Extra Credit Two: Inventing David Geffen - Hour One

"Show business... It doesn't happen to guys from Brooklyn" - Martin Davidson

                In the music industry, David Geffen is a name many are familiar with. He is known as the man who defined music and motion picture culture. He shaped the modern record business and influenced rock and roll. Who exactly is he though, and how did he become such a big name in show business?

                Geffen grew up in the 1950's and 1960's, in Brooklyn, New York. He moved to California, a place he had always dreamed of going to, as soon as he graduated high school. He got fired from dozens of jobs before getting the best advice of his life, when a the casting director of a film told him "you can be an agent and know absolutely nothing." Later, he went back to New York and began working in the mail-room of the William Morris Agency where he eventually became an agent, and would go out and look for talent. He signed artists, most notably Laura Nyro, of whom Geffen was very fond of. He eventually quit the agency and started a managing company and began managing Laura. The two sold the publishing for Laura's songs for 4 million dollars (which was very much in the 1960's). When asked by his mother what exactly it was that he did for a living as a manager, David would reply, "I'm their manager. I advise them on their careers." David then went on to partner with Elliot Roberts, who, at the time, was managing Crosby, Stills, and Nash, Joanie Mitchell, and Neil Young. The two "meshed perfectly," and they had younger artists in the industry wanting to be with them. This led them to create their own record label, Asylum Records. Laura Nyro, David's desired first signee, signed with Columbia Records, which shocked and upset David. David was a business man, however, and he was going to be successful.

                Asylum Records has the desire to make the best possible environment for artists financially and emotionally. He would say to an artist, "just worry about the music, I'll take care of everything else." Asylum was deemed "the voice of the 1970's" and had successful records produced. Unusually, Asylum reflected David's own personal musical tastes. He wouldn't drop an artist from the label if they didn't sell records. He had people that he thought deserved to have their music marketed.

                David went on to sell Asylum records, like a "commodity," which upset and disappointed many who felt like he betrayed them, because artists felt like they were now owned by a corporation. David, however, got tired of always being there for everyone's problems and thought, "who is showing up for me?" Joanie Mitchell, in particular, wrote a song about David, which shows how his business and economic impact on the artists influenced the music, thus impacting culture.

                The late 1960's and the decade of the 1970's was a time frame in which David Geffen was part of the music scene. He was out on Sunset Boulevard, in Los Angeles, which was the known as the "street of music" and deemed a center to emotional and spiritual lives of those involved. It was noted as the place of a "culture revolution" through music. 

"Inventing David Geffen." American Masters. PBS, n.d. Web. 28 Nov. 2012. <http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/episodes/david-geffen/film-inventing-david-geffen/2361/>.