Frank Fenter

Frank Fenter was born on February 25, 1936 in Johannesburg, South Africa and moved to London, England in 1958, initially determined to become an actor. Fenter's acting career included a feature role in the BBC cult classic, The Big Pull and produced and co-wrote the first Rock movie in South Africa, titled Africa ShakesCOPYRIGHTINFRINGEMENTWhile doing part time acting in the late 1950's early 1960's, Fenter began to book bands, including The Rolling Stones, Animals and Manfred Mann long before they had recording contracts. Fenter got his big break in the music industry in 1963 when he joined Chapell Music Publishing co., to head Liberty-Imperial Record Publishing and later ARC/Chess Music, which included songs by such artists as Chuck Berry.

In 1966, Frank Fenter was chosen by Atlantic Records Nesuhi Ertegün to head Atlantic Records in the United Kingdom. Within six months, he was at Atlantic's helm for all of Europe in the capacity of Managing Director. During his tenure at Atlantic Records, Fenter was involved in having had his hands in the discovery and played a very important role to Ahmet Ertegün, co-founder and Chairman of Atlantic Records, in launching the careers of British super groups, including, Yes, King Crimson, Led Zeppelin and Vinegar Joe.

Fenter created an explosion in Europe when he brought the "Hit the Road Stax" tour to Europe in 1967 and, with Fenters direction, Stax Records, a subsidiary label of Atlantic Records, experienced a sales jump from 500,000 to 2.7 million units the year of the tour with seven of the eleven albums recorded live on the Stax tour received gold album certifications.

In 1969, Fenter and Phil Walden co-founded Capricorn Records with a distribution deal from Atlantic Records. Frank Fenter became Executive Vice President and ran all departments of the label while also having discovered and signed many of the artists to the Capricorn roster with Walden.

During most of the 1970s', Capricorn Records was one of the most successful privately held record labels in the world, having created the genre of Southern Rock that included such bands as The Allman Brothers, The Marshall Tucker Band, Elvin Bishop, Wet Willie, Sea Level, Dixie Dregs, Billy Thorpe, Dobie Gray and Captain Beyond.

Frank Fenter died on July 21, 1983, in Macon, GA, at the age of only 47 from a sudden heart attack.