Music industry titan, philanthropist Howie Richmond dies

Abstract

After serving in the Army in World War II, Richmond became a publicist for Frank Sinatra and Dinah Shore and managed the late jazz saxophonist Georgie Auld -- all of whom later became his neighbors in the Coachella Valley -- before forming his own music publishing firm in 1949.

The Desert Sun

Rancho Mirage resident had a hand in helping museum, local charities

RANCHO MIRAGE -- Howie Richmond, one of the major behind-the-scenes manufacturers of the pop music industry, died Sunday morning at his Rancho Mirage home.

He was 94. Family members said he died peacefully in his bed after several weeks of deteriorating health. Funeral or memorial services are pending.

Locally, Richmond was a major philanthropist who rarely took credit for his charitable gifts. One of the rare times his name was in the local news was in the late 1990s when he led an effort to block hillside development in Rancho Mirage. He and his wife, former Rancho Mirage City Councilwoman Anita Richmond, led another effort to build a children's museum in Rancho Mirage, named The Anita B. Richmond Cove Communities Children's Discovery Museum of the Desert.

"Rancho Mirage has lost an historical giant," City Councilman Dana Hobart said. "Mr. Richmond was a guiding light from long before I arrived on the scene and ever thereafter. He appreciated good government and the effort it takes to provide it, and said so. He doubtlessly appreciated most every day of his life. Should we all be able to say the same for ourselves. He will be sorely missed." A life to celebrate."

Entrepreneur

Nationally, Richmond built one of world's largest independent music publishing companies, known collectively as The Richmond Organization. He co-founded the National Academy of Popular Music and Songwriters Hall of Fame as a way to promote historical songwriters at a time when several of them, including Irving Berlin, were in jeopardy of having their earliest works go into the public domain in the United States because copyright terms in the United States were shorter than in other countries.

Richmond received the Hall's first Music Publisher of the Year Award in 1983. Its Hitmaker Award, which has been won by the likes of Barry Manilow, Garth Brooks and Chuck Berry, is named after Richmond.

"I loved him," said singer-actress Kaye Ballard, who was the first to record "In Other Words (Fly Me to the Moon)" from the TRO catalogue. "In a business that's rotten, he was a true gentleman and classy from head to toe. He had great integrity. He was straightforward and honest all of the time."

Before becoming a publisher and serving as an influential member of the board of the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers, Richmond also was one of the leading publicists of the big band era. His clients included Glenn Miller, the Andrews Sisters, Woody Herman, Gene Krupa and Guy Lombardo between 1938 and 1940. when he was essentially a one-man PR company. He helped promote Miller's recording that is now the ultimate milestone of the big band era, "In the Mood."

After serving in the Army in World War II, Richmond became a publicist for Frank Sinatra and Dinah Shore and managed the late jazz saxophonist Georgie Auld -- all of whom later became his neighbors in the Coachella Valley -- before forming his own music publishing firm in 1949.

Starting with an emphasis on novelties and folk music, Richmond published the works of folk legends Huddie (Lead Belly) Ledbetter and Woody Guthrie, bringing them to pop audiences for the first times in their careers. One of the first songs in the TRO catalogue to become a national number one hit was Guthrie's "So Long, It's Been Good To Know You," which was a major influence on Bob Dylan. Richmond also distributed the sheet music to Guthrie's "This Land Is Your Land" to schools across America in the 1960s, launching it on a path to becoming the alternative national anthem it is today.

Pete Seeger and the Weavers recorded Lead Belly's "Goodnight, Irene" in 1950, and Sinatra's arranger, Gordon Jenkins, orchestrated it with lush strings to make it palpable enough to become the first folk song to go to number one on the pop charts in the modern recorded era.

Richmond later supported Pete Seeger when he was blacklisted during the Communist witch hunts of the 1950s until the Smothers Brothers broke the ban by putting him on their television show in 1967. Seeger's song from the TRO catalogue, "We Shall Overcome," became an anthem for the civil rights movement.

A touch of England

When Richmond opened a London office in the mid-1950s, Lead Belly's music started a sensation known as skiffle music, which influenced The Beatles. By the time The Beatles had hit it big in England, TRO had published such pop, jazz, rock and folk hits as Johnny Mercer's "Early Autumn," Bill Evans' "Waltz For Debby," Jimmie Rodgers' "Kisses Sweeter Than Wine" and the Kingston Trio's "Tom Dooley." He also published songs from hit musicals such as "Oliver," "Stop the World -- I Want To Get Off" and "High Spirits."

"I met him when he came back from England, and he bought the score for 'Oliver' for $30,000," Ballard said. "He said, 'Kaye, I just spent a fortune on this score, and I don't know if it will go.' I said, 'I just saw that. You're going to make so much money,' and he did."

Producer George Martin said TRO was one of three music firms he recommended to be The Beatles' publisher, but the Fab Four decided against them because they were too big.

TRO nevertheless published songs by such British Invasion artists as the Rolling Stones, The Who, David Bowie, Pink Floyd, Black Sabbath and the Moody Blues.

TRO's catalogue includes such rock classics as The Who's "My Generation," Bowie's "Space Oddity," Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon" collection, the Moody Blues' "Nights in White Satin," T. Rex's "Bang A Gong" and Black Sabbath's "Iron Man."

Desert resident

Richmond first visited Palm Springs in 1940. He became one of the early members of Tamarisk Country Club in Rancho Mirage in the 1950s. He said he conceived the idea for the Songwriters Hall of Fame while walking with fellow desert residents Mercer and his publishing partner, Abe Olman, in the 1960s.Mercer's daughter maintained a friendship with Richmond after her father died in 1976."He was just lovely," she said. "He would send me these notes about cheerfulness and keeping your head up. He was just a positive person. My father wrote a song called 'Ac-Cent-Tchu-Ate the Positive' and that was Howie all over the place. He was just a positive, happy man."

In his 90s, Richmond started a local nonprofit organization known as the CGH Society to promote the "good vibes" of Chico, Groucho and Harpo Marx. He had known the latter two comic actors at Tamarisk, and he remained friends with Harpo's son, Bill, in Rancho Mirage.

Bill Marx called Richmond "a great man."He had a great life," Marx said. "He was one of the great unsung heroes. He represented the way a human being should represent the human race. Just a stellar human being."

Richmond is survived by his sister, Shirley Gartlir; children, Frank, Larry, Phill, Robert and Elizabeth; and 13 grandchildren.

ID_Code: J1-205210303