Jac Holzman
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Jac Holzman (born September 15, 1931) is an American record executive. He is the founder of the record labels
Elektra Records Elektra Records (or Elektra Entertainment) is an American record label owned by Warner Music Group, founded in 1950 by Jac Holzman and Paul Rickolt. It played an important role in the development of contemporary folk and rock music between the ...
and
Nonesuch Records Nonesuch Records is an American record company and label owned by Warner Music Group, distributed by Warner Records (formerly Warner Bros. Records), and based in New York City. Founded by Jac Holzman in 1964 as a budget classical label, Nonesuch ...
. Holzman helped commercially launch the CD and
home video Home video is recorded media sold or Video rental shop, rented for home viewing. The term originates from the VHS and Betamax era, when the predominant medium was videotapes, but has carried over to optical disc formats such as DVD and Blu-ray. ...
formats, as well as the pilot program which became
MTV MTV (an initialism of Music Television) is an American cable television television channel, channel and the flagship property of the MTV Entertainment Group sub-division of the Paramount Media Networks division of Paramount Global. Launched on ...
. He was inducted into the
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (RRHOF), also simply referred to as the Rock Hall, is a museum and hall of fame located in downtown Cleveland, Ohio, United States, on the shore of Lake Erie. The museum documents the history of rock music and the ...
in 2011.


Early life

Holzman was born to a
Jewish Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of History of ancient Israel and Judah, ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, rel ...
family, the son of a Manhattan doctor. He founded Elektra Entertainment as a small independent folk label in his St. John's College dormitory room in 1950, with $600 ($ in dollars). That same year, the first record released was ''New Songs'' by John Gruen, initially a flop but a big learning lesson; 500 copies were pressed with fewer than a quarter of them sold. He held amateur radio callsign K2VEH around this time. In 1968, he approved Elektra Records' Paxton Lodge, the experimental recording studio where
Jackson Browne Clyde Jackson Browne (born October 9, 1948) is an American rock musician, singer, songwriter, and political activist who has sold over 30 million albums in the United States. Emerging as a teenage songwriter in mid-1960s Los Angeles, he had his ...
first recorded. By 1957, Elektra was $90,000 in debt ($ in dollars), but finally found success with folk artist Theodore Bikel.


Career

He signed such acts as
the Doors The Doors were an American rock band formed in Los Angeles in 1965, comprising vocalist Jim Morrison, keyboardist Ray Manzarek, guitarist Robby Krieger and drummer John Densmore. They were among the most influential and controversial rock acts ...
,
Queen Queen most commonly refers to: * Queen regnant, a female monarch of a kingdom * Queen consort, the wife of a reigning king * Queen (band), a British rock band Queen or QUEEN may also refer to: Monarchy * Queen dowager, the widow of a king * Q ...
(US only),
Love Love is a feeling of strong attraction and emotional attachment (psychology), attachment to a person, animal, or thing. It is expressed in many forms, encompassing a range of strong and positive emotional and mental states, from the most su ...
, Josh White,
Tim Buckley Timothy Charles Buckley III (February 14, 1947 – June 29, 1975) was an American musician. He began his career based in folk rock, but subsequently experimented with genres such as psychedelia, jazz, the avant-garde, and funk paired with his ...
,
Carly Simon Carly Elisabeth Simon (born June 25, 1943) is an American musician, singer, songwriter, and author. She rose to fame in the 1970s with a string of hit records; her 13 Billboard Hot 100, top 40 U.S. hits include "Anticipation (song), Anticipatio ...
,
the Stooges The Stooges or Iggy and the Stooges, originally billed as the Psychedelic Stooges, were an American rock band formed in Ann Arbor, Michigan, in 1967 by singer Iggy Pop, guitarist Ron Asheton, drummer Scott Asheton, and bassist Dave Alexande ...
,
MC5 MC5 was an American rock music, rock band formed in Lincoln Park, Michigan, in 1963. The classic lineup consisted of vocalist Rob Tyner, guitarists Wayne Kramer and Fred "Sonic" Smith, bassist Michael Davis (bassist), Michael Davis, and drummer ...
,
Harry Chapin Harry Forster Chapin (; December 7, 1942 – July 16, 1981) was an American singer-songwriter, philanthropist, and hunger activist best known for his folk rock and pop rock songs. He achieved worldwide success in the 1970s. Chapin, a Grammy Award- ...
, and
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to Elektra and discovered folk singer
Judy Collins Judith Marjorie Collins (born May 1, 1939) is an American singer-songwriter and musician with a career spanning nearly seven decades. An Academy Awards, Academy Award-nominated documentary director and a Grammy Awards, Grammy Award-winning rec ...
. In 1964, Holzman served as executive producer for 13 stock sound effect libraries titled ''Authentic Sound Effects'' which generated $1.5 million ($ in dollars) in sales giving Elektra further financial security; that same year he also founded
Nonesuch Records Nonesuch Records is an American record company and label owned by Warner Music Group, distributed by Warner Records (formerly Warner Bros. Records), and based in New York City. Founded by Jac Holzman in 1964 as a budget classical label, Nonesuch ...
as a classical music budget label.
In 1970, he merged his music interests with
Warner Communications Warner Media, LLC (doing business as WarnerMedia) was an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate owned by AT&T. It was headquartered at the 30 Hudson Yards complex in New York City. It was established as Time Warner ...
(then known as Kinney International) over a $10 million deal ($ in dollars) and continued his association with the labels he created for three additional years. While a part of the
Warner Music Group Warner Music Group Corp., commonly abbreviated as WMG, is an American Multinational corporation, multinational entertainment and record label Conglomerate (company), conglomerate headquartered in New York City. It is one of the "Record label#M ...
, Holzman helped to establish both the WEA Distributing Corp (Warner-Elektra-Atlantic Distributing Corp) and WEA International. In 1973, Holzman was appointed senior vice president and chief technologist for WCI. Holzman guided the company into
home video Home video is recorded media sold or Video rental shop, rented for home viewing. The term originates from the VHS and Betamax era, when the predominant medium was videotapes, but has carried over to optical disc formats such as DVD and Blu-ray. ...
and the first interactive
cable television Cable television is a system of delivering television programming to consumers via radio frequency (RF) signals transmitted through coaxial cables, or in more recent systems, light pulses through fibre-optic cables. This contrasts with bro ...
system, QUBE. Until 1972, he was a director of Pioneer Electronics Japan, helping that company, and Warner Bros., adopt the
compact disc The compact disc (CD) is a Digital media, digital optical disc data storage format co-developed by Philips and Sony to store and play digital audio recordings. It employs the Compact Disc Digital Audio (CD-DA) standard and was capable of hol ...
and
Laserdisc LaserDisc (LD) is a home video format and the first commercial optical disc storage medium. It was developed by Philips, Pioneer Corporation, Pioneer, and the movie studio MCA Inc., MCA. The format was initially marketed in the United State ...
. Holzman was a member of the board of
Atari Atari () is a brand name that has been owned by several entities since its inception in 1972. It is currently owned by French holding company Atari SA (formerly Infogrames) and its focus is on "video games, consumer hardware, licensing and bl ...
, one of the first video game companies, which was acquired by WCI in 1976; during this time the revolutionary
Atari 2600 The Atari 2600 is a home video game console developed and produced by Atari, Inc. Released in September 1977 as the Atari Video Computer System (Atari VCS), it popularized microprocessor-based hardware and games stored on swappable ROM cartridg ...
was released. In 1979, Holzman became the nexus between ex-Monkee
Michael Nesmith Robert Michael Nesmith (December 30, 1942 – December 10, 2021) was an American musician, songwriter, and actor. He was best known as a member of the Monkees and co-star of their The Monkees (TV series), TV series of the same name (1966–1968) ...
and John Lack of Warner Cable. He persuaded Lack to meet with Nesmith who had been nursing an idea for a program he called '' PopClips''. Holzman thought that Nesmith's notion of building a TV structure around that idea made real sense. In 1982, following the death of president and founder Robert Gottschalk, Holzman took charge of
Panavision Panavision Inc. is an American motion picture equipment company (law), company founded in 1954 specializing in cameras and photographic lens, lenses, based in Woodland Hills, Los Angeles, Woodland Hills, California. Formed by Robert Gottschalk a ...
, a wholly owned subsidiary of Warner Bros. Discovery and turned that financially troubled company around. In 1986, he formed FirstMedia, an investment firm which acquired
Cinema Products Corporation Cinema Products Corporation was an American manufacturer of motion picture camera equipment. History The company was formed in 1968 by Edmund DiGiulio, Ed DiGiulio, a former director and vice-president of the Mitchell Camera Corporation. Their f ...
, the maker of the Oscar-winning
Steadicam Steadicam is a brand of camera stabilizer mounts for motion picture cameras invented by Garrett Brown and introduced in 1975 by Cinema Products Corporation. The Steadicam brand was acquired by Tiffen in 2000. It was designed to isolate the ...
camera stabilization system. In 1991, through FirstMedia, Holzman acquired the Discovery, Trend and Musicraft jazz labels from the estate of Albert Marx, which was also acquired by Warner Music Group in 1993. After
Edgar Bronfman Jr. Edgar Miles Bronfman Jr. (born May 16, 1955) is an American businessman, filmmaker, theater producer, and media executive who is a managing partner at Accretive LLC. He previously was CEO of Warner Music Group from 2004 to 2011, and was its chair ...
and a group of investors acquired Warner Music Group from Time Warner Inc. in 2004, Bronfman brought Holzman back to WMG, reuniting him with the company that he had helped to found with
Ahmet Ertegun Ahmet Ertegun ( ; , ; July 31, 1923 – December 14, 2006) was a Turkish-American businessman, songwriter, record executive and philanthropist. Ertegun was the co-founder and president of Atlantic Records. He discovered and championed many lead ...
and Mo Ostin. Although Holzman's work at Warner Music covers a range from mentoring executives and future planning, his first project was the creation of an on-line label, Cordless Recordings, introduced in late 2005. Cordless gave bands space to hone their art and grow without the expectations and cash outlays associated with a major label.


Current

In April 2016, Steve Cooper, CEO of Warner Music Group, announced Jac Holzman as the Senior Technology Advisor to WMG: "a wide-ranging technology 'scout', exploring new digital developments and identifying possible partners." In June 2018, Holzman launched a new venture named "Cosmic Ringtones & Sonic Realms... Your Universe Is Calling". Curated and produced by Holzman, the collection included a series of instrumental pieces composed, performed, and recorded by his son
Adam Adam is the name given in Genesis 1–5 to the first human. Adam is the first human-being aware of God, and features as such in various belief systems (including Judaism, Christianity, Gnosticism and Islam). According to Christianity, Adam ...
. The album was released on Holzman's FM Group Music label, distributed by ADA.


Awards and honours

In 2008, Holzman received the NARAS Grammy Trustees Award. On December 15, 2010, it was announced that Holzman would be awarded the
Ahmet Ertegun Ahmet Ertegun ( ; , ; July 31, 1923 – December 14, 2006) was a Turkish-American businessman, songwriter, record executive and philanthropist. Ertegun was the co-founder and president of Atlantic Records. He discovered and championed many lead ...
Award (along with Specialty Records founder
Art Rupe Arthur Newton Rupe (born Arthur Goldberg; September 5, 1917 – April 15, 2022) was an American music executive and record producer. He founded Specialty Records, known for its rhythm and blues, blues, gospel and early rock and roll music reco ...
) by the
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (RRHOF), also simply referred to as the Rock Hall, is a museum and hall of fame located in downtown Cleveland, Ohio, United States, on the shore of Lake Erie. The museum documents the history of rock music and the ...
. Holzman was inducted into the non-performer category of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on March 14, 2011, with the induction speech given by Doors member
John Densmore John Paul Densmore (born December 1, 1944) is an American musician. He is best known as the drummer of the Rock music, rock band the Doors and as such is a member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. He appeared on every recording made by the band, ...
.


Personal life

Holzman is the father of Adam Holzman, a jazz-rock keyboardist who has played with
Miles Davis Miles Dewey Davis III (May 26, 1926September 28, 1991) was an American jazz trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. He is among the most influential and acclaimed figures in the history of jazz and 20th century music, 20th-century music. Davis ado ...
; Jaclyn Easton, a writer and Internet entrepreneur; and Marin Sander-Holzman, an editor and filmmaker. In 1973 he built a home in Hawaii, after Elektra merged with Warner. The move was inspired by the film ''
Holiday A holiday is a day or other period of time set aside for festivals or recreation. ''Public holidays'' are set by public authorities and vary by state or region. Religious holidays are set by religious organisations for their members and are often ...
'', where at that time he was mostly reading instead of listening to music.


Works

*


See also

* Follow the Music * Elektra Sound Recorders


References


External links


Word 152 - 2010-10-21 - David Hepworth talks to Jac Holzman, on Elektra's 60th.RSS feed



Blast from the Past Seeks Next Big Thing
* https://web.archive.org/web/20121102123659/http://www.digitalmusicforum.com/west/speakers09.shtml
''Becoming Elektra'', Elektra’s early years by Mick Houghton

Follow the Music - Holzman & Daws
() (paperback, ).
Sound Opinions March 2011 interview with Holzman
{{DEFAULTSORT:Holzman, Jac American music industry executives St. John's College (Annapolis/Santa Fe) alumni American record producers 20th-century American Jews Elektra Records Nonesuch Records Living people 1931 births 21st-century American Jews