Terry Ellis (record producer)

Terry Ellis (born 14 August 1943,

After buying out Ellis in 1985, Wright sold the Chrysalis Records label to EMI in 1991, and finally sold the entire operation to a consortium consisting of BMG and private equity firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts in 2010.^[3]

Career

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Ellis took a

Subsequently, Ellis developed one of the most successful track records in contemporary music for discovering, developing and exploiting the commercial potential of young recording artists. With his partner, Chris Wright, he built a small artist booking agency into one of the most successful independent groups of companies in the music industry with subsidiaries involved in artist management, booking, recording studios, record labels, music publishing, concert promotion and venue management. In one capacity or another their company, Chrysalis, represented every important influence in British music in the 1970s. In addition to artists that it directly managed, Chrysalis booked Led Zeppelin, Jeff Beck, Roxy Music, Curved Air, Yes and King Crimson, signed David Bowie to a music publishing contract, entered the recording studio business with Sir George Martin (The Beatles producer), directed concert tours and for a time ran London's Rainbow Theatre.

By 1969 Ellis had started to produce albums. One record which influenced him was "

By the end of 1974, Chrysalis was firmly established as one of the leading independent record labels and music publishers in the world. Ellis moved to Los Angeles to build the American arm of the group and to give it a more focused identity. He continued to build on Chrysalis's track record for credible music whilst applying his philosophy of maintaining a close personal involvement with all aspects of his signed artists' careers. By way of examples, having seen an unknown New York based punk rock group, he purchased their contract from a small record label that could not afford to market them properly. That group was Blondie, and their first single on Chrysalis "Rip Her to Shreds" (1976) was a hit in 35 countries.

Also in New York, he heard Pat Benatar in a small club; with Chrysalis, she went on to sell millions of records, as did Huey Lewis and The News, a rock band from San Francisco. After the breakup of UK punk band, Generation X, Ellis took the lead singer to America and launched the career of Billy Idol. In each of these cases, and there are others, the common factor was Ellis' personal devotion of time, effort and career planning that took the artists to international success. Yet it is ironic that the first band he ever signed to management, Clouds, had their career founder because of lack of management supervision. This was mainly bad luck and timing, for the Chrysalis empire began to rapidly expand at that very moment, and the success of Jethro Tull also meant that Ellis could not devote the time he typically wanted to spend on his artistes.

In 1980, Ellis set up a new Chrysalis division, Chrysalis Visual Programming. He made the music industry's first ever sell-through long form VHS video album with Blondie's Eat to the Beat (1980) (which was re-released in a remastered limited edition CD/DVD release in late June 2007). He went on to produce other long form videos including one featuring Scottish comedian, Billy Connolly, produced two made-for-TV movies and developed the award-winning TV series Max Headroom (TV series) (1987–88), still considered by critics on both sides of the Atlantic to be one of the most innovative television series in recent history.

Ellis was elected Chairman of the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) for a two-year term and remains the only non-American to have been elected to this office. He has also held the Chairmanship of the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) and served for five years as a member of the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI). In 1985, Ellis dissolved his association with Chrysalis selling his interests to his partner. Within a few years, the record division, which he had been very influential in creating, had been sold off to EMI Records.

In 1990, Ellis formed

Ellis and his French wife Daniele live in the British Virgin Islands and New York. He is a member of the Metropolitan Opera Club of New York City and has served on its board of directors. As Chairman of the BPI in 1990, Ellis was responsible for the establishment of the BRIT School of Performing Arts in Croydon, Surrey, funded by British Recording Industry Trust.

In 2015, he was a speaker at the Music Matters conference in Singapore.^[6]

References