Manager of Stars, Big Fan of Lawsuits

Herb Cohen managed seminal rock and pop acts of the 1960s and '70s including Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention, Tom Waits, and Linda Ronstadt. But Mr. Cohen's wildest act may have been his own, as a fireplug-shaped music-business eminence with a reputation for litigiousness.

Herb Cohen in February 1971. He managed stars including Frank Zappa.

Mr. Cohen, who died March 16 at age 78, was a progenitor of the Los Angeles folk-music scene in the 1950s. His Unicorn Coffee House, where patrons could take a banjo down from the wall and entertain the crowd, was reputedly the first institution of its kind south of San Francisco.

In the 1960s Mr. Cohen began managing acts, starting with the Modern Folk Quartet and then the Mothers. With Mr. Zappa, he founded record labels including Straight, Bizarre and DiscReet, which released albums by Captain Beefheart, Alice Cooper, the Amboy Dukes (Ted Nugent's early outfit), and the comic Lenny Bruce. He later ran a music publishing company, Third Story Music.

Mr. Cohen "wasn't one to coddle his artists," says Ms. Ronstadt, whom Mr. Cohen signed after watching her sing at an open microphone night at the Troubadour club in Los Angeles. "He didn't let me get caught up with my reflection in the mirror."

Mr. Cohen's relations with his biggest stars—Mr. Zappa, Mr. Waits, Ms. Ronstadt—all ended with lawsuits, although in Ms. Ronstadt's case a friendship was salvaged. "Something always went wrong at the end," says Jac Holzman, founder of Elektra Records, who released recordings by another of Mr. Cohen's clients, Tim Buckley.

Raised in the Bronx, N.Y., Mr. Cohen was the son of a veteran of the Russian Revolution. After stints in the merchant marine and the Army, Mr. Cohen moved to the West Coast. In the mid-1950s, he moved in folk-music circles, befriending singers Odetta and Theodore Bikel. Mr. Cohen had a reputation as an intimidator, as attested to by Mr. Zappa, who in 1966 said Mr. Cohen "likes to hit people in the face," according to Zappa biographer Barry Miles. But Mr. Cohen also insisted that the Mothers join the Musicians' Union, which increased their income. He remained Mr. Zappa's manager until an acrimonious split in the mid-1970s.

Other rumors had Mr. Cohen driving around Los Angeles with a crate of hand grenades in the trunk, and running guns for the revolutionary leader Patrice Lumumba in the Congo. Ms. Ronstadt said she once witnessed him threatening a boisterous bar patron with what he said was a gun. But Mr. Cohen's main weapon was the lawsuit. In 2009, for instance, he sued for defamation over claims made in a biography of Tom Waits that Mr. Cohen stole from Mr. Waits.

"Herbie was a guy who approached everything as if it were a meal, knife and fork at the ready," says Mr. Holzman of Elektra Records.

In addition to the lawsuits with clients, Mr. Cohen was sued in 1993 by the artist/rock groupie Cynthia Plaster Caster for the return of a collection of moldings made from the genitalia of rock stars. The collection had come to Mr. Cohen via Mr. Zappa, who had helped sponsor Ms. Plaster Caster. It languished in a cabinet in his office.

"You'd open the cupboard and see all the casts," recalls Ms. Ronstadt. "I remember being shocked. I mean I was just this girl from Tucson and I had no idea people did things like that."
By STEPHEN MILLER
* REMEMBRANCES
* MARCH 26, 2010

Herb Cohen 1932-2010