Albert Grossman

The manager of Bob Dylan, Janis Joplin and The Band plus the creator of Peter, Paul & Mary, Grossman was the first big music executive to embrace the new counterculture: Woodstock, N.Y., became a rock mecca because that’s where he lived, and Dylan followed him there. More hustler than hippie, Grossman believed in the vision of his artists and — starting in the early 1960s with Peter, Paul & Mary — made sure they, rather than their labels, controlled everything from song selection to cover art. Grossman’s superstar roster also gave him the power to significantly raise the financial ante on recording and publishing deals. “He’d pick up the phone and it wasn’t a question of whether there was a deal or not,” recalled Electric Flag vocalist Nick Gravenites. “The question immediately was, ‘What was the deal?’ ”