YEAR
2022
INDUCTED BY
John Mellencamp
CATEGORY
Ahmet Ertegun Award
Allen Grubman, a founder of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, changed the music business. He has represented rock & roll’s biggest stars, including Bruce Springsteen, U2, Sting, John Mellencamp, Madonna, Lionel Richie, Elton John, Lady Gaga, and many more. Grubman is recognized for negotiating ground-breaking long-term agreements for his clients that allow them to maintain creative control of their work. “What challenges me is being able to do something unique,” Grubman has said. “I love structuring deals that are innovative, that are truly different from anything that has been done before.”
Allen Grubman
HALL OF FAME
ESSAY
By Anthony DeCurtis
When Bruce Springsteen was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1999, he saw fit to acknowledge his lawyer Allen Grubman to the audience – many of whom were Grubman’s clients themselves. “As folks know, the Money Man goes to the record company, and he’s in charge of bringing back the pink Cadillac,” Springsteen explained. But when Grubman makes that trip, Springsteen continued, he brings back “the pink Cadillac, the blue Cadillac, the red Cadillac, the yellow Cadillac, the pink Cadillac with the white walls.”
That’s not the end of the story, however. Because he then takes “the blue Cadillac, and…the hub caps off the yellow Cadillac.” As Springsteen concluded on a philosophical note, “That still leaves you with a few Cadillacs,” after all, and ensures that you won’t “be broke when you’re riding in the black Cadillac.”
