chutzpah for any given moment. Equally important, Grubman says, is understanding the boundaries of his roleas an artist advocate.
“It’s about having the balls to make decisions that might be a little dangerous,” Grubman says. “I was always able to relate to artists by telling them we’re both in the music business — but I’m in the business, and they’re in the music. I never wanted to hang out at the recording studio, or backstage. I leave the creativity to the artists. While I made sure they weren’t being taken advantage of by the companies they dealt with. Back then, I tried to rewrite the game book to eliminate that exploitation. I tried to move the leverage from the labels to the artists. And I feel I was pretty successful doing so, which took chutzpah.”
Now in his 80s, Grubman, who remains secretary-treasurer for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Foundation’s board of directors, has given no thought to calling it quits any time soon.
“I don’t play golf or tennis,” he says. “I don’t want to stare at the four walls. As long as I’m healthy, I want to continue doing this. I see a lot of my friends retiring, and it always ends in tears.”
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