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Business News Obituaries
Colin Burn dies
By CMU Editorial | Published on Friday 30 October 2009
The former General Manager of EMI’s pop division, Colin Burn, has died, aged 76.
In a 25 year career with the London-based major, Burn worked with a string of major artists who signed to the label during the sixties and seventies, including Lita Roza, Tony Brent, Cliff Richard, Adam Faith, The Beatles, The Supremes, Gene Pitney and the Beach Boys.
He worked his way up to the top of the company’s pop division in the seventies, and then later led its snappily titled Licensed Repertoire Division, before being eased out in some political shenanigans at the top of the company in the early eighties. He subsequently worked for one of EMI’s biggest acts, the Rolling Stones, before leaving the music business at the end of that decade.
Confirming the news and paying tribute to Burn, one of his former EMI colleagues, Trapeze Music & Entertainment’s Paul Watts, told Music Week: “Sadly, I have to report the death on Oct 19 of Colin Burn at the age of 76. Colin, who spent about 25 years with EMI Records through their most successful post-war years, was one of that generation of record company professionals that shepherded the business from the days of the Fifties era crooners, through the birth of rock ‘n’ roll to the successive revolutions provided by the Beatles, Motown, psychedelia, bubblegum, glam rock and punk”.
He added: “They all came alike to a hardened veteran like Colin, at heart a natural promotion man, who took on the mantle of general management, without ever being entirely comfortable with the corporate manoeuvring that went with it”.
