Keith Putney

I admit it -- faced with the task of encapsulating my experiences in seven years at Universal into a few paragraphs, I am am a loss. The people and events that filled these days, months, and years are certainly worthy of a "War & Peace" style epic rather than the moral equivalent of a tweet... Nirvana, Guns N Roses, Reba McEntire (above left), George Strait (above right and below), Marshall Crenshaw, Steve Forbert, Patty Loveless, Nancy Griffith, Johnny Gill, Tom Petty, George Jones, Conway Twitty, Meat Loaf (below), Vince Gill (below), Elton John (below), and Trisha Yearwood are among the great artists we presented great new music from ...well at the time it was new anyway.

I did meet Connie Lindell, and shared a great deal with her over 25 years. She was working across the street, as they say, for CBS Records Distribution, later Sony Music. She was my direct competition, but as I recently told her former bosses, Jerry Pitti and Tom Beaver, we never shared competitive infomation, even though the fax machine was right there...

That said, it did mean that I often had to move 30 boxes or more of Sony crap just to get in my own front door, a none too subtle reminder that, at least in the beginning of my tenure there, Universal was number 6 of the "Big Six"-Behind WEA, Sony, Polygram, BMG, and EMI/Capitol. That, however, would rapidly change, as Unversal bought Geffen Records, then GRP, and then Interscope, finally merging with Polygram as it rose to become the world conquering behemoth it is today. ...