March 19, 2007-- Distinguished faculty from the University of Virginia will
host two panels featuring management teams from the Doors and the Dave Matthews
Band, who will discuss the state of the music business today, how it has changed
since 1967 and where it might be headed. The first panel will be held on
Tuesday, March 27, from 6 to 8 p.m. at the Music Resource Center, 105 Ridge
Street. The second panel will be held on Wednesday, March 28, from 2 to 4 p.m.
in the Newcomb Hall South Meeting Room, U.Va. Central Grounds. The events are
free and open to the public.
Topics will include:
• Forty Years On - Changes in the music business since 1967
• Digital Downloading - Illegal theft or just smart marketing?
• Creating a Brand in the Arts World - Hold it tight or give it away? Who owns
art?
• Managing an Artistic Legacy across 40 Years - Authenticity vs. the bottom
line
The symposium is part of a new course initiative in Arts Administration at the
University of Virginia with undergraduate courses being offered through the
McIntire Department of Art by lecturer George W. Sampson. In a
multi-disciplinary approach, selected courses are cross-listed between the
College of Arts & Sciences and the McIntire School of Commerce. Arts
Administration seeks to incorporate both the visual and the performing arts, and
include both the for-profit entertainment and the non-profit arts sectors.
Active in the arts world since 1967, Sampson, who will moderate the panels and
discussions, holds a Master of Fine Arts in Arts Administration from Columbia
University.
Symposium participants include:
Moderator: George W. Sampson, Lecturer, U.Va.
Band Managers:
Bill Siddons – Former Doors Manager
Rich Linnell – Former Doors Concert Promoter, Manager
Jeff Jampol – Current Doors Manager, & President, Doors Music Co.
Bruce Flohr – ATO Records / Red Light Management
Business and Law Faculty:
James Rubin - Darden School of Business
Mary Jo Hatch - McIntire School of Commerce
Chris Sprigman – U.Va. School of Law
Marc Lipson - Darden School of Business
Jeff Jampol - UCLA
Bill Siddons began his career in the music business at 19, managing the Doors
from 1967 to 1972 and again from 1978 to 1980. He is cited as a primary source
in histories of the band and of Jim Morrison. Still active in the music
business, Siddons currently manages Alice in Chains, the Lloyd Dobler Effect,
Jerry Cantrell, and Elayne Boosler. Over the years, he has managed or played
significant roles in the careers of Van Morrison, John Klemmer, America, the
Souther Hillman Furay band, Jesse Colin Young, The Band, Poco, David Lindley,
Jackson Browne, Robert Palmer, Pat Benatar, Crosby Stills & Nash and others.
Rich Linnell managed the Doors from 1980 to 1983 but started working with them
when he was 20 years old, in early 1967, carrying sound equipment for the
up-and-coming band. Beginning with a 1967 concert at California State
University, he presented Doors concerts throughout their career, including the
last complete concert Jim Morrison ever performed, at the Dallas Music Hall on
Dec. 10, 1970. (The next night in New Orleans, Morrison didn’t last the whole
show.) From 1967 to 1974, Linnell produced more than 250 concerts and tours by
Crosby, Stills & Nash, Jimmy Hendrix, Aerosmith, the Rolling Stones and many
others. Subsequently, he helped manage the Jim Morrison posthumous “An American
Prayer” project, produced a national tour with Arlo Guthrie, and post-apartheid
South African tours with Crosby, Stills & Nash, Richie Havens and others. He is
currently working with former Doors drummer John Densmore on a project with
Iranian stringed instrument virtuoso Reza Derakshani.
Jeff Jampol began his career as an engineer, producer, arranger and radio DJ. He
segued to management in the late 1970s when he started managing bands in the
burgeoning Bay Area punk rock community. Following a long career working for
Atlantic, Columbia and WEA Records in marketing and promotion, Jampol partnered
with Doors manager Danny Sugerman in 2003, and then assumed the presidency of
Doors Music Co. upon Sugerman’s passing in January 2005. In addition to managing
The Doors, Jampol serves as a consultant to managers, publishers and labels on
heritage acts, and to artists’ estates (including Janis Joplin’s) on catalog,
branding, merchandise and marketing. A voting member of the National Academy of
Recording Arts & Sciences, Inc.'s Los Angeles chapter since 1985, Jampol, also
teaches several UCLA music business classes, where he has been an instructor in
UCLA’s Entertainment Studies and Performing Arts Department for the past 11
years. His November 2006 article “Classic Rock Branding” appears at
www.editorialemergency.com.
Bruce Flohr is the Charlottesville-based head of ATO Records and Red Light
Management. His radio experience includes music director for KCPR college radio
and on-air talent for KZOZ. At RCA Records, as head of rock promotions, he
worked closely with acts such as Cowboy Junkies, Stone Roses, Love and Rockets
and Michael Penn. Then, as senior vice president of A&R and Marketing, where he
signed artists such as Dave Matthews Band, Foo Fighters and Lit. After 16 years
with RCA, Bruce left Los Angeles to join Coran Capshaw’s Red Light Management
and ATO Records in Charlottesville, where he plays a vital role in the
management of more than 20 bands, including Dave Matthews Band, OAR, Robert
Randolph and the Family Band, Say Anything and Army of Me. He recently signed to
ATO Records such talented artists as Jem and Gomez.
For more information or to arrange interviews with participants contact: George
W. Sampson, project director at (434) 924-7307, fax: (434) 924-3647 or e-mail:
gws6n@virginia.edu; Caitlin Brown ’08
at (551) 265-9943, cate@virginia.edu; or
Kathleen Howard ‘09 (540) 622-4733,
kph3d@virginia.edu.
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