Julian Aberbach: Biography

• Overview
• Discography
• Biography
• Related Artists

• Roy Acuff
• Fred Rose
• Jean Aberbach

• Elvis Presley
• Sam Phillips

Born:

Jan 1, 1909 in Vienna, Austria

Died:

May 17, 2004 in New York, NY

Genre:

Rock Music

Together with his brother Jean, Julian Aberbach revolutionized the business of music publishing—by creating small subsidiary publishing companies for individual artists who signed with the Aberbachs’ publishing firm Hill Range, they guaranteed clients not only a share of the profits but also a more proactive role in controlling their careers. Born in Vienna in 1909, Aberbach began his career in music after settling in Paris, but he emigrated to the U.S. in 1939 to escape Hitler’s forces. Upon arriving stateside he saved enough money to bring his parents to the U.S., purchasing them tickets to sail to Cuba via the St. Louis, but when the ship was denied the right to land, Aberbach followed it back in an airplane, eventually earning his family passage to New York City. Immediately thereafter he joined the U.S. Army, receiving his commission as a second lieutenant; he was later assigned to Fort Benning, Georgia as a multilingual liaison with officers of the Free French also stationed there.

While stationed in Georgia, Aberbach received his first exposure to the regional entertainment of the American south, becoming particularly enamored of country music. After he was discharged from military service he relocated to Los Angeles to resume his career in publishing, founding Hill Range in 1943. During a visit to the Venice Pier, Aberbach discovered fiddler Spade Cooley His Western Swing Band playing to a capacity crowd; he quickly cut a deal to represent the Cooley original “Shame on You,” which soon topped the country charts when released on Columbia. Aberbach also signed on with another Western swing legend, Bob Wills, scoring again with “Stars and Stripes on Iwo Jima.” Soon Aberbach was flying back and forth between L.A. and Nashville at least once a week, negotiating publishing contracts with country superstars including Ernest Tubb, Bill Monroe, Eddy Arnold, Johnny Cash, Lefty Frizzell and Hank Snow—at one point in time, roughly 75 of the music coming out of Music City was represented by Hill and Range Songs. When brother Jean left the employ of rival publisher Max Dreyfus, Hill and Range opened a second office in New York City—for years after the brothers swapped offices every three months, always meeting in Chicago to discuss their business.

In 1955 Auerbach received a hot tip from Snow, who suggested he investigate “a new kind of country singer” named Elvis Presley. He soon flew to a Presley performance in Shreveport, Louisiana, immediately thereafter meeting with the young singer’s family—suggesting his friend Colonel Tom Parker become Presley’s manager, Aberbach negotiated an unprecedented deal that resulted in the creation of a Hill and Range subsidiary called Elvis Presley Music. The agreement called for the Aberbachs and Presley to split publishing rights 50/50, encouraging Presley to recruit songwriters to provide him with new material. "I gave Elvis a check for 2,500, an advance against the royalties of his stock ownership," Aberbach told Billboard in 2002. "And he promptly went to the Cadillac dealer and got a pink one." While many critics cite Presley’s deal as the beginning of his long creative descent—it effectively precluded him from recording any material not licensed to Hill and Range and spurred him to accept mediocre material in favor of a quick buck—such contracts are now common in the music industry, and only increased Hill and Range’s already considerable power.

By the early 1970s, Hill and Range boasted offices in London, Amsterdam, Hamburg, Rome and Paris, where Aberbach eventually relocated his family. It was the biggest independent music publisher in the world when in 1973 he suffered a massive heart attack while in New York on business. Aberbach remained in critical condition for six weeks, and as his health failed to turn around, a panicked Jean decided to sell the company to Warner Chappell. From his hospital bed, Julian recommended Hill and Range maintain 25 of its 3500 songs already administered by Warner Bros. as well as 50 of the Elvis Presley catalog and all of the Hank Williams songbook, a deal as shrewd and prescient as any in the company’s history. Aberbach survived his ordeal and essentially retired from the music business, focusing the majority of his energies on his love of fine art—museums throughout the U.S. now exhibit French paintings donated from his vast collection. He was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2000 and named a member of the French Legion of Honor three years later. Aberbach died of heart failure in Manhattan on May 17, 2004.

- Jason Ankeny

, All Music Guide