Herbert Cohen (December 30, 1932 – March 16, 2010) was an American personal manager, record company executive, and music publisher, best known as the manager of

Judy Henske Judith Anne "Judy" Henske (December 20, 1936 – April 27, 2022) was an American singer and songwriter, dubbed "the Queen of the Beatniks" by producer Jack Nitzsche. Initially performing in folk clubs in the early 1960s, her performances and r ...

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Frank Zappa Frank Vincent Zappa (December 21, 1940 – December 4, 1993) was an American musician, composer, and bandleader. His work is characterized by wikt:nonconformity, nonconformity, Free improvisation, free-form improvisation, sound experimen ...

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Tom Waits Thomas Alan Waits (born December 7, 1949) is an American musician, composer, songwriter, and actor. His lyrics often focus on the underbelly of society and are delivered in his trademark deep, gravelly voice. He worked primarily in jazz during ...

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, The Turtles featuring Flo & Eddie, and many other

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...

-based musicians in the 1960s and 1970s.

Life and career

Cohen was born in

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

. After a period in the army in 1952, he moved to Los Angeles in the mid-1950s, and started to put on concerts with folk singers such as

Pete Seeger Peter Seeger (May 3, 1919 – January 27, 2014) was an American folk singer and social activist. A fixture on nationwide radio in the 1940s, Seeger also had a string of hit records during the early 1950s as a member of the Weavers, notably ...

and

.Waits Biographer Sued By Waits ExManager
He began running coffee bars and folk clubs, such as the Unicorn and Cosmo Alley, during the late 1950s and early 1960s.Obituary
'' London Guardian'', April 2, 2010. He began acting as manager for many artists, with his eventual roster including

Alice Cooper Alice Cooper (born Vincent Damon Furnier, February 4, 1948) is an American rock singer whose career spans over five decades. With a raspy voice and a stage show that features numerous props and stage illusions, including pyrotechnics, guillot ...

Lenny Bruce Leonard Alfred Schneider (October 13, 1925 – August 3, 1966), known professionally as Lenny Bruce, was an American stand-up comedian, social critic, and satirist. He was renowned for his open, free-wheeling, and critical style of comedy which ...

, and

. He also managed the

all-female band An all-female band is a musical group in popular music that is exclusively composed of female musicians. This is distinct from a girl group, in which the female members are solely vocalists, though this terminology is not universally followed. While ...

Fanny in the late 1960s and got them signed to

Warner Bros. Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. (commonly known as Warner Bros. or abbreviated as WB) is an American film and entertainment studio headquartered at the Warner Bros. Studios complex in Burbank, California, and a subsidiary of Warner Bros. D ...

after a performance at the Troubadour. He was best known as the manager of

and

the Mothers of Invention The Mothers of Invention (also known as The Mothers) was an American rock band from California. Formed in 1964, their work is marked by the use of sonic experimentation, innovative album art, and elaborate live shows. Originally an R&B band ...

from 1965, arranging their first club dates and, after encouraging record producer Tom Wilson to see them perform, securing their first record deal. He and Zappa went on to set up and jointly own the

Straight Straight may refer to: Slang * Straight, slang for heterosexual ** Straight-acting, an LGBT person who does not exhibit the appearance or mannerisms of the gay stereotype * Straight, a member of the straight edge subculture Sport and games * Str ...

, Bizarre, and Discreet record labels. After a ten-year association, he and Zappa parted company amid litigation in 1976. Zappa claimed that Cohen and his lawyer brother Martin "Mutt" Cohen were profiting unduly from his earnings, and Cohen countersued, claiming that Zappa had taken his album ''

Zoot Allures ''Zoot Allures'' is the 22nd album by the American rock musician Frank Zappa, released in October 1976 and his only release on the Warner Bros. Records label. Due to a lawsuit with his former manager, Herb Cohen, Zappa's recording contract was te ...

'' directly to Warner Bros. contrary to a contract between them. He also handled

Montreux Jazz Festival The Montreux Jazz Festival (formerly Festival de Jazz Montreux and Festival International de Jazz Montreux) is a music festival in Switzerland, held annually in early July in Montreux on the Lake Geneva shoreline. It is the second-largest annual ...

tours of

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

and the US, and produced the US portion of the Nelson Mandela concert in

Wembley Stadium Wembley Stadium (branded as Wembley Stadium connected by EE for sponsorship reasons) is a football stadium in Wembley, London. It opened in 2007 on the site of the Wembley Stadium (1923), original Wembley Stadium, which was demolished from 200 ...

upon Mandela's release. Cohen managed Tom Waits until 1982, and, after that time, his main management client was jazz musician

. Cohen reactivated the Bizarre and Straight labels in 1988, calling it "Bizarre/Straight Records," which was distributed by Enigma Records, and, later, Rhino Records. Bizarre/Straight released early recordings of both Waits and Tim Buckley. Some of the Bizarre/Straight releases were later released by

Manifesto Records Manifesto Records is an independent record label based in Los Angeles, California that has released records by Dead Kennedys, Tim Buckley, Cinerama, Concrete Blonde, Cranes, The Czars, Screamin' Jay Hawkins, Lilys, The Rugburns, Sing-Sing, Ken S ...

, a label formed in 1995 and run by his nephew, Evan Cohen, who is also a music industry lawyer. In 1989–91, Cohen managed the Russian rock group

Autograph An autograph is a person's own handwriting or signature. The word ''autograph'' comes from Ancient Greek (, ''autós'', "self" and , ''gráphō'', "write"), and can mean more specifically: Gove, Philip B. (ed.), 1981. ''Webster's Third New Inter ...

(who appeared at Live Aid for Africa) and oversaw the recording of their debut American album ''Tear Down the Border'', produced by Robert Duffey and released in 1991 on the Bizarre/Straight label, distributed by

Rhino Records A rhinoceros (; ; ), commonly abbreviated to rhino, is a member of any of the five extant species (or numerous extinct species) of odd-toed ungulates in the family Rhinocerotidae. (It can also refer to a member of any of the extinct species o ...

. In 2009, Cohen filed suit for

libel Defamation is the act of communicating to a third party false statements about a person, place or thing that results in damage to its reputation. It can be spoken (slander) or written (libel). It constitutes a tort or a crime. The legal defini ...

against British journalist

Barney Hoskyns Barney Hoskyns (born 5 May 1959) is a British music critic and editorial director of the online music journalism archive Rock's Backpages. Biography Hoskyns graduated from Oxford with a first class degree in English. He began writing about mus ...

and his publisher,

Random House Random House is an American book publisher and the largest general-interest paperback publisher in the world. The company has several independently managed subsidiaries around the world. It is part of Penguin Random House, which is owned by Germ ...

, Inc., with regard to statements in Hoskyns' book ''Lowside of the Road: A Life of Tom Waits''.

Death

Cohen died in 2010, in

Napa, California Napa is the largest city and county seat of Napa County and a principal city of Wine Country in Northern California. Located in the North Bay region of the Bay Area, the city had a population of 77,480 as of the end of 2021. Napa is a major t ...

, of complications from cancer. He was 77 years old.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Cohen, Herb 1932 births 2010 deaths American music industry executives American music managers Businesspeople from New York City Deaths from cancer in California Lafayette High School (New York City) alumni 20th-century American businesspeople