Al Coury
Encyclopedia
Al Coury was a 1970s vice-president of American
record label
Capitol Records
. He joined the label in 1957 and rose to the position of vice-president of marketing, sales and promotion. Coury helped develop the careers of many recording artists, including The Beatles
, Nat King Cole
, The Beach Boys
, Pink Floyd
, Glen Campbell
, Bob Seger
and Linda Ronstadt
.
Coury was important to several solo Beatles releases in the 1970s, particularly Paul McCartney
's 1973 album Band On The Run
, and John Lennon
's 1974 album Walls and Bridges
, both of which reached the top of the charts and yielded #1 singles. It was Coury who persuaded McCartney to include the successful single "Helen Wheels
" on the US version of Band On The Run (because it was last-minute, the lyrics to the song were not included on the lyric sheet). He then chose the song "Jet
" as the second single, which helped make the album the most successful of McCartney's solo efforts.
The following year, Lennon invited Coury to "work his magic" promoting Lennon's Walls and Bridges album. It was Coury who chose the first single, "Whatever Gets You Thru The Night
", which became Lennon's first #1 solo hit (and the only one in his lifetime). Coury was also instrumental in the long-awaited release of Lennon's 1975 album Rock 'n' Roll
, bartering with producer
Phil Spector
to retrieve the master tapes
from their abandoned 1973 recording sessions.
Coury's last signing to Capitol Records was the group Dolenz, Jones, Boyce & Hart
, made up of former Monkees Micky Dolenz
and Davy Jones
, and songwriters Tommy Boyce
and Bobby Hart
, who'd written several Monkees hits. He then left Capitol to become president and co-founder of RSO Records
, with Robert Stigwood
. At RSO, Coury marketed such hits as the Saturday Night Fever
and Grease
soundtrack album
s, and Eric Clapton
's Slowhand
. Coury worked extensively with the Bee Gees, RSO's flagship group.
In 1980, Coury created a new record label, Network Records
. One of the label's initial successes was the soundtrack to the movie Flashdance
. The song "What a Feeling" won a Grammy Award
and an Oscar for Song of the Year in 1984. In 1985, Network Records merged with Geffen Records
, and Coury became Geffen's general manager, launching hit records for Guns & Roses, Aerosmith
, Peter Gabriel
and Don Henley
.
Coury retired from the record business in 1994. He is married to children's book author and artist, Tina Nichols Coury.
Al Coury serves on the nominating committee of the Hit Parade Hall of Fame.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
record label
Record label
In the music industry, a record label is a brand and a trademark associated with the marketing of music recordings and music videos. Most commonly, a record label is the company that manages such brands and trademarks, coordinates the production, manufacture, distribution, marketing and promotion,...
Capitol Records
Capitol Records
Capitol Records is a major United States based record label, formerly located in Los Angeles, but operating in New York City as part of Capitol Music Group. Its former headquarters building, the Capitol Tower, is a major landmark near the corner of Hollywood and Vine...
. He joined the label in 1957 and rose to the position of vice-president of marketing, sales and promotion. Coury helped develop the careers of many recording artists, including The Beatles
The Beatles
The Beatles were an English rock band, active throughout the 1960s and one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music. Formed in Liverpool, by 1962 the group consisted of John Lennon , Paul McCartney , George Harrison and Ringo Starr...
, Nat King Cole
Nat King Cole
Nathaniel Adams Coles , known professionally as Nat King Cole, was an American musician who first came to prominence as a leading jazz pianist. Although an accomplished pianist, he owes most of his popular musical fame to his soft baritone voice, which he used to perform in big band and jazz genres...
, The Beach Boys
The Beach Boys
The Beach Boys are an American rock band, formed in 1961 in Hawthorne, California. The group was initially composed of brothers Brian, Dennis and Carl Wilson, their cousin Mike Love, and friend Al Jardine. Managed by the Wilsons' father Murry, The Beach Boys signed to Capitol Records in 1962...
, Pink Floyd
Pink Floyd
Pink Floyd were an English rock band that achieved worldwide success with their progressive and psychedelic rock music. Their work is marked by the use of philosophical lyrics, sonic experimentation, innovative album art, and elaborate live shows. Pink Floyd are one of the most commercially...
, Glen Campbell
Glen Campbell
Glen Travis Campbell is an American country music singer, guitarist, television host and occasional actor. He is best known for a series of hits in the 1960s and 1970s, as well as for hosting a variety show called The Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour on CBS television.During his 50 years in show...
, Bob Seger
Bob Seger
Robert Clark "Bob" Seger is an American rock and roll singer-songwriter, guitarist and pianist.As a locally successful Detroit-area artist, he performed and recorded as Bob Seger and the Last Heard and Bob Seger System throughout the 1960s...
and Linda Ronstadt
Linda Ronstadt
Linda Ronstadt is an American popular music recording artist. She has earned eleven Grammy Awards, two Academy of Country Music awards, an Emmy Award, an ALMA Award, numerous United States and internationally certified gold, platinum and multiplatinum albums, in addition to Tony Award and Golden...
.
Coury was important to several solo Beatles releases in the 1970s, particularly Paul McCartney
Paul McCartney
Sir James Paul McCartney, MBE, Hon RAM, FRCM is an English musician, singer-songwriter and composer. Formerly of The Beatles and Wings , McCartney is listed in Guinness World Records as the "most successful musician and composer in popular music history", with 60 gold discs and sales of 100...
's 1973 album Band On The Run
Band on the Run
Band on the Run is an album by Paul McCartney & Wings, released in 1973. It was Wings' third album. It became Wings' most successful album and remains the most celebrated of McCartney's post-Beatles albums...
, and John Lennon
John Lennon
John Winston Lennon, MBE was an English musician and singer-songwriter who rose to worldwide fame as one of the founding members of The Beatles, one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music...
's 1974 album Walls and Bridges
Walls and Bridges
Walls and Bridges is the fifth album by John Lennon; it was issued on 26 September 1974 in the United States and on 4 October in the United Kingdom. Written, recorded and released during his 18-month separation from Yoko Ono , the album captures Lennon in the midst of The Lost Weekend...
, both of which reached the top of the charts and yielded #1 singles. It was Coury who persuaded McCartney to include the successful single "Helen Wheels
Helen Wheels
"Helen Wheels" is a song by Paul McCartney & Wings. The song was named after Paul and Linda McCartney's Land Rover, which they nicknamed "Hell on Wheels"....
" on the US version of Band On The Run (because it was last-minute, the lyrics to the song were not included on the lyric sheet). He then chose the song "Jet
Jet (song)
"Jet" is a song by Paul McCartney & Wings from their album Band on the Run. The song peaked at number 7 in both the British and American charts on 30 March 1974. Along with "Helen Wheels" and "Junior's Farm", it is another McCartney song where his primary inspiration for composing the song arose in...
" as the second single, which helped make the album the most successful of McCartney's solo efforts.
The following year, Lennon invited Coury to "work his magic" promoting Lennon's Walls and Bridges album. It was Coury who chose the first single, "Whatever Gets You Thru The Night
Whatever Gets You thru the Night
"Whatever Gets You Thru the Night" is a song written by John Lennon, released as a single in 1974 on Apple Records, catalogue Apple 1874 in the United States and Apple R5998 in the United Kingdom. It peaked at #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 and #36 on the British singles chart...
", which became Lennon's first #1 solo hit (and the only one in his lifetime). Coury was also instrumental in the long-awaited release of Lennon's 1975 album Rock 'n' Roll
Rock 'n' Roll (John Lennon album)
Rock 'n' Roll is a 1975 album of late 1950s and early 1960s songs covered by John Lennon. Recording the album was problematic and spanned a year. Though critically derided, it reached #6 in both the United Kingdom and the United States.-History:...
, bartering with producer
Record producer
A record producer is an individual working within the music industry, whose job is to oversee and manage the recording of an artist's music...
Phil Spector
Phil Spector
Phillip Harvey "Phil" Spector is an American record producer and songwriter, later known for his conviction in the murder of actress Lana Clarkson....
to retrieve the master tapes
Master recording
A multitrack recording master tape, disk or computer files on which productions are developed for later mixing, is known as the multi-track master, while the tape, disk or computer files holding a mix is called a mixed master.It is standard practice to make a copy of a master recording, known as...
from their abandoned 1973 recording sessions.
Coury's last signing to Capitol Records was the group Dolenz, Jones, Boyce & Hart
Dolenz, Jones, Boyce & Hart
Dolenz, Jones, Boyce & Hart was an album released by the group of the same name, released in 1976. The group consisted of Micky Dolenz, Davy Jones, Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart. Dolenz and Jones had been members of '60s pop group/band The Monkees while Boyce and Hart had written many of the groups...
, made up of former Monkees Micky Dolenz
Micky Dolenz
George Michael "Micky" Dolenz, Jr. is an American actor, musician, television director, radio personality and theater director, best known as a member of the 1960s made-for-television band The Monkees.-Biography:...
and Davy Jones
Davy Jones (actor)
David Thomas "Davy" Jones is an English rock singer-songwriter and actor best known as a member of the Monkees.-Early life:...
, and songwriters Tommy Boyce
Boyce and Hart
Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart were a prolific songwriting duo, best known for the songs they wrote for The Monkees.-Early years:Hart's father was a church minister and he himself served in the Army after leaving high school, Upon discharge,...
and Bobby Hart
Boyce and Hart
Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart were a prolific songwriting duo, best known for the songs they wrote for The Monkees.-Early years:Hart's father was a church minister and he himself served in the Army after leaving high school, Upon discharge,...
, who'd written several Monkees hits. He then left Capitol to become president and co-founder of RSO Records
RSO Records
RSO Records was a record label, formed by rock and roll and musical theatre impresario Robert Stigwood in 1973. The "RSO" stands for the Robert Stigwood Organisation. The company's main headquarters were at 67 Brook Street, in London's Mayfair...
, with Robert Stigwood
Robert Stigwood
Robert Stigwood is an impresario and entertainment entrepreneur who relocated to England in 1954...
. At RSO, Coury marketed such hits as the Saturday Night Fever
Saturday Night Fever
Saturday Night Fever is a 1977 drama film directed by John Badham and starring: John Travolta as Tony Manero, an immature young man whose weekends are spent visiting a local Brooklyn discothèque; Karen Lynn Gorney as his dance partner and eventual friend; and Donna Pescow as Tony's former dance...
and Grease
Grease (film)
Grease is a 1978 American musical film directed by Randal Kleiser and based on Warren Casey's and Jim Jacobs's 1971 musical of the same name about two lovers in a 1950s high school. The film stars John Travolta, Olivia Newton-John, Stockard Channing, and Jeff Conaway...
soundtrack album
Soundtrack album
A soundtrack album is any album that incorporates music directly recorded from the soundtrack of a particular feature film or television program. In some cases, not all the tracks from the movie are included in the album; however there are rare cases of songs in the trailers that do not appear in...
s, and Eric Clapton
Eric Clapton
Eric Patrick Clapton, CBE, is an English guitarist and singer-songwriter. Clapton is the only three-time inductee to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame: once as a solo artist, and separately as a member of The Yardbirds and Cream. Clapton has been referred to as one of the most important and...
's Slowhand
Slowhand
Slowhand is an album by Eric Clapton, released in 1977. It contained three of his most popular singles, the bluesy "Cocaine", the ballad "Wonderful Tonight" and the country-flavoured #3 U.S. hit "Lay Down Sally", as well as other songs that became Clapton classics on their own like "The Core" and...
. Coury worked extensively with the Bee Gees, RSO's flagship group.
In 1980, Coury created a new record label, Network Records
Network Records
Network Records was a rave music independent record label, based in Birmingham, England, during the late 1980s and mid 1990s.The label concentrated on bringing Garage music to Britain & taking UK House music to a new level as well as playing a massive role in the development of Early Hardcore and...
. One of the label's initial successes was the soundtrack to the movie Flashdance
Flashdance
Another song used in the film, "Maniac", was also nominated for an Academy Award. It was written by Michael Sembello and Dennis Matkosky, and was inspired by the 1980 horror film Maniac. The lyrics about a killer on the loose were rewritten so that it could be used in Flashdance...
. The song "What a Feeling" won a Grammy Award
Grammy Award
A Grammy Award — or Grammy — is an accolade by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences of the United States to recognize outstanding achievement in the music industry...
and an Oscar for Song of the Year in 1984. In 1985, Network Records merged with Geffen Records
Geffen Records
Geffen Records is an American record label, owned by Universal Music Group, and operated as one third of UMG's Interscope-Geffen-A&M label group.-Beginnings:...
, and Coury became Geffen's general manager, launching hit records for Guns & Roses, Aerosmith
Aerosmith
Aerosmith is an American rock band, sometimes referred to as "The Bad Boys from Boston" and "America's Greatest Rock and Roll Band". Their style, which is rooted in blues-based hard rock, has come to also incorporate elements of pop, heavy metal, and rhythm and blues, and has inspired many...
, Peter Gabriel
Peter Gabriel
Peter Brian Gabriel is an English singer, musician, and songwriter who rose to fame as the lead vocalist and flautist of the progressive rock group Genesis. After leaving Genesis, Gabriel went on to a successful solo career...
and Don Henley
Don Henley
Donald Hugh "Don" Henley is an American singer, songwriter and drummer, best known as a founding member of the Eagles before launching a successful solo career. Henley was the drummer and lead vocalist for the Eagles from 1971–1980, when the band broke up...
.
Coury retired from the record business in 1994. He is married to children's book author and artist, Tina Nichols Coury.
Al Coury serves on the nominating committee of the Hit Parade Hall of Fame.