SEE THE EGRESS: Modern artist management was arguably invented—and inarguably revolutionized—by an undocumented immigrant with a carny background. Netherlands-born Andreas Cornelis van Kuijk entered the country covertly at age 20 and reinvented himself as Tom Parker. He learned the pitches, levers and feints of the carnival trade before being drawn to another gaudy boardwalk, popular entertainment. In the late ’30s, he became a show promoter and subsequently hyped crooners like Gene Austin, Hank Snow, Tommy Sands and Eddy Arnold, helping the latter become one of the biggest stars of the era. He also worked in the freak show of regional politics, assisting the gubernatorial campaign of singin’ segregationist Jimmie Davis, for which he was named an honorary “colonel” in the Louisiana State Guard. His larger-than-life assumed identity was now complete.

In 1955 Colonel Parker heard tracks by a 20-year-old named Elvis Presley, who he initially imagined was Black, and who was recording for Sam Phillips’ Memphis-based Sun Records at the time. Parker and Snow struck a co-management deal with the strapping Mississippi native, but Parker quickly pushed Snow out and became Elvis’ 50-50 partner. By year’s end he’d talked the singer into leaving Sun and negotiated a landmark deal with RCA Victor for $40k (about $500k in today’s dollars). The following year, Elvis was on Ed Sullivan, the camera operators doing their best to avoid his scandalously gyrating hips.

RCA Victor also bought Elvis’ Sun recordings. The rest of the label was sold to producer Shelby Singleton in 1969 (he moved its HQ to Nashville) and sold again in 2021 to Larry Mestel’s Primary Wave. Phillips was, of course, a colossal figure in the evolution of rock & roll, and the legacy of Sun’s roster—which included Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis, Roy Orbison, Howlin’ Wolf, B.B. King and Charlie Rich—continues to exert enormous influence.

The cigar-chomping, furiously persistent Parker, meanwhile, took control of all things Elvis—recording, touring, TV, movies and merchandise—and turned him into a superstar. He didn’t let the artist tour internationally, however, fearing his undocumented status would be discovered. He arranged a huge TV comeback special with NBC in 1968 (after a long string of mostly awful movies) and in 1969 pioneered the Las Vegas residency by inking The King to sold-out multiyear stints at The International (later redubbed The Hilton).

Parker’s predisposition for both carny ballyhoo and hard-nosed negotiation took him far, though he’s been pilloried in some quarters as an opportunist, a petty tyrant and even a crook. But his legacy, finally, is his vision: He never stopped conjuring ways to make his artist bigger, brighter, broader, more culturally omnipresent. (He even sold pins that read, “I HATE ELVIS,” essentially providing his own counterprogramming.)

And so, at the dawn of rock & roll, the modern artist manager was born.

THE DEALMAKERS: Dapper Liverpudlian Brian Epstein, whose family owned a chain of music stores, saw potential—and charm—in a band of grungy leather-clad rockers from his hometown; he put them in suits, taught them to bow and signed them to EMI’s Parlophone (via a game producer-exec named George Martin) after getting turned down by countless other labels. The Beatles went on to conquer the world, of course, with Epstein scrupulously overseeing every detail—from publicity pics to tour logistics. His refinement aside, he also did some very aggressive dealmaking, not least for himself (his 25% commission was a milestone for the era). But without his shrewd interventions, Beatlemania is unthinkable. His death in 1967 created a void the Fab Four never properly filled.

The Rolling Stones’ crafty rep Andrew Loog Oldham put Mick and Keith in a room and forced them to start writing songs, completely altering the trajectory of what had hitherto been essentially an edgy cover band and infinitely increasing the Glimmer Twins’ income. He also brought in the savvy, ruthless Allen Klein to cut deals that upped the band’s take—notably by working out an agreement to obtain ownership of their masters and then leasing them to major labels, including Atlantic and Columbia—but also gave Klein excessive power and caused fissures in the band.

Early on, the canny, hard-charging Albert Grossman correctly saw Bob Dylan’s catalog as a gold mine and secured a publishing deal with M. Witmark & Sons for the young troubadour with terms that were unheard of in the '60s—providing Dylan with greater participation and control, both of which paid off handsomely as he became one of the most covered songwriters in the world. Grossman was a relentless song plugger for Dylan; another of his clients, Peter Paul and Mary, had a big hit with “Blowin’ in the Wind.”

Grossman’s negotiation of Dylan’s pubco Dwarf Music in 1965 also ramped up revenue and tightened the writer’s hold on his work. By commanding top licensing fees and other advantageous terms, Grossman helped set the bar for songwriters to follow—and prepared the ground for the 2020 sale of Dylan’s publishing catalog to UMPG for $300m.

The eclectic roster of clients under his Bearsville banner also included Janis Joplin, The Band, Richie Havens, Paul Butterfield, The Electric Flag, Odetta, Gordon Lightfoot and Todd Rundgren.

But Grossman had struck a covert side deal with aforementioned pubco Witmark, receiving 50% of the receipts for every artist he brought in. This double-dipping naturally caused unrest when it came to light years later and lost him his share of clients—including Dylan.

With a background as a bouncer, wrestler and tour manager (for Chuck Berry and The Yardbirds, among others), Peter Grant had all the necessary tools to navigate the biz and throw his considerable weight around. But as the shepherd of Led Zeppelin, he made huge strides for the role of artist manager in the larger ecosystem, nailing down deals for the band that afforded them unprecedented creative control as well as significant financial gains, from album-oriented marketing to a 90% stake in concert revenue. He also spearheaded the band’s Swan Song imprint, a template for artist-led labels that also released influential recordings by Bad Company and Dave Edmunds, among others. With his intimidating presence and unshakable loyalty, Grant helped make Led Zep the biggest live act of the '70s and a core act in the “classic rock” pantheon.

From the time U2 was formed in the late '70s until he retired from day-to-day management in 2013, Paul McGuinness was busily, often innovatively, advancing its fortunes. The deals he closed with Island for the Irish quartet bore incredibly favorable terms for a young band, including master reversion after a set period—shattering the “in perpetuity” tradition. He also organized the group’s publishing under its own shingle, U2 Limited. But perhaps most strikingly, he set up touring deals with promoters that gave Bono and company a piece of ticketing, concessions and other revenue rather than flat fees. A visionary deal with BlackBerry on the band’s 360 tour brought vast riches; the 2009-11 trek remains one of the top-grossing of all time. He also engineered a huge deal with Apple. U2 is still a towering presence on the live circuit partly due to McGuinness' prodigious efforts, with none other than Irving and Jeffrey Azoff now guiding its business.

Long before he was hailed as “Supermensch,” Shep Gordon discovered a bizarre “shock rocker” performing as Alice Cooper and forged a path of outrageous stunts and skillful image deployment that led to the big time. A fierce and fearless protector of his acts, the widely beloved Gordon later oversaw the careers of Teddy Pendergrass, Anne Murray, Luther Vandross and Groucho Marx before pivoting to the culinary world in the '90s, cooking up the notion of the celebrity chef with clients Wolfgang Puck and Emeril Lagasse, among others. With a world-class Rolodex, a central role in the South Maui hospitality industry over the last three decades and impressive skills on the links, the 80-year-old Gordon remains impeccably cool.

After working with acts like Rush, AC/DC and Aerosmith in various label and management configurations, Cliff Burnstein and Peter Mensch launched Q Prime in 1982 with Def Leppard as their sole client. Two years later, they inked Metallica, renegotiating an infinitely better Elektra deal and later masterminding the buyback of the group’s masters and the establishment of its Blackened imprint. In addition to revamping the band's touring and merch deals, which gave it enormous income and tight control, they built a direct-to-fan business for the metal giants long before such a thing was de rigueur. Four decades and change after hitching its wagon to Q Prime, Metallica is one of the most bankable live acts on the planet. Cliff and Peter have been standard-bearers for rock ever since and are among the few larger-than-life figures left on the management landscape. Their commitment to artist development the proven, old-school way—by putting artists on the road to pay their dues in vans and remote venues—remains a central pillar of their company.

Irving Azoff has long joked about his short stature, but he stands incredibly tall in biz annals, not least for the tough deals he brokered for acts like the Eagles, Jimmy Buffett and Steely Dan. He was an early adopter of bundled recording, tour and merch deals and used his sway with promoters to get his acts big back end and lavish budgets. The pursuit and defense of artist rights has been his mission and his mantra, and his work to advance them has helped precipitate a seismic shift toward artists' being equity partners in the ventures of their careers, though he always said he resented them for taking “85% of my money.”

He’s run just about every kind of entity under the sun, including MCA Records, Ticketmaster and Live Nation. He established GMR and Iconic as part of his artist-rights calling, and he’s now building arenas worldwide with his Oak View Group. On the management front, he’s writing a new Full Stop chapter with son Jeffrey—himself now considered one of the top managers—and a talented supporting cast, overseeing (among others) Harry Styles, Tate McRae, Earth, Wind & Fire, Cardi B, Gwen Stefani, Anderson .Paak, Adam Levine and Jon Bon Jovi. Irving is and has always been one of the true characters of the business.