Mo Ostin, a legend in the record industry.
Today it was reported that Sunday Mo Ostino is dead, one of the great executives of the record industry, who has signed contracts with legends such as Jimi Hendrix, Neil Young, Van Halen, Green Day, Prince, Eric Clapton and Joni Mitchell. He has worked as a top executive at Warner-Reprise Records for more than three decades.
His death was confirmed by Warner Records co-presidents CEO Aaron Bay-Schuck and COO Tom Corson, who wrote on their social media that the legendary figure of the music world died in his sleep, of natural causes.
Mo Ostino
a corporate career
Born in New York in 1927, Morris Meyer Ostrofsky began his career in 1953 after studying economics at UCLA when he landed a job at Verve Records working in the finance department.
Seven years later, after a failed attempt to buy Verve, legendary singer Frank Sinatra launched his own label, Reprise, and hired Ostin to run it. In 1963, Reprise was bought by Warner Bros.
Mo Ostin with Frank Sinatra and The Rat Pack, Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Jr ..
Ostin quickly made a name for himself at Warner Bros. by signing up The Kinks in 1964 and Jimi Hendrix experience in 1967. In 1970 he was promoted to president of Warner-Reprise and two years later would be named president / CEO, a position he held until his departure from the company in 1994.
A year later, he joined DreamWorks Records, where he remained for nearly a decade, before returning to Warner Bros. Records as a consultant in 2006.
Under Ostin’s supervision, Warner Bros. he has signed some of the greatest bands and solo artists in musicsuch as Fleetwood Mac, Van Halen, The Who, Van Morrison, Grateful Dead, Joni Mitchell, Randy Newman, James Taylor, Rod Stewart, Steely Dan and Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers.
Mo Ostin, along with Paul Simon, Neil Young and Lorne Michaels, at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, 2003. Photo: AP
In the 1990s he signed the Red Hot Chili Peppers, REM and Green Day. Such was his importance that Ostin was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2003 by Neil Young, Paul Simon and the creator of Live Saturday nightLorne Michaels.
words of their peers
“Mo was one of the greatest record labels of all time and one of the leading architects of the modern music business. For Mo, helping artists bring their vision to life has always been first and foremost, ”said CEOs Bay-Shuck and Corson.
“He was one of the seminal figures in the evolution of the Warner Music Group, in the 1960s he led Warner / Reprise Records into a golden age of revolutionary art that changed culture. Over the next three decades on the label, he remained a tireless advocate of creative freedom, both for the talent he cultivated and the people who worked for him.
Mo Ostin with Joni Mitchell.
“Mo has lived an amazing life doing what he loved, and will be sorely missed across the industry he helped create and the countless artists and peers he inspired to be his best.”
There were also many posts and memories of artists on their networks, such as Flea, the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Clive Davis.
Both Ostin’s wife, Evelyn, and two of his children, Randy and Kenny, died before him. Only his son Michael survives.
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Source: Clarin
