A Prince Among Stones: That Business with the Rolling Stones and Other Adventures
Loewenstein, former “director of the merchant bank Leopold Joseph,” met Mick Jagger in 1968. A Stones insider asked if he would be interested in “taking care of the finances” for the band. The band’s name “meant virtually nothing to” Loewenstein, but he accepted the offer. In 1968, rock bands were not paid well by today’s standards, even the Beatles and the Stones. The Stones’ recording contract with Decca was bad enough, but their rights to “future earnings of the masters and copyrights” had been sold to Allen Klein, who had bound the band to him by a “bewildering mass of contracts.” After extricating them from the nefarious clutches of Klein and Decca, “Prince Rupert” later prompted them to become tax exiles and, over the years, contributed much to making Rolling Stones Inc. one of the most profitable brands in the world. This smoothly written autobiography is an essential companion to all of the other Stones titles coming out in honor of their fiftieth year in the music biz. --Mike Tribby