Walter Yetnikoff

Walter Yetnikoff (Born August 11, 1933, Brooklyn, New York) is a former CBS Records/Sony Music executive.

Yetnikoff left his job in 1990 and has since gone on to write his memoirs, "Howling at the Moon" (published in 2004). During his career at CBS, he influenced the careers of Michael Jackson, Bruce Springsteen, Barbra Streisand and Clive Davis.

Career

Yetnikoff was born in Brooklyn and graduated magna cum laude from Brooklyn College, where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. After earning his law degree at Columbia University, he joined the Rosenman & Colin law firm, which represented CBS Records. He then joined the CBS Records law department and rose to become head of the department. When Clive Davis was sacked by CBS for financial impropriety, Yetnikoff was promoted to head CBS Records.

Renowned for his "colorful" personality and his abrasive/abusive management style, Yetnikoff was a key protagonist of the 1990 book Hit Men: Powerbrokers and Fast Money Inside the Music Business, Frederic Dannen's landmark exposé of the shady dealings by major American record labels in the 1970s and 1980s. The book focused on the practice of payola; the record companies' controversial connections with "The Network", a loose grouping of so-called "Indies" (independent record promoters) who were, by the 1980s, being paid tens of millions of dollars annually by major record labels to promote new releases to American radio stations and who could reputedly make or break a new record.

In the book, Dannen recounted Yetnikoff's rise to power at CBS, his "war" with hated corporate rival Warner Music Group, then owned by Warner Communications, its head Steven J. Ross and his escalating conflict with CBS Records Deputy President Dick Asher -- who came to oppose the use of "Indie" promoters — which culminated in Yetnikoff's controversial sacking of Asher in April 1983. According to Dannen, Yetnikoff strongly favored the use of "Indies," and in the early 1980s he opposed a plan by the RIAA to investigate the use of "Indie" promoters after a series of NBC News reports revealed apparent links between prominent "Indie" promoter Fred DiSipio, his then right-hand man Joe Isgro, and members of the Gambino crime family, including notorious New York Mob boss John Gotti.

The book also examined Yetnikoff's intimate links with other major industry figures, including music industry "Godfather" Morris Levy, prominent music industry lawyer Allen Grubman, Michael Jackson's one-time manager Frank Dileo and former artist manager Tommy Mottola, whom Yetnikoff appointed to a senior post at CBS Records after its sale to the Sony Corporation in 1988.

Yetnikoff renewed his public feud with Ross in 1989 when Yetnikoff interfered in Sony's negotiation with Ross and Time Warner in signing Jon Peters and Peter Gruber to co-head Sony's newly acquired subsidiary Columbia Pictures (Now known as Sony Pictures Entertainment). At the time, Guber and Peters both had contracts with Time Warner's Warner Bros. unit. As a result, Sony's U.S. head Michael P. Schuloff, embarrassed by Yetnikoff's abusive behavior, quietly settled with Ross and Time Warner over Guber and Peters, who became co-heads of its movie unit.

After leaving Sony Music in 1990, Yetnikoff put together an independent label Velvel Records, which debuted in 1995. The label released many records, including The Kinks catalog. It was sold to Koch Records in 1999 and Yetnikoff was no longer involved with the label. Subsequently he co-founded Commotion Records an independent label focusing on soundtrack CDs. His autobiography Howling at the Moon, cowritten with David Ritz, was published in 2004.

Yetnikoff is featured in the book Hit And Run about Sony's purchase of Columbia Pictures in 1990 and hiring, on Yetnikoff's recommendation, Peter Guber and Jon Peters to run the studio. Yetnikoff is also featured in the books The Operator: David Geffen Builds, Buys, and Sells the New Hollywood by Thomas R. King, and Appetite for Self-Destruction: The Spectacular Crash of the Record Industry in the Digital Age by Steve Knoppler. He is rumored to be the inspiration for Walter Fox, the record-label boss played by Rip Torn in the film One Trick Pony written by and starring Paul Simon.