1. “F
rom Elvis to the iPod” is the scope of the new memoir Hitmaker:
The Man and his Music by Tommy Mottola, 63, one of the few
record company executives (along with David Geffen and Clive
Davis) to become a household name. As the chairman of Sony Music for
15 years, he guided the careers of some of the biggest pop stars of his day,
includingMariahCarey,CelineDion,RickyMartin,andJenniferLopez,
and presided over the sale of eight billion units of CDs and cassettes. As
one of the most influential executives in the history of the industry, he’s in
a unique position to reflect on the transformation of the music world—
fromvinylLPstoMP3s.Onamorepersonallevel,hewantedtodocument
his achievements “before it all gets vaporized.”
Mottola’s roots in popular music run deep. His name crops up in the
lyrics to the 1976 number-one dance hit “Cherchez La Femme” by Dr.
music manMariah Carey, Jennifer Lopez, Ricky
Martin! legendary recording exec Tommy
Mottola tells all in his long-awaited
memoir, Hitmaker. by jennifer demeritt
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40 la-confidential-magazine.com
Superlativespeople, culture, style

2. John Mellencamp
performing at the
PNC Bank Arts
Center in New
Jersey in the
summer of 2002.
*hands-on vs. hands-off
“If it was Springsteen or Billy Joel,
the best advice you could give—if
they were going to listen to it—was
maybe you should have this single
instead of that single, because they
created their own work. They were
already on their way, and we were
there to support their greatness.”
*music picks
“I don’t listen to my records. I like
opera or classical music. And there’s
always room for Sinatra.”
*kids these days
“I had lunch with a friend of mine
whose daughter is 11 years old, and
he said, ‘This is Tommy, he did J.Lo,
Mariah, and Shakira,’ and she said,
‘Oh, that’s great.’ Then he said, ‘He
also did Bruce Springsteen,’ and she
asked, ‘Daddy, who’s Bruce
Springsteen?’ That made me think,
Let me document these people.”
*it takes a village
“I remember when Lady Gaga was
auditioning, and she didn’t have the
songs that are on her first album. She
went around in jeans, no makeup or
costumes. You would need a lot of
vision to understand what that was
going to become. But somebody
took the time, they developed it, and
now you have a great talent… a
superstar.”
On the
record
The hitmaker sounds off.
Buzzard’s Original Savannah Band (as their manager, he secured the
band’s first major label deal, with RCA). And his voice can be heard in
Paul Leka’s 1969 hit “Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye” (while
working at Mercury Records, he answered a call for extra background
singers—not necessarily good ones—to fill out the final chorus and give
it that rude, jubilant attitude that has made it an undying favorite at
football halftimes).
But it all started growing up in the Bronx and the nearby suburb of New Rochelle, listening to
Elvis on AM radio. His trumpet playing earned him a music scholarship to Iona Grammar School,
and in high school he scored paid gigs as a singer and guitar
player with a popular local band. Soon after, he released two
singles under the name T.D. Valentine. The songs got airplay on
the radio but no traction beyond that. In his memoir, Mottola
explains the reason why bluntly. “If a demo from an 18-year-old
kid named Tommy Mottola had come across my desk when I
was running Sony Music, I never would have signed him… On a
scale of 1 to 10, his voice was only a 5 or 6.”
So he decided to get a job in the business. He credits the years
he spent performing and learning everything he could about
music for his stratospheric success as a recording executive. “I
was able to communicate with artists, songwriters, musicians,
and producers in their own language,” he says. “I think they had
a different respect for me than most executives because I
understood what they were about.” He also had the ability to
identify talent in other people, which he believes is a talent in its
own right. “I absolutely think it’s a gift. One hundred percent.”
That gift made an impact when he met Daryl Hall and John
Oates while working at Chappell Music in the mid-1970s. He
started managing the band, steering them to become one of the
most popular duos in rock music. His success managing them
and other stars such as John
Mellencamp and Carly Simon
earned him credibility throughout
the industry. That, along with his
driving ambition, fueled his rapid
ascent from talent manager to the
head of US operations for CBS
Records and then chairman of
Sony Music.
At CBS and Sony, Mottola
worked with the stars that made
him a star in his own right—most
famously with Mariah Carey,
whose gospel-tinged, five-octave
voice captivated millions of fans
and who also became his second
wife. In his memoir, he admits that
their tumultuous relationship was
continued on page 42
“Iabsolutely
think[identifying
talent]isagift.
Onehundred
percent.”
—Tommy Mottola
Carly Simon
at a Tribeca
Film Festival
afterparty in
April 2010.
Tommy Mottola in the
offices of Champion
Entertainment in 1976.
photographybyBobbyBank/WireImage/gettyimages(mattola);FrankMicelotta/ImageDirect/
gettyimages(mellencamp);JoeCorrigan/GettyImagesforTribecaFilmFestival(simon)
la-confidential-magazine.com 41

3. partially driven by a “midlife crisis” on his part,
but his influence on her career cannot be denied.
He personally oversaw the production of her first
album, which went multi-platinum in 1990 and
spawned a string of number-one hits, launching
her as one of the top-selling female vocalists of
the decade.
He took a similar hands-on approach when he
saw star potential in other singers. “I would
personally be in the studio at nighttime, whether
it was Mariah, Celine Dion, Shakira, Beyoncé,
Jennifer Lopez, and put the songwriters and
producers together, literally work on every detail
of the process—the record making, the album
artwork, marketing, touring, television shows.”
Perhaps his greatest accomplishment was
engineering the so-called “Latin Explosion,”
which brought singers like Gloria Estefan, Ricky
Martin, and Jennifer Lopez to the fore. “I was
always puzzled, having grown up as a kid in the
Bronx, hearing those [Latin] rhythms—why
can’t we take this music, the flavor and rhythms,
and fuse it with pop? Get these artists to sing in
English, and why wouldn’t this become a global
hit? The answer was, because nobody did it—
and we did.”
One of the memorable moments of the Latin
Explosion was Ricky Martin’s performance of
“La Copa De La Vida” at the 1999 Grammy
Awards in Los Angeles, which electrified the
nation with its surging Latin rhythms and a line
of drummers streaming down the aisle of the
Shrine Auditorium. “That show single-handedly
broke Ricky’s career,” Mottola says. “We sold 30
million albums.” As anticipation builds for the
55th annual 2013 Grammy Awards at Staples
Center, Mottola recalls how the show could be a
game-changer for an artist. “If you had a new
album happening and timed it right, that show
couldbetheicingonthecakethatwouldcatapult
that album all the way to the top 10.”
When he was running Sony, Mottola was
often at the company’s Santa Monica head­
quarters, and in the 1970s and early 1980s he
had a house in Coldwater Canyon. “It was a
golden time,” he says. “And the best place ever in
the history of the world, at a certain time, was
The Beverly Hills Hotel. Hotel California.” He
won’t reveal any of the goings-on there, “but you
can imagine them,” he says. “They’re all in the
song Don Henley wrote.”
Mottola was famous for enjoying the high life.
At the peak of his tenure as chairman, Sony was
valued at $14 billion, with the artists he signed
channeling millions in record sales to the
company—and to himself. But as electronic file
sharing hammered CD sales, it became harder
to justify the lavish budgets that supported
Mottola’s biggest stars. He left Sony in 2003.
Soon after, he launched Casablanca
Records in a deal with Universal Music
Group. Today he’s also involved in the
production of three Broadway shows
(though details were hush-hush at press
time), the private equity business, and a few
other ventures. He’s also enjoying his 13th
year of marriage to the stunning Thalía, one of
the most popular singers in Latin America, and
he has a hand in managing her career. “I help her
along,” he says. “I helped make her new album,
which I’m proud to say—the Billboard Latin chart
came out today, and it’s number one [in Mexico].
Andshejusthadaone-hourspecialonUnivision,
and I helped produce the show. And why not?
It’s the person I love most in my life, and if I can
lend my experience to help her, it’s more than
my pleasure.” Not a surprising sentiment from
a man whose lifelong passion is music. LAC
continued from page 41
Mottola’sgreatest
accomplishment
wasengineering
theso-called
“LatinExplosion.”
Mottola and Jennifer
Lopez at a gala to
celebrate her debut
album, On the 6.
Mariah Carey and
Mottola in 1993.
Ricky Martin
performing at
the 1999
Grammy
Awards in Los
Angeles.
At Mottola’s
wedding to
singer/actress
Thalía Sodi in
December
2000.
photographybyrongalella/wireimage/gettyimages(carey);robinplatzer/
twinimages/gettyimages(lopez);frankmicelotta/imagedirect/gettyimages;
rongallellaltd/gettyimages(sodi)
42 la-confidential-magazine.com
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