Ian Copeland
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Ian Adie Copeland (April 25, 1949 – May 23, 2006) was a pioneering American music promoter and booking agent who helped launch the New Wave movement in the United States.
Copeland was born in Damascus, Syria, the second of four children born to CIA officer Miles Copeland, Jr. and his wife Lorraine Copeland (née Adie), an archaeologist. His older brother Miles Copeland III founded I.R.S. Records, and younger brother Stewart Copeland is the drummer in The Police. He also had a younger sister, Lorraine (nicknamed "Lennie"), who is a writer and producer. After a wayward youth growing up in the Middle East, Copeland enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1967 and served with distinction in the Vietnam War.
Copeland began his career in the music industry with the help of his brother Miles, first as a tour manager for Wishbone Ash, and then as a booking agent in London at John Sherry Enterprises, where he discovered the Average White Band and other artists. In 1977, he moved to Macon, Georgia to work for the Paragon Agency. Ian and Miles developed a strategy of using small venues and clubs to break the British band Squeeze in the North American market, a formula they would repeat with other bands.
In 1979, Copeland founded Frontier Booking International (FBI) in New York, a talent agency that represented many of the premier New Wave acts of the 1980s, including the B-52's, The Cure, The Police, Simple Minds, The English Beat, and The Go-Go's. The agency grew to include hundreds of diverse musical performers on its roster (the Buzzcocks, Nine Inch Nails, Iggy Pop, General Public, Charlie Peacock, Let's Active, R.E.M., Sting, Morrissey), as well as representing actors. The music division of FBI was merged into InterTalent Agency in 1992, and Copeland moved to Los Angeles soon thereafter [1].
Copeland married Constance Walden of Macon, and they had two daughters (Chandra and Barbara) before divorcing. Copeland's other romantic partners (and FBI clients) included Marianne Faithfull and his stepcousin Courteney Cox.
Copeland published an autobiography, Wild Thing, in 1995. In 1997 he opened the Backstage Café bar and restaurant in Beverly Hills, which he owned and operated until his death from melanoma at age 57.
[edit] References
- Ian Copeland, Wild Thing: The Backstage, On the Road, In the Studio, Off the Charts Memoirs of Ian Copeland, Simon & Schuster, 1995
