Business Week magazine	February 23, 1963

NAMES & FACES

Fourth man
makes the trio tick

Frank Werber's style of centralized management has guided the Kingston Trio to fame and riches -- and caused the entertainment world to sit up and take notice

The man with the beard (pictures) could easily pass for a folk singer. But 33-year-old Frank Werber's primary interest in mountain melodies is less musical than financial. As discoverer, manager, and non-singing partner of the richly successful Kingston Trio, Werber has proven there's a small fortune to be coined from the folk-song craze.

Without so much as plucking a guitar, Werber is already leaving his mark in show business. The bewhiskered San Franciscan is one of a new breed of "strong" managers" -- men Who devote all their time and energy to one client and assume or supervise a variety of management functions that ordinarily require a pack of percentage-grabbing managers and agents.

Jack of all trades.
Typically, a nightclub entertainer pays out 5% of his gross salary to a press agent, at least 10% to a personal manager, 5% to 10% to a business manager, 10% to 15% to a talent agency, plus fat payouts to coaches, production advisers, costumers, and others.

Werber is both business and financial manager, as well as part-time artistic adviser. He often promotes trio concerts. He frequently bypasses the trio's talent agency and dickers directly with nightclub managers and others interested in booking the group, He also negotiates with record companies, supervises travel and production plans, and acts as buffer between the singers and their fans.

His many-sided activities help the trio to reap a variety of savings. Some jobs are eliminated completely; on others, the payout is cut substantially. Press agent Frank Liberrnan, for example, takes only a straight fee, instead of a percentage, And the trio pays a flat 10% of gross to its talent agency instead of the usual 10% plus an additional 5% for one-night stands -- a very favorable arrangement since the group's biggest source of income is one-shot appearances.

Shrewd businessman.
Not surprisingly, success has only added to Werber's chores, With money rolling in from concerts, records, real estate, and assorted enterprises, he finds he has to spend more time managing the trio's growing investments.

"I think of myself as a young executive in a peculiar business," says Werber. "I have my show business side, but I can also put on a banker's pinstripe suit when I have to."

Among show business executives, the soft-spoken, articulate Werber is considered a standout. "tough, intelligent, and demanding," sums up A. J. Perenchio, vice-president of United Talent Management, Ltd., booking agent for the Trio. "The new type of manager, like Werber, is more of a decision-maker who knows what he wants, compared with the old-school managers who were more like glorified detail men."

Like the Kingston Trio itself, Werber's concept of centralized management has attracted many imitators. The Harvard-trained manager of the Limeliters, a rival folk singing group, spent four weeks in the Trio's San Francisco offices observing Werber's methods. Perenchio notes that an increasing number of entertainers are signing contracts with one-client managers instead of with management agencies.

Real partnership.
Werber's managing style has one more distinctive twist. Many '"strong" managers take a fat percentage "off the top" -- that is, from gross income -- and leave the performers to pay the road manager's salary, secretarial, and other costs. Werber helps foot these bills; his cut is an equal share of the group's net income with Nick Reynolds and Bob Shane, the two hold-over members of the original trio.

"This is a real partnership," says Werber, who claims the share-and-share-alike deal pays off in better working relationships and helps avoid petty squabbles and mistrust.

The arrangement dates from the night in 1957 that Werber discovered the boys singing for beer and peanuts in a shabby California bistro. He signed them to a management contract on the spot.

First strategy decision reached by the singers and Werber: Concentrate on believable music and aim for the college and young married market. After a slow start, a record titled "The Legend of Tom Dooley" caught fire with disk jockeys, and the trio became an overnight sensation.

Weathering a storm.
After four years of mounting success, Werber's concept of "strong" management was put to the test when a personality dispute disrupted the group's close harmony and a flock of concerts had to be canceled. To prevent the act's death, Werber, Shane, and Reynolds shelled out $300,000 for dissident tenor Dave Guard's interest in the group, then signed on reformed rock-'n'-roller John Stewart as a replacement. After a painful eight months of rebuilding, the trio astonished critics by moving back quickly into the big money.

The trio grossed $1.7 million in 1962, mostly from entertainment work. "If we net one-third of this, we're lucky," says Werber. From gross, he, Shane, and Reynolds each draw $1,000 a week in salary; new-comer Stewart gets a salary, plus a percentage on a sliding scale (Werber says the 22-year-old will gross over $40,000 for 1962). Most of the rest goes into Kingston Trio, Inc., which pays out the majority of expenses, plows what's left over into a variety of enterprises.

Folk singing bonanza.
Controlled equally by Werber, Shane, and Reynolds, Kingston Trio, Inc., is the key firm in a 10-company investment structure Werber has put together.

There's no shortage of investment money. The trio averages between $8,000 and $12,000 per concert in a large hall, working on a $6,000 guarantee against 60% of the gross receipts. A three-week stint at the Cocoanut Grove in Los Angeles last month yielded about $45,000, less than the usual nightclub take because Werber considers the Grove a prestige house worth the loss in income in terms of side benefits.

The next biggest source of income, after concerts and nightclubs, is recordings, which grossed close to $300,000 for the trio in 1962. The trio ranks with Nat King Cole, Tennessee Ernie Ford, and Frank Sinatra among Capitol Records' four best sellers of all time. About 8.7 million copies of the trio's 16 albums, worth over $40 million at retail, have been purchased, along With 5.6 million single records.

Entrepreneurs.
Other investment income flows into Kingston Trio, Inc., from the nine corporations controlled by the parent firm. These include an office building in downtown San Francisco; a builder of apartments, a land development concern, and a restaurant and lounge -- all in Sausalito, Calif. (where Werber and the singers reside): a concert promotion agency; and a group of music publishing companies.

Investment philosophy.
As chief executive officer of Kingston Trio, Inc., Werber makes most decisions regarding investments -- though he works closely with the trio's attorney and accountant and consults Shane and Reynolds on major Points.

The investments are designed to give the singers income and something to do when the Kingston Trio is no longer a boxoffice hit, Werber and his singers realistically face up to the problems of forced retirement, despite their obvious youth (all three singers are under 30).

"In fact. if we each had $500,000 in our pockets clear and free, "Werber muses, We'd think twice about continuing right now"

-- Thank you to Bill Welsch for providing a photo-copy of this article

NOTE: The pictures included as part of this article are not available at this time. -- kgerald

Last revised: February 23, 2006.