
A Prince Among Stones: That Business with the Rolling Stones and Other Adventures
Author(s): Prince Rupert Loewenstein (Author)
- Publisher: Bloomsbury USA
- Publication Date: March 5, 2013
- Edition: 1st
- Language: English
- Print length: 272 pages
- ISBN-10: 1620400340
- ISBN-13: 9781620400340
Book Description
“He is a great financial mind for the market. He plays that like I play guitar. As long as there’s a smile on Rupert’s face, I’m cool.”-Keith Richards on Prince Rupert Lowenstein??In
1968 Mick Jagger couldn’t understand why the Rolling Stones were broke. The man he asked for help was a German prince, a merchant banker. They forged an unlikely alliance which re-invented the business of rock ‘n’ roll. As a youthquake shook the Establishment, Prince Rupert Loewenstein thrived in both worlds, never relinquishing his elegance or decorum. For nearly forty years Prince Rupert worked with the Stones as-in his own words-“a combination of bank manager, psychiatrist, and nanny,” usually enthralled with his clients but often bemused and exasperated with them, too. Coolly impartial and dryly humorous, this is a refreshingly different take on the rock ‘n’ roll world from within its inner sanctum.
Editorial Reviews
Loewenstein, former “director of the merchant bank Leopold Joseph,” met Mick Jagger in 1968. A Stones insider asked if he would be interested in “taking care of the finances” for the band. The band’s name “meant virtually nothing to” Loewenstein, but he accepted the offer. In 1968, rock bands were not paid well by today’s standards, even the Beatles and the Stones. The Stones’ recording contract with Decca was bad enough, but their rights to “future earnings of the masters and copyrights” had been sold to Allen Klein, who had bound the band to him by a “bewildering mass of contracts.” After extricating them from the nefarious clutches of Klein and Decca, “Prince Rupert” later prompted them to become tax exiles and, over the years, contributed much to making Rolling Stones Inc. one of the most profitable brands in the world. This smoothly written autobiography is an essential companion to all of the other Stones titles coming out in honor of their fiftieth year in the music biz. –Mike Tribby
Review
“[Loewenstein’s] account of his years with Their Satanic Majesties is discreet, gently disapproving, resolutely unshockable, undeniably affectionate.” ―The Wall Street Journal
“This smoothly written autobiography is an essential companion to all of the other Stones titles coming out in honor of their fiftieth year in the music biz.” ―Booklist
“[A]n elegant biography that provides new insights into the Stones’ financial escapades.” ―Publishers Weekly
About the Author
Born in Majorca in 1933, Prince Rupert Lowenstein was a stockbroker for the American firm Bache & Co. before going on to form a consortium that bought the investment bank Leopold Joseph & Sons. Five years later he met Mick Jagger and became accountant to the Rolling Stones, a position he held for the following thirty-seven years. Prince Rupert now lives in Richmond, London, with his wife Princess Josephine; they have three children.
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