Condolences: Charles Koppelman
• Longtime music industry executive Charles Koppelman, who was most notably known as the “K” in SBK Records and former CEO of EMI, died Friday, Nov. 25 at the age of 82. As Variety reports, the news of Koppelman’s passing was posted on social media by his son Brian, the co-creator and showrunner of the Showtime series Billions, and daughter Jenny Koppelman Hutt. No official cause of death was given, but Brian wrote of his father, “He spent his last days surrounded by those he loved the most.”
Koppelman’s music career began in earnest as a publisher, working for Don Kirshner‘s Aldon Music, later with Clive Davis as National Director of A&R at Columbia Records. In 1975, he teamed up with longtime Sony Music Publishing chief Martin Bandier and New York real estate developer (and Bandier’s then-father-in-law), Samuel LeFrak to form the Entertainment Company, which began as a publishing company acquired CBS Songs for $125 million. Koppelman and Bandier then teamed up with financier Stephen Swid to form SBK Entertainment, which began as a publishing company. After playing a key role in the careers of Tracy Chapman (discovered by Brian Koppelman) and New Kids on the Block, SBK sold the publishing company to Thorn EMI for $300 million in 1988, launching SBK Records as a joint venture.
SBK Records was an almost immediate success with hits by Katrina and the Waves, Wilson Phillips, Technotronic and Vanilla Ice. SBK was also the spawning ground for such influential industry executives as Glassnote Records President/Founder Daniel Glass; Republic Records cofounder Monte Lipman; Atlantic Records President of A&R Pete Ganbarg; Cornerstone and the Fader co-Founders Rob Stone and Jon Cohen; veteran promotion execs Ken Lane and the late Neil Lasher; and Deborah Dugan, who would go on to become President of Disney Publishing, CEO of Bono and Bobby Shriver‘s (RED) non-profit, and endure a brief and controversial turn as President/CEO of the Recording Academy.
The company eventually merged with EMI, with Koppelman as CEO and bringing in Prince‘s first post-Warner Bros. album, Emancipation. After leaving EMI in 1997, Koppelman worked with Steve Madden and Martha Stewart before returning to the music business with his own C.A.K. Entertainment, where he oversaw branding deals for Jennifer Lopez and Marc Anthony with Kohl’s, Nicki Minaj and Adam Levine with K-Mart, and many others.
