Rob Light & Larry Solters on Irving Azoff’s R&R Hall of Fame Ahmet Ertegun Award

None of that may have happened if Azoff hadn’t lit out for L.A. in 1971 and landed a gig at Jerry Heller’s Heller-Fischel booking agency where he handled dates for REO, Fogelberg and Joe Walsh before moving over to David Geffen’s and Elliott Roberts’ Geffen Roberts Management. There, Azoff had a career-changing moment, which began when he was sent to Kansas City in 1973 to see a band who felt they weren’t being treated right.

“The first night we met Irving, Henley and I and him got in a room together,” Eagles’ late co-founder Glenn Frey told Cameron Crowe for a 1978 Rolling Stone Azoff profile entitled “They Call Him Big Shorty.” “There was something about it. We started telling Irving our problems with the band, our producer, how we wanted our records not to be so clean and glossy and how we were getting the royal fuckin’ screw job… He told us he had come in with Walsh and Fogelberg and didn’t know himself. It was perfect from the start. Here was a guy our own age, going through exactly the same thing, catching his rising star the same time we were. We decided that night that Irving would manage us.”

“I believe it was a seminal moment in his career,” says Light of the perfect synergy between Azoff and the Eagles. “It was when he realized the artist is the most important thing. He never let that breakdown happen again. It guided him through his entire career. While he made them one of the biggest live touring bands of all time. From day one Irving said, ‘The Eagles are going to be the greatest American rock band of all time.’ How does anyone say that? But he said it from day one and he delivered on that promise.”

Brad Elterman / FilmMagic –
The Eagles Have Landed (from left): Don Felder, Randy Meisner, promoter Bill Graham, Joe Walsh, Irving Azoff and Don Henley and Glenn Frey at the Day On The Green concert at Oakland Coliseum on May 28, 1977.

From helping the Eagles narrowly escape a drug issue at an airport in the Bahamas, to unleashing his fury on an office manager for misspelling Donald Fagen’s name on the Grammy- winning soundtrack to the 1978 film “FM,” Azoff has proven over and over, ad infinitum, that he will go to the mat for his artists and his circle of friends and family no matter what it takes or the collateral damage. In fact, Crowe, back in 1978, noted that “many of his clients will spend their off-hours watching him ‘kill’ on the phone.” Though it’s always on behalf of serving his artists, some misinterpret his motivations and intentions in the moment – which is pretty much exactly how Light first came to know Azoff.

– “Quality Forever”
Irving Azoff with Rob Light, at The Apple Pan, an iconic Los Angeles institution opened in 1947 and now run by Shelli Azoff.

“Over 20 years ago, I was representing an artist who was part of a co-headline charity event, Irving had just started representing the other co-headliner. On that night my artist was closing and it had been agreed prior to the show, no production other than sound and basic lights. Irving and I got into a conversation about production and his artist wanting to use pyro. The conversation got heated and turned into an intense argument. He finally acquiesced, agreed to no pyro for his new client and the show went on. Of course, THEY SHOT OFF EVERY OUNCE OF PYRO THEY HAD, and I go running into the dressing room after the set losing my mind, screaming at him at the top of my lungs. And of course, he feigns, ‘I don’t know what happened. I told everybody not to do it. I can’t believe it went off like that,’ with that impish grin that only he has. And I just lost my mind. And so we went our separate ways. About three days later I get a phone call from Irving. I pick up the phone and though still heated, I’ve calmed down enough to discuss it. And he basically says to me, ‘You know what? I really like you. Anybody who fights that hard for their clients is somebody I respect. Let’s go have lunch.’ And that’s where our relationship started.”

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Hood Ornament: Larry Solters of Scoop Marketing taking his responsibilities to the next level in Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium during Eagles’ “The Long Run Tour.”

After that success, Solters went on to work full-time for Azoff’s Front Line Management, where he quickly learned an invaluable business lesson. “I’m there, 9126 Sunset, for about six weeks and I’m working in a little corner of the office for Irving’s clients Jimmy Buffett, Steely Dan, Boz Scaggs, Eagles and Dan Fogelberg,” Solters says. “I was paying $275 rent for an apartment in West Hollywood and they were raising my rent. So after six weeks, I finally got the nerve to go to Irving and say, ‘You know I love the job. I’m learning a lot. I really appreciate it. I love my corner in the office, except I’d really like to get paid.’ So he says, ‘We’re not paying you?’ I said, ‘No, no, you’re not paying me.’ We had never discussed a salary; all I wanted to do was learn the business. “And he said, ‘Well, we should be paying you.’ I said, ‘Yeah. I agree. And they’ve raised my rent, so I really could use the money.’ So he says, ‘Well, how much do you want to get paid?’ I said, ‘I’d like to get paid at least’ – and this is 1975 – ‘at least $25,000.’ So he says, ‘Lesson number one, Larry: If somebody asks you how much you want to get paid, you never answer that question. You go back and say, ‘How much are you prepared to pay me?’ he said, ‘because you don’t know, maybe we could pay you a lot more than the $25,000 and you lowballed yourself.’ So he says, ‘I want you to remember that. And the way you’re going to remember that, is we’re going to pay you more than $25,000, we’re going to pay you $25,001. And every time you see that one dollar in your annual income, you’re going to remember that lesson.’ And you know what? That’s what he did. Somewhere I have the check with the total gross earnings for the year, $25,001.”

It’s that innate business acumen, in part, that’s propelled Azoff to the highest echelons of the music business while working tirelessly at all hours to serve his artists. The Eagles’ 1994 “Hell Freezes Over Tour,” for example, was the first time a rock band charged $100 for a ticket. “It was unheard of at the time,” Solters says. “Barbra Streisand charged it, but for a rock band, it was unheard of. And the reason Irving did it was because the scalpers were getting $200, $300 a ticket. Irving said, ‘Why are we charging $55 a ticket and the scalpers are charging $300? We’re undervaluing what the band does.’ He said, ‘I don’t want the scalpers to make the money. The scalpers have nothing in the game. It doesn’t cost them anything. But here, they’re selling Eagles tickets for 300 bucks and we’re charging $55? That’s absurd. Let’s get that back to the artist, the promoter and the agent. We’re going to charge $100 a ticket.’”

Lester Cohen / Getty Images / City Of Hope –
WE ARE FAMILY: City of Hope honors Shelli And Irving Azoff with the 2011 Spirit Of Life Award: From left Don Henley, Glenn Frey, Cameron Azoff, Jeffrey Azoff, Jaye Azoff, Timothy B. Schmidt, Irving Azoff, Shelli Azoff, Rich Statter, Allison Statter, Sidney Statter and Joe Walsh.

Another Azoff innovation was something The New York Times in a 2010 profile, called the “Irving deal.” That meant getting promoters to give artists a 90/10 split on ticket revenue as well as a percentage of other revenue streams including parking, concessions and advertising. This he accomplished by simply arguing the obvious: with no artist there’s no revenue.

But perhaps Azoff’s most impressive business accomplishment came in 2008 when he negotiated Ticketmaster’s purchase of Warner Music’s minority stake in Front Line Management for $123 million and in the process became CEO of both companies – this from a rock ‘n’ roll manager and college dropout. A year later, he took that deal to unprecedented heights leading the charge on Ticketmaster’s merger with the world’s largest promoter, Live Nation in a deal valued at $2.5 billion which would take him to places few if any music managers have ever been.

Rick Diamond –
City Slickers: Elektra Asylum Records President Joe Smith, Shelli Azoff, Irving Azoff and Larry Solters at the premiere of the Azoff-produced film “Urban Cowboy.”

“The day we walked into Congress, myself, Irving, [Michael] Rapino and a whole bunch of lawyers, I said, ‘You got to be kidding,’” Solters recalls. “This is ‘Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.’ I got to tell you when they approved the merger of Live Nation and Ticketmaster, it was the most incredible moment. Irving was great and basically said to Congress, ‘This is what’s good for the artist. If it’s good for the artist, it’s good for our business.’ It’s one of his adages and Irving sincerely felt it would be.”

As Pollstar tabulated in its End of the Decade issue, the growth of the live business between 2010 and 2019 was precipitous by every available metric. According to Pollstar Boxoffice reports, the average gross per show on Pollstar’s Top 100 Worldwide Tours chart was up a whopping 87% from roughly $674,000 to an estimated $1.26 million. Total gross was up 57% from $3.2 billion to some $5.1 billion, average tickets sold per show were up 36% from 9,585 to some 12,994 and average ticket price grew 38% from $70.33 to $96.86.

Another integral part of Azoff’s success is, as Solters points out, that “Irving loves doing what he does. It was enlightening for me to see somebody in the entertainment business who could work 24/7 and love it and relish it and just eat it up.” The love for his work may explain why Azoff is well-known for actually picking up his phone and his lightning quick response time to emails in ways few others ever do. “He may have 30 clients, but every time I see him or I’m in a car with him and an artist calls, he always takes the call and makes them feel like he only has one client, and they are it,” Light says. “Irving’s available 24/7, it’s the most amazing thing in the world. When he gets that call, personal or professional, he listens, understands the issue and fixes the problem. Because he really cares that deeply.”

“I’ll have a list of six or seven issues I need to discuss with him” Solters says, “and within three minutes we’re off, even before I have the opportunity to get to my list, he’s already answered everything.”

“It’s this incredible gift,” Light says, “to give you what you need but keep moving forward in a way that keeps everybody satisfied. I don’t think there’s an artist who he ever worked with who would ever say, ‘Yeah. I couldn’t get Irving on the phone.’ Or ‘I didn’t get what I needed from Irving.’ And that’s an incredible statement. The people he’s worked with have been with him for a lifetime. Not just the Eagles, but anyone who’s come into his orbit. Rarely does anyone leave. Steely Dan has been there forever. Earth, Wind & Fire. Fleetwood Mac. Jimmy Buffett. I mean, it’s a rare thing and you can’t do that if you’re not taking care of their needs.”