Richie Finestra

**Richard "Richie" A. Finestra** is a record executive, chief executive officer, co-founder, and partner of American Century Records. Finestra started the company with an initial passion for music and discovering talent, but as became more concerned with making a profit that passion went by the wayside.

In 1973, with American Century on the precipice of being sold to PolyGram, Finestra goes to a New York Dolls concert at the Mercer Arts Center. This life-altering event reignites his love of music, causing him to back out from the PolyGram deal and places a strain on his personal and professional life.

## Biography

Richard Finestra was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York to an Italian American family. His father, Vince, was a jazz musician who played horn in a jazz ensemble called American Century, and his mother was half-black. Growing up, Richie had a love for music, particularly blues music, and even tried to write his own songs. Music was an escape for Richie as a way of coping with his parents fighting all the time.

As an adult, Richie got his start working in the music business by working menial labor jobs at every club in New York. He mopped floors, swabbed ashtrays, hauled kegs, and even scraped Chubby Checker's vomit off the inside of a toilet stall.

By the early 1960s, Richie got to start his own record company, which he then built into a record label, which he named American Century Records after his father's jazz band. The company was very successful, thanks in part to Richie having a "golden ear, a silver tongue, and a pair of brass balls". However, his alcohol and cocaine addiction became a massive issue for him personally. At some point, Richie lost sight of his vision for American Century and started selling safe and commercial music to the public.

By 1972, the label was losing money, and so Richie and his team decided to sell the company to PolyGram Records, along with Led Zeppelin as the label's "golden goose".

## Trivia

* Richie Finestra is partially based on Marty Thau. Six months after Thau quit his job at Paramount Records, he took his wife to see “five guys dressed as women in horrible makeup and jewelry” play at the Mercer Arts Center. He was managing the New York Dolls almost before they got off stage.
* Richie has a strong ear for good music. When the A&R staff of American Century laugh off ABBA as a joke band, Richie predicts their success after hearing three bars and recognizes the genius of the Velvet Underground. Though even Richie misses the mark at times. Richie had Alice Cooper fly to American Century Headquarters, but then stood them up for reasons unknown, and he also passed up a chance to sign the New York Dolls.
* Richie despises progressive rock music. This is displayed in the second episode where he furiously denounces both Yes and Emerson, Lake & Palmer, and when he storms into the American Century Records conference room and snaps a Jethro Tull record over his knee. It’s not hard to understand why this music rubs Finestra the wrong way, especially following his experience at the New York Dolls show in the previous episode, one that leaves him yearning for something virile and raw rather than the grandiose and highly conceptual musings associated with progressive rock.
* Richie is a quarter black from his mother's side.