Koppelman broke into the music business as a member of the musical group
the Ivy Three which had a Top 10 hit in 1960 titled "Yogi", after the cartoon
Yogi Bear. Soon, Koppelman and bandmate and future business partner Don Rubin joined the songwriting staff of Aldon Music under CEO
Don Kirshner, a group that included
Carole King,
Neil Sedaka,
Barry Mann, and
Cynthia Weil. When
Columbia Pictures purchased
Aldon Music, Koppelman was promoted to director of Screen Gems/Columbia Music, the new company that resulted from the merger. In 1965, with financial backing of his uncle, Leon Koppelman, Koppelman and Rubin left Columbia to form Koppelman/Rubin Associates, an entertainment company that signed
the Lovin Spoonful the same year. In 1967, Koppelman/Rubin signed the Little Bits of Sound, a group from Long Island, New York with a psychedelic sound. In 1968, Commonwealth United purchased Koppelman/Rubin Associates and Koppelman and Rubin stayed on to run the music division. In 1968 they signed the psychedelic band the Rahgoos and famously made the band change its name to
Gandalf. During the early 1970s, Koppelman moved on to CBS Records and held numerous positions, including Vice President/National Director of A&R where he signed acts including
Billy Joel,
Dave Mason,
Janis Ian,
Journey, and
Phoebe Snow. As head of A&R, Koppelman pronounced
The Wild, the Innocent & The E Street Shuffle, the second album recorded by
Bruce Springsteen in 1973, to be unreleasable. The musicianship, he said, was not good enough. He told Springsteen that if he did not re-record the album with musicians he approved, the company would not promote the album and predicted Springsteen's career would be derailed. According to Springsteen, who refused to change the record he delivered to CBS, not only did the company not promote the album, its representatives told radio stations to remove the recordings from their playlists. By the mid-1970s, Koppelman had stepped up to Vice President/General Manager of worldwide publishing for CBS Records. In 1975, he formed The Entertainment Company with
Martin Bandier and New York real estate developer and Bandier's father-in-law,
Samuel LeFrak. The company independently administered and promoted song catalogs and produced music artists like
Barbra Streisand,
Dolly Parton,
Diana Ross,
the Four Tops, and
Cher. In the early 1980s, Koppelman's son
Brian, then a student at
Tufts University in Boston, discovered musician
Tracy Chapman and brought her to his father who soon signed her to a record deal. In 1986, Koppelman, Bandier, and
Stephen C. Swid formed SBK Entertainment World, Inc., in order to buy the 250,000 titles owned by CBS Songs for $125 million, the highest price ever paid for a music publishing portfolio. SBK developed into the largest independent music publisher in the world and played a major role in the careers of artists like
Michael Bolton,
Robbie Robertson,
New Kids on the Block,
Grayson Hugh,
Icehouse,
Al B. Sure!, and
Eric B. & Rakim. and led the company while Madden didjail time for securities fraud. In 2005, Koppelman was appointed Chairman of
Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia. Koppelman also appeared as
Martha Stewart's right-hand man on
NBC's
The Apprentice: Martha Stewart in 2005. He was
de facto CEO of the company from 2008 to 2011 when he stepped down to expand his company, CAK Entertainment. Since 2010, Koppelman has been a director at
Six Flags Entertainment Corporation and sat on the Board of Directors of
Las Vegas Sands. In June 2014, Koppelman was appointed Chairman of Medient Studios Inc., replacing Manu Kumaran. ==CAK Entertainment, Inc.==