Peter Jenner

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Peter Jenner (1944 - ) is a British manager of rock bands and acts, and a record producer. He has also worked as an A&R man. With Andrew King, he was part of Blackhill Enterprises, which managed Pink Floyd, Syd Barrett's solo career, Marc Bolan, Roy Harper (whose records Jenner also produced), The Edgar Broughton Band and The Clash.

He has also managed other acts, including:

Jenner achieved a first-class honours degree in Economics from Cambridge University, after which he became a lecturer at the London School of Economics at the age of 21. Fascinated by music, his ear and eye were caught by Pink Floyd, and after just four years at the LSE he left to manage the band full-time. Jenner's voice can be heard at the start of Pink Floyd's 1967 "Astronomy Domine", the opening track on the album The Piper at the Gates of Dawn.

Jenner's involvement in music became increasingly important as he staged a series of free concerts in Hyde Park, London, culminating in The Rolling Stones' famous 1969 performance, which both eulogized Brian Jones and introduced his replacement, Mick Taylor.

Although not politically active in the formal sense, Jenner has championed left-leaning causes and artists for many years. He has also taken an active role in discussions on future music delivery systems, as secretary-general of the International Music Managers' Forum he has a keen interest in securing artists rights and their income from these rights and has spoken publicly on the subject, stating at 2004's Future of Music Summit:

I think we're in a time of technology change, and a change in the business model. We have to go back to first steps. Someone has to write, record, and perform a song. On the other end we have to have someone who wants to listen to it, and wants to pay for it in some way or another. Everyone else in that process is in some way dispensable. The model of the industry was built to help take the music and get it to the public has become very cluttered with people who take a lot of that money. Price has something to do with demand. People pay according to what seems is fair. If you go into a baker and you know it's a human being running the bakery, you're very unlikely to steal. If you go into a McDonalds or 7-11, you have much less regret against stealing. If you go to Wal-Mart, you know that the people who made the clothing are making very little money. Now people know the musicians are not getting very much of the money. I think we should be working out how we could deal with that problem.

In 2006 Jenner courted controversy with a conference called Beyond the Soundbyte at which he proposed to replace existing consumer payment mechanisms for music rights with a mandatory, Europe-wide tax modelled on the UK's TV licensing fee and to be paid by anyone with a broadband connection or mobile phone. Commentators were sceptical, with TechCrunch's Mike Arrington for example calling the proposal "incredibly stupid" on grounds that it would lead to distortion and stagnation of the market for digital music.