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A&R music industry changes July 2011

admin — Wed, 13 Jul 2011 17:55:29 +0000

As always, we’ve been tracking the activity and movement within the A&R community over the last two months starting with the hiring of Doug Morris who officially joined Sony and the appointment of Antonio ‘LA’ Reid as the the new CEO of the Epic Label Group (consisting of Epic and Jive). Also joining Sony is Stephen Ferrera who joins Columbia and of course, the other big news was that Gee Roberson takes the helm at Geffen as the new CEO along with his VP A&R Jean Nelson. In Los Angeles, Myles Lewis joins Epic, Steve Prudholme joins Capitol, andGreg Sederspiel joins Warner Bros. Other A&R executives making moves include Ankur Malhotra, Alaska Gedeon, and Shari Reich. In UK moves, Nick Raphael joins Universal’s London Label, Jesse Peters joins Epic, Joe Barbie joins Atlantic and veteran executive Pete Tong revives his label FFRRvia Warner Bros.-UK.

In other label news, Universal continues to significantly trim its overhead. The latest reduction comes with the closure of the Motown label. Only a few executives remain in A&R, Nigel Mac in New York and Chris Anokute in Los Angeles. All of the other A&R staff unfortunately were let go. Other creative executives within Universal who recently departed include A&R executives Ron Fair who left Geffen at the end of May, along with Jolene Cherry, Aimee Nadeau and Louie Bandek. We wish them all well and hope that they can quickly rejoin the creative fray in a new endeavor.

A&R changes – November 2009

admin — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 01:15:03 +0000

There have been massive changes on the A&R front over the last few months. Among the most notable changes include the return of Rob Cavallo as Chief Creative Officer for Warner Music in California, Ed Johnson joining Warner Bros. from EMI Music Publishing, and Darby Bowen joining Epic. Over in the UK, there was a lot of activity as Zack Strubel joined Columbia, Jos Watkin joins Parlophone, Scott Jason joins Polydor, and Steve Proud joined Warner Bros. Ollie Hodge returns to Columbia-UK from his short stay at Columbia–NY, Angus Blair exits Island, Marc Jones exits Columbia, and Gary Harris exits Warner Bros. In New York, Steve Ralbovsky’s label Canvasback Music joins Atlantic from Sony while Pete Giberga exits Epic, Daniel Davis exits Atlantic while Jamaal Meeks exits SRC. And the big label news (as in not so quietly kept secret) is that Universal Music Group’s CEO Doug Morris is making plans to have Universal’s international chief Lucien Grainge take over as CEO sometime this summer (Morris is expected to remain as Chairman).

A&R changes

admin — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 22:10:16 +0000

There have been massive changes on the A&R front over the last few months. Among the most notable changes were former RCA A&R Executive Matt Marshall and EMI Music Publishing Executive Ed Jefferson who both join Tom Whalley’s A&R team over at Warner Bros in Burbank. In New York, A&R Veteran Steve Ralbovsky has brought his Canvasback Music label to Atlantic from Sony. Georgina McAvenna joins Rob Stevenson’s team over at Virgin, while Julius Garcia joins Jove and Daniel Mitchell joins Bad Boy. Meanwhile, Ben Adelson exits Universal Republic. Across the pond in London, Columbia’s Nick Huggett joins Island while Philipe Ascoli and Zack Strubel both join Columbia’s A&R team. Former Sony International A&R Executive Ricardo Fernandez joins Geffen. Phil Christie exits Virgin, former Sony Urban A&R Veteran Kawn Prather joins Def Jam South in Atlanta. Also joining Def Jam South is DJ Khaled. In a massive reorganization, Bill Bennett is exiting Warner Bros. Nashville and is being replaced by John Esposito (WEA’s current Ex VP Distribution).