Former CBS Records head Walter Yetnikoff dead at 87

Walter Yetnikoff, the volatile and abrasive president of CBS Records when the label had Michael Jackson, Billy Joel and Bruce Springsteen in its stable, died Monday. He was 87.

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The cause of death was cancer, The New York Times reported. His wife, Lynda, confirmed the death to friends Monday and said the cause of death was a recurrence of bladder cancer, according to Variety.

Yetnikoff was president/chief executive of CBS Records from 1975 to 1990, the Los Angeles Times reported. The artists he worked with included Jackson, Springsteen, Barbra Streisand, Joel, the Rolling Stones, Paul McCartney, Bob Dylan, Cyndi Lauper, Elvis Costello and Julio Iglesias.

CBS Records’ annual revenue grew from $485 million annually to more than $2 billion under Yetnikoff’s leadership, the newspaper reported.

The Brooklyn, New York-born Yetnikoff had close relationships with his artists, including Streisand, Lauper -- who nevertheless called him a male chauvinist pig -- and Jackson, Rolling Stone reported.

Yetnikoff fought to get Jackson’s videos on MTV, the magazine reported. He got the music network to put “Billie Jean” in its rotation after threatening to withhold his other artists if the music network refused, Variety reported.

Jackson brought Yetnikoff onstage when he accepted one of eight Grammy Awards at the 1984 ceremony, The New York Times reported. The pop star called Yetnikoff “the best president of any record company.”

Yetnikoff received a $20 million bonus after he oversaw the sale of CBS Records to Sony for $2 billion in 1987, the Los Angeles Times reported.

In 1990, Yetnikoff was fired by Sony after his offensive behavior began to outweigh his successes, the newspaper reported. He had gone into rehab in 1989.

“I would go into meetings and ask people to hold hands and say the serenity prayer,” he told The New York Times in 2004, in an interview occasioned by the publication of his autobiography, “Howling at the Moon: The Odyssey of a Monstrous Music Mogul in an Age of Excess,” written with David Ritz.

Yetnikoff was born Aug. 11, 1933, in Brooklyn. His father painted hospitals and his mother was a bookkeeper, Rolling Stone reported. He attended Brooklyn College and went to Columbia Law School.

After graduation, Yetnikoff joined the firm of Rosenman & Colin, whose staff included another future music mogul, Clive Davis, The New York Times reported.

Davis moved to the legal department at Columbia Records, a division of CBS, and in 1961 he brought Yetnikoff to the department. paying him $10,000 annually, the newspaper reported.

“It wasn’t a money move,” Yetnikoff told Rolling Stone in 1988. “I thought it would be interesting, exciting. And I got my own office and a telephone with, like, four buttons on it.”

Yetnikoff’s telephone at his old job, he said, had no buttons, the magazine reported.

CBS artists released massive albums during Yetnikoff’s tenure. That included Springsteen’s “Born to Run” in 1975, Boston’s self-titled album in 1976, Meat Loaf’s “Bat Out of Hell” in 1977 and Jackson’s “Off the Wall” in 1979.

“Walter Yetnikoff was a giant in the music industry at a time when it was more fun, more outrageous and complex and extremely less corporate than today, and he was a man for the times,” Jackson’s estate said in a statement. “It is difficult today to imagine the level of cultural apartheid at the music channels in 1983 when MTV refused to play ‘Billie Jean.’ But Yetnikoff was ferocious on Michael’s behalf and didn’t hesitate to play corporate chicken with the powerful music channel. In short order, ‘Billie Jean’ was added to MTV in heavy rotation, opening the flood gates for Michael’s extraordinary success and also for a whole generation of black artists. Walter forced that to happen, and with that decision, the wall came tumbling down.”

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