Miriam P. "Mimi" Trepel (May 7, 1908 – September 18, 2006) was an American radio broadcaster who became a pioneering record industry distribution manager, described by writer John Broven as "an unseen heroine of

rock 'n' roll Rock and roll (often written as rock & roll, rock 'n' roll, or rock 'n roll) is a genre of popular music that evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s. It originated from African-American music such as jazz, rhythm an ...

Biography

She was born in

Brooklyn Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...

, the daughter of Russian Jewish immigrants, and studied at the

Feagin School of Dramatic Art The Feagin School of Dramatic Art (also Feagin School of Dramatic Radio and Arts) first located at Carnegie Hall, then later at 316 West 57th Street in New York City, was an early training site for actors Jeff Corey, Helen Claire, Angela Lan ...

. She worked as a drama coach before deciding to work in

radio Radio is the technology of signaling and communicating using radio waves. Radio waves are electromagnetic waves of frequency between 30 hertz (Hz) and 300 gigahertz (GHz). They are generated by an electronic device called a transmi ...

broadcasting. In 1944, she started working at

WLIB WLIB (1190 AM) is an urban contemporary gospel radio station licensed to New York City. WLIB is owned by Emmis Communications, along with sister stations WBLS (107.5 FM) and WQHT (97.1 FM). The three stations share studios in the Hudson Square ...

, where she became involved in music programming and production, responsible for classical music programming and announcements, and broadcasting shows by

Oscar Brand Oscar Brand (February 7, 1920 – September 30, 2016) was a Canadian-born American folk singer-songwriter, radio host, and author. In his career, spanning 70 years, he composed at least 300 songs and released nearly 100 albums, among them Ca ...

Ella Fitzgerald Ella Jane Fitzgerald (April 25, 1917June 15, 1996) was an American jazz singer, sometimes referred to as the "First Lady of Song", "Queen of Jazz", and "Lady Ella". She was noted for her purity of tone, impeccable diction, phrasing, timing, in ...

Ethel Waters Ethel Waters (October 31, 1896 – September 1, 1977) was an American singer and actress. Waters frequently performed jazz, swing, and pop music on the Broadway stage and in concerts. She began her career in the 1920s singing blues. Her no ...

and others. In 1946 she moved to work at station

WMCA WMCA may refer to: *WMCA (AM), a radio station operating in New York City * West Midlands Combined Authority, the combined authority of the West Midlands metropolitan county in the United Kingdom *Wikimedia Canada The Wikimedia Foundation, ...

, which was located immediately adjoining "

Tin Pan Alley Tin Pan Alley was a collection of music publishers and songwriters in New York City that dominated the popular music of the United States in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It originally referred to a specific place: West 28th Street ...

". There, she became acquainted with the work of

music publisher A music publisher is a type of publisher that specializes in distributing music. Music publishers originally published sheet music. When copyright became legally protected, music publishers started to play a role in the management of the intellect ...

s, and

copyright A copyright is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the exclusive right to copy, distribute, adapt, display, and perform a creative work, usually for a limited time. The creative work may be in a literary, artistic, educatio ...

responsibilities, before moving back to WLIB as head of music programming in 1947. While there, she married her third husband, Murray Jordan, a radio announcer. As the playing of records on radio became more important than live sessions, she left the radio industry in 1954, and joined London Records, the American subsidiary of Decca Records. She was soon appointed as head of the company's music publishing subsidiaries, Burlington Music (for BMI copyrights) and Felsted Music (for ASCAP), as well as managing the company's foreign distribution department. This role gave Trepel responsibility for negotiating releases, in Britain and elsewhere, by the American artists recording for the company and its associates and licensors, including

Atlantic The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's five oceans, with an area of about . It covers approximately 20% of Earth's surface and about 29% of its water surface area. It is known to separate the " Old World" of Africa, Europe an ...

Monument A monument is a type of structure that was explicitly created to commemorate a person or event, or which has become relevant to a social group as a part of their remembrance of historic times or cultural heritage, due to its artistic, hist ...

, and Dot. According to Motown historian Adam White: "She helped to transmit a generation’s worth of revolutionary music into Britain, most of it from bold, independent American labels whose output simply defined rock & roll and rhythm & blues: Imperial, Specialty,

Sun The Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System. It is a nearly perfect ball of hot plasma, heated to incandescence by nuclear fusion reactions in its core. The Sun radiates this energy mainly as light, ultraviolet, and infrared radi ...

, Atlantic,

Chess Chess is a board game for two players, called White and Black, each controlling an army of chess pieces in their color, with the objective to checkmate the opponent's king. It is sometimes called international chess or Western chess to dist ...

Vee-Jay Vee-Jay Records is an American record label founded in the 1950s, located in Chicago and specializing in blues, jazz, rhythm and blues and rock and roll. The label was founded in Gary, Indiana in 1953 by Vivian Carter and James C. Bracken, a ...

, Philles – and Motown...". She represented the Decca and London companies around the world, and was one of the few women with positions of responsibility in the record industry at that time. However, by the late 1960s, independent record companies such as Atlantic increasingly sought to establish their own identities and imprints overseas, and her role diminished. She retired in 1975. After her retirement, she wrote and performed classical music in Manhattan, and at the age of 78 graduated with a degree from Fordham University. She died in Palm Beach, Florida, in 2006 at the age of 98.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Trepel, Mimi 1908 births 2006 deaths People from Brooklyn American radio producers American music industry executives