Early career Ripp began his career as a singer, initially informally harmonizing
rock and roll songs with friends from high school. In 1957, Ripp formed an official singing group with neighborhood friends; the group was signed by
ABC-Paramount Records as backup singers for ABC solo artists. The singers sang backup for
Paul Anka on his 1957 hit "
Diana" and broke up shortly thereafter. Ripp rejoined with some of his informal singing partners (Mario "Skippy" Scarpa, Stu Silverman, and Joe Tedesco) to form "The Four Temptations". The quartet wrote its own songs and was signed by ABC-Paramount Records, which released the group's first
single in 1958. The A-side, "Cathy" (named after Scarpa's newly born niece), was written by Scarpa and Ripp; the B-side was "Rock & Roll Baby", written by Scarpa, Ripp, and Silverman. When the group rejected opportunities offered by the record company to record others' songs, the record company withheld further recording opportunities, and the group disbanded. Additionally, Ripp states, "I started walking around Broadway and I'd see these kids who were making records and not getting paid. They could have a number one record on the charts and end up owing the record company a half a million dollars ... I thought, 'This business has some system.' ..." In 1958, Ripp targeted
George Goldner to be a potential mentor. Goldner, based in New York City, was a music industry entrepreneur who owned copyrights, produced records, and owned record companies. Goldner was, in the words of American blues singer and songwriter
Jerome "Doc" Pomus, a "very hip, New York kind of tough guy." After Ripp spent weeks informally observing Goldner at work, Goldner formally hired Ripp to be a go-fer. within Goldner's organization, where Ripp got a "street education in the record business equal to none". Ripp learned how Goldner worked a
studio, structured a record contract, and got records played on the radio. Ripp quickly rose in the music publishing, recording, and distribution business. In 1961, after Goldner transferred his
Gone and
End record labels to music industry executive
Morris Levy, Ripp became national promotion director at Nevins/Kirshner Associates, Inc., founded by
Al Nevins and
Don Kirshner. (The company was the parent of
Dimension Records and its music publishing division
Aldon Music (BMI). Aldon, located at 1650 Broadway in Manhattan, played a significant role in shaping the so-called "
Brill Building Pop" sound of the late 1950s and early 1960s.) In 1962, Ripp partnered with music publisher Aaron "Goldie" Goldmark and was named vice president of three of Goldmark's newly established businesses: Goldie Records, Inc., Armada Music, Inc. (
ASCAP), and Fredella Music, Inc. (
BMI) (which were together known as Goldmark Music, Ltd. in association with Chappell, Ltd.). During the summer of 1962, Goldmark and Ripp collaborated to generate worldwide distribution arrangements that were described by
Billboard as having "angles never before achieved in the business." In 1963, Ripp produced "
Just One Look" for
Doris Troy. The song peaked at number ten on the
Billboard pop chart and at number three on the
Rhythm and Blues chart. It was listed as one of the 7,500 most important songs of the Rock-n-Roll era and was covered by
The Hollies as their first single. In 1963, when Goldmark was selected to head Premier Albums' newly established publishing and master-production operations, Ripp followed and was named chief of "A&R" (
Artists and Repertoire) for Premier's subsidiary, Award Music, which was the master-production business. As A&R Chief, Ripp signed singer
Carl Dobkins Jr. Also under contract with Award during Ripp's tenure were
Jimmy Jones and
The Hollywood Flames, both of whom were on the
Vee-Jay record label.
Kama Sutra In 1964, Ripp joined Hy Mizrahi and Phil Steinberg in
Kama Sutra, initially an independent production company Kama Sutra hit "immediately and often." and shares a producer credit with
Jeff Barry on the song. (American singer-songwriter
Billy Joel, whom Ripp as a future record-label owner would sign to a recording contract about seven years later, recalls playing piano on the single; whether his playing was used on the demo version that had been produced by
"Shadow" Morton or on the master version that had been produced by Barry and Ripp is unclear.) Also, when Leiber and Stoller's time-consuming work with
The Drifters and
The Coasters demanded much of their attention, Ripp was selected to take over production of singles for
Jay and the Americans, released on United Artists. When the band "hit" in 1964 with the Ripp-produced "
Come A Little Bit Closer", the band was invited to participate in the first
Beatles' tour of the U.S. along with
The Righteous Brothers and also played with
The Rolling Stones at
Carnegie Hall. Although Kama Sutra signed a major production contract in early 1965 with record label
Columbia Records In 1965, after accountant Art Kass (a former employee of
MGM Records) joined the management team, Kama Sutra expanded and became a record label, with Ripp as musical director. The west coast office was ultimately headed by
Bob Krasnow; Ripp shifted to operate out of California in 1967. The label's first single, was The Vacels' "You're My Baby (And Don't You Forget It)", Ripp also negotiated a deal Ripp co-produced
Bobby Bloom's single, "
Love, Don't Let Me Down" which was released on Kama Sutra KA 223 in March 1967. It made both the
Record World Coming Up, and the
Cash Box Looking Ahead chart.
Buddah Records In 1967, Kama Sutra leadership, sensing that the MGM distribution deal was limiting the company's output, created the Buddah Records label as a subsidiary with distribution handled by Kama Sutra.
Neil Bogart, who later co-founded
Casablanca Records, was hired as vice president and general manager. Bogart steered the label in the direction of
Bubblegum pop, and the label had hits with
Ohio Express and the
1910 Fruitgum Company. Together, the Kama Sutra and Buddah labels released almost 100
Billboard Top 40 singles and almost fifty hits on the
Billboard Rhythm & Blues chart. This productivity amounted to about one chart hit for every five releases; major record labels of the day realized about one chart hit for every twenty to thirty releases. which was the music publishing division of
Paramount Pictures which was itself a subsidiary of
Gulf + Western, Ripp founded Family Productions, Inc.--originally called "A. Ripp Family Productions The agreement included a "built-in promotion fund" and a commitment from Paramount to promote the output from the production house.
Association with Billy Joel In 1971, Family Productions signed 22-year-old
Billy Joel to a long-term recording-and-publishing contract as a solo artist. Joel had previously come to the attention of producer
Michael Lang, co-creator of
Woodstock and principal of Just Sunshine Records. Lang had given Joel a monetary advance, but then passed Joel along to Ripp—while still retaining rights to profit from Joel's output—because he wanted to focus his attentions on a different artist instead. Despite the occurrence of a mastering error that altered its pitch,
Cold Spring Harbor showed critical promise but was a commercial failure; distribution was poor, and promotion was insufficient. Joel states, "We [including touring bandmates
Rhys Clark,
Larry Russell, and Alan Hertzberg] didn't make any money, nobody got paid. We were touring around in one of these little camper trailer things, eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches." While Joel has blamed the failure of
Cold Spring Harbor on Ripp, stating, for example, that Ripp had run out of money to fix the mastering error, Others describe parent company Gulf + Western's commitment to music production and distribution as having been lackluster; Joel biographer Fred Schruers describes the organization having been "too dysfunctional to do the kind of marketing and promotion that would trigger really profitable album sales." The Capitoline Wolf logo from Family Productions continued to appear on Joel's albums for a period of time.
Fidelity Recording In 1971, Ripp founded Fidelity Recording, a Studio City, California recording studio. In 1976, Fidelity's Studio B was where
The Runaways, an all-female rock band which included a young
Joan Jett, recorded the
punk-influenced hard rock single "
Cherry Bomb". Band manager
Kim Fowley describes Studio B as being "a remade storeroom...It was awful. But it wasn't scary. It was the kind of studio you wanted a garage product out of...[If] you walk into a room where they store stuff, you're not going to be intimidated. You're going to swagger about: ‘What a horrible place. Oh, well, we've played a lot of horrible places. This is nothing new.’” Ripp describes Studio B as being convertible from a different use into a studio when need be. He states, "...there was an intimacy in the room and there was a sound that was tight and alive, despite its lack of, shall we say, visual amenities.” although the group's founding member
Jim Peterik states that he and others did a final mix. Fidelity is also where Ripp and engineer Larry Elliot substantially overdubbed and re-mixed Joel's
Cold Spring Harbor album in 1983; the remix was reissued by Columbia. Other artists who recorded work at Fidelity include
Mandrill,
Melanie,
Peter Yarrow, and
Gábor Szabó.
Later career Ripp has been the principal of Ripp Entertainment Group, Inc. since 1977. thereby controlling many aspects of music production: publishing companies, a production company, and a recording studio. In the late 2000s, Ripp Entertainment Group was named the exclusive distributor of the short-lived DVCD+ digital storage technology, which Ripp co-invented and which became available in 2008. In 2014, he established Artful Results, Inc., (now dissolved). Ripp has also had a career in other media outlets as a film actor, film producer, and consultant. In the 1978 film
American Hot Wax, a biopic about disc jockey
Alan Freed that was directed by
Floyd Mutrux, Ripp played Freed's manager and talent scout. He also played "Rotweiler" in the 1987 movie "
Number One With a Bullet," starring
Valerie Bertinelli. Ripp served as a consultant on the development of the play ''
Baby It's You!'', co-written by Mutrux and music journalist
Colin Escott, about the life and music industry career of housewife-turned-record-label-founder
Florence Greenberg. The play opened on
Broadway in 2011, and its lead actress,
Beth Leavel, was nominated for a 2011
Tony Award for
Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Musical for her performance as Greenberg. In addition, Ripp served as Music Consultant on the 2014 film "
Everly", starring
Salma Hayek.
Controversies While he was with Family Productions, Ripp allegedly had "an industry reputation of taking advantage of acts he signed." For example, musician Neil Merryweather says of the eponymous album his "Heavy Cruiser" band put out, "Artie made a chunk of money and we never made a dime. But that's the way it was the whole time we were with Family Productions." Joel calls it "a horrible deal," stating, "I signed away everything – the copyrights, publishing, record royalties, everything. My first child. I gave it all away..." About the
Cold Spring Harbor album, which Ripp produced in 1971, Joel states, "The whole thing was completely overproduced." Joel recalls that making the album had been "a torturous process" and that it had been "misery" working with Ripp. Nevertheless, despite these difficulties and others, Joel gives Ripp credit as having been "the guy who got me on the radar screen." Joel states, "After all the people in the industry who passed on me, Artie Ripp was the guy who wanted me to be his artist. Nobody else heard it, nobody else wanted to sign me, nobody else was making me a deal. Artie made me a deal. He heard something." ==Persona==