Women of Live Hall Of Fame: Barbara Skydel

Premier Talent /Partner | CAA
William Morris Agency  | VP

By June Barsalona

Barbara Skydel was a live industry trailblazer and a shoo-in for Pollstar’s inaugural Women of Live Hall of Fame. Her illustrious career began in 1968 as an assistant to the great Frank Barsalona of Premier Talent, whose platinum roster included Bruce Springsteen, Led Zeppelin, U2, Tom Petty and Van Halen among others.

Skydel, who passed in 2010, burnished her legend climbing a ladder no woman had ever before scaled from assistant to agent to VP to the first-ever female principal of a major talent firm. Skydel joined William Morris as a Vice President when they acquired Premier in 2002

“Barbara Skydel was an absolutely brilliant agent!” exclaimed HoF honoree Marsha Vlasic, who knew Skydel. “She had an amazing ability for working with the Premier Talent roster. She and Frank Barsalona were two peas in a pod. She really was the first of female agents! Hers was a big loss for us all.”

Here, June Barsalona, a music journalist who interviewed the Beatles on their first U.S. tour for British newspapers, and Frank’s wife, shares this remembrance.

Few would dispute the leadership role Barbara Skydel created and held for several years as the most respected booking agent in contemporary music. She was exemplary for those women who followed her, practicing a code of ethics and establishing a ground base.

Forthright, honest, compassionate, intensely bright and dedicated, Barbara joined Premier Talent in 1968 assisting founder Frank Barsalona. Determined to master every aspect and nuance of a culture which would change history, Barsalona tutored, and Barbara listened to every phone call and negotiation between agent, manager, act and promoter.

For more than a year, she sat at Frank’s side, translating, transcribing and being a student, after which she was given her own desk and first opportunity to test her newfound knowledge.

In her own words, “I had not been totally inexperienced in the talent business, but my year as Frank’s assistant — working the phones, going to shows, staying out half, three quarters or seven eighths of the night, was my Fulbright Scholarship.”

Barbara battled through early tours that included packages with multiple headliners performing four shows a day, complaints, no shows – an early task was to cancel a last minute Jeff Beck date — fees, percentages, chasing payments and the demands of late-night phone calls, touring food and transportation, lost equipment, last minute show changes and the temperaments, tantrums and blowbacks from any one-nighter. She handled contract riders, which could be ridiculously lengthy and demanding — with dignity and a sense of humor, but always in the best interest of her act.

Barbara became a competitive and fierce negotiator, with an edgy sense of humor. She generated a sphere of respect from both artists and industry peers. As Premier became the country’s leading contemporary music agency, so did Barbara take on greater responsibility and a leadership role in securing ongoing success for Premier’s acts and earning their confidence. Their personal appearances were in her hands, and she had the supreme ability to craft the right platform for those in her care, from an early showcase to headlining a stadium. If she thought an offer was unfair, she renegotiated, her mantra being that the act sold out the venue, not the other way round.

Barbara’s artists were also her friends. She was their confidante. She was a muse to many and a mentor to countless women who have since found their place in the industry after she paved the way through her tenure as an agent and a partner at Premier from 1968 through 2002 until it merged with William Morris, where she continued in an executive role. She won countless awards, deservedly so, and has more than earned her legendary and acclaimed place in history.

In Barbara’s words, which echo many years after she quoted them in 1984: “My career was never a woman’s issue to me. I’m far more sympathetic now than I was when struggling for my own foothold in a predominantly male business. Unquestionably, a woman still has to be so much better at her job than a man to fight through the ranks. But I retain a belief that this industry, more than others, offers the opportunity for success to anyone with enough ability and ambition.”