Mo Austin, who held a senior executive position at Warner Bros.-Reprise Records for more than three decades, as the artist-friendly company enjoyed a resplendent tour and hit, has died of natural causes. He was 95 years old.
In 1960, Austin was set apart from the imprint of Norman Grants Verve Records by Frank Sinatra, who, while failing to buy Verve, admired the 33-year-old’s console savvy and brought him on board as his general manager.
Austin survived three years of monotonous sales through Reprise’s roster of old-school pop stars and jazz musicians, transitioning into a larger executive role after Warner Bros., the label arm of studio Burbank, bought the label.
He quickly set about bringing Warner-Reprise into keeping with the times, personally signing on to Kinks, already a hit in England, in 1964, and doing the Jimi Hendrix Experience, then making noise in the UK, in 1967. (He wasn’t scared From that) He brought in more outlandish talent as well, bringing in artists like free-motion group Greenwich Village The Fugs and ukulele-playing singer Tiny Tim.)
In the wake of those engagements, Warner-Reprise has amassed a list of the music industry’s most enviable talent. In the late 1960s and 1970s, her works included Randy Newman, Neil Young, Van Morrison, Fleetwood Mac, The Grateful Dead, Joni Mitchell, James Taylor, Paul Simon, and Rod Stewart.
In subsequent years, he joined these bestselling artists Van Halen, Prince, The Who, Dire Straits, REM, Steely Dan, Tom Petty, Heartbreakers, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Green Day, and via a distribution deal with the lord of records, Madonna and Talking Heads .
Austin was promoted to the chairmanship of Warner-Reprise in 1970 and took over as Chairman/CEO two years later; He would retain the latter title until his exit from the company amid the company’s turmoil in 1994.
After the purchase of Warner-Reprise, Atlantic Records, and Elektra Records in 1969 by parking mogul Steve Ross’ Kinney National Services and the rise of Ostin, the allied labels, formerly sold by a network of independent regional wholesalers, created their own national distribution company, Ultimately known as WEA.
Within five years, WEA controlled nearly a quarter of the American music market, and Warner-Reprise was the number one brand in the country. In 1977, the exclamation mark came into label history with the release of “Rumors” by Fleetwood Mac, which spent 31 weeks at number one domestically and eventually moved 20 million copies in the U.S.
Austin experienced both the most devastating decline in the record business (the 1979 industry-wide sales collapse) and the explosive rise (the sales explosion spurred by the commercial introduction of the CD in the early 1980s). However, the completion of Warner Communications’ merger with Time Inc in 1990 led to a prolonged period of company intrigue and executive changes that led to Austin’s departure in 1994.
With his son Michael, CEO of Warner A&R, and former Warner A&R Chairman and President Lenny Waronker, Ostin joined DreamWorks Records – the label’s arm of the diversified entertainment company founded by David Geffen, Jeffrey Katzenberg, and Steven Spielberg – in 1995.
There, former Warner executives attempted to build a new roster of cutting-edge talent, and hires included Elliott Smith, Ailes, Morvin, Rufus Wainwright, Nelly Furtado, and, in the Nashville division, Toby Keith and Tracy Lawrence. Warner standard-bearers such as Randy Newman and Randy Travis followed them to the label.
However, declining sales led to the sale of the DreamWorks label to distributor Universal Music Group in 2003, and the following year Austin quit the company. He quietly returned to Warner Bros. Records in an advisory capacity in 2006, and held the title of Honorary Chairman of the Board.
Austin was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2003. In 2006, he received an Icon Award from the Recording Academy, “in honor of his contribution to the modern music scene.”
Maurice Mayer Ostrovsky was born on March 27, 1927 in New York. In 1941, his family moved to Los Angeles, where he attended Fairfax High School and headed the school’s Music Association. He studied economics at the University of California and, through his acquaintance with Norman Granz Irving’s brother, landed a finance job at Verve in 1953.
He was still with the company when Frank Sinatra lost to MGM Records in a bid to buy Verve. After starting Rebras, Sinatra took the advice of attorney Mickey Rudin and hired Austin to head the new brand’s day-to-day business.
Although Rebras recorded a few hit songs under Sinatra’s auspices along with the singer’s own albums, Austin believed his boss’ vision of a musician-friendly process was the wave of the future.
“He expected the company to be motivated by its artists,” Austin said in “Blowout,” Stan Cornyn’s 2002 history of Warner Music Group. “It all makes sense today, but it was really revolutionary at the time.”
It was an idea that Austin embraced throughout his tenure at Warner Company. The company’s creative, and sometimes risky signatures (many of them by Waronker, who was installed as head of the brand in 1981) have been backed by clever and subtle marketing (much of it designed by Cornyn, the company’s longtime chief creative services) and Powerful Distribution Arm (Managed by Executives Joel Friedman and Henry Drews).
Under Austin, employment at Warner for decades was considered a lifelong job, but a chain of corporate dominoes began to fall after Steve Ross died of cancer in 1992.
Austin, who had previously reported directly to Ross, came into conflict with newly appointed Warner Music Chairman/CEO Robert Morgado. Within months of appointing former Atlantic Records president Doug Morris to head Warner Music’s US operations in July 1994, Austin announced that he would not renew his contract with the company, and walked out at the end of the year.
The following August, he, his son, and Warronker, who turned down Austin’s job offer, joined the startup Dreamworks. Ironically, this MCA-distributed label will soon join imprints run by former Warner Music executives Bob Krasno and Morris, who became president of the newly minted Universal Music Group in 1995.
At the end of his tenure at Warner, Austin told company historian Cornyn, “In this business, the company should never underestimate the power of its artists. But… while the artists are what a music company is made of, management has some real value.” It should never be underestimated.”
In 2011, Austin donated $10 million to build the music facility at the University of California, Evelyn and Mo Austin Center for Music. He contributed another $10 million in 2015 to the university’s basketball training facility, Mo Austin Basketball Center.
Wife Evelyn Austin died in 2005; His son Randall, an Electra promotional executive, died of cancer at the age of 60 in 2005. He is survived by sons Michael and Kenny.
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