Records and co-founder of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, who gave Frank his first big break in the music Industry. The third of Frank Fenter’s influential new friends was Phil Walden, a music industry upand-comer as well as Otis Redding’s manager. They met in 1967, when Fenter became Managing Director for Atlantic Records in Europe— where he helped discover and get signed such powerhouses as Led Zeppelin, Yes, and King Crimson—and the two men became good friends. Walden and Redding, both Macon natives, had come to Europe to join the “Hit the Road, Stax!” soul tour, which Frank had arranged. If Frank didn’t know where Macon was at the time, he was about to find out. He and Walden shared the same musical tastes and vision, and their friendship quickly blossomed. By 1969 they’d dreamed up a different kind of record label, one that would be “vertically integrated” to include things like music publishing, booking, artist management, and merchandising under a single corporate identity. It was truly a new way of thinking about music management and distribution, one they were sure would work. They just needed a record label deal and the right artist. Frank found his answer when Walden shared a demo tape of a new band out of Jacksonville, Florida, that included a couple of brothers, a rhythm and blues groove, and a whole lot of guitar. Walden had long since convinced his friend that the American South was the perfect place to set up shop, but when a distribution deal from Atlantic Records’ Jerry Wexler was offered to Walden, it was time for Frank to make the move. By year’s end, with the Allman Brothers Band as their groundbreaking flagship act,the partners (along with initial involvement with Alan and Blue Walden) had launched Macon’s own Capricorn Records. Ahmet Ertegun, the head of Atlantic, would later say: “We were completely supportive of the idea of Phil and Frank creating a label together that we would be involved in and that we would distribute; together, they made a great team.”
TAKIN’ RISKS AND LIGHTIN’ TORCHES
“It was the biggest risk of my father’s life, I believe, to have left London, England, with a thriving career as managing director of Atlantic, to help start a record label in the center of Georgia,” Duner-Fenter says. But the music lover and maverick entrepreneur heard something special in the Allman Brothers, who would eventually be heralded as the torchbearers of Southern rock. “I think they just tapped into my dad’s deep love of blues and R&B music and also the improvisation of jazz, because the Allman Brothers really integrated all of that into their music,” Duner-Fenter says. “He just had a strong vision and belief in them, even though they were very unorthodox at the time. I mean they played 20-minute songs that were not FM radio friendly, and they were the first integrated Southern rock band with a black drummer. They were unorthodox on every level.”
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Frank and Kiki were also unorthodox, and they didn’t bother themselves with what people might think of them. “My parents were very progressive, before the South became progressive,” Duner-Fenter said. “There were a lot of bands and musicians that would come to our house, and that included African-Americans, which was suspect at the time, at least coming through the front door. Neighbors would see these folks with hair below their ears, like Gregg Allman, coming in and out. My mom had heard the rumors floating around that we belonged to the Charles Manson family.” Frank had promised Kiki they’d stay just two years in Georgia, long enough to get the record label up and running. “But it became too successful,” Duner-Fenter said. Over the years the partners, but specifically Fenter, was given kudos from The Marshall Tucker Band and Wet Willie (which Frank also named)on his infectious enthusiasm for their music and having them signed. Other acts with Capricorn were Chuck Leavell’s Sea Level, Dixie Dregs, Elvin Bishop, Dobie Gray, Stillwater and many more. They marketed much of the music as “Southern rock,” establishing a new musical genre and creating what was to become one of the biggest privately held record companies in the world throughout much of the 1970s, according to Duner-Fenter. They helped change not only old stereotypes of the South, ushering in the progressive “new South” with the music, but also politics. Capricorn was a major backer of Jimmy Carter’s presidential campaign.
“THE LABEL’S SUCCESS WAS BEYOND THE IMAGINATION OF FRANK AND PHIL, I THINK. IT BECAME BIGGER THAN THEY EVER BELIEVED.”
Frank and son Rob Duner-Fenter ~ circa 1975 Frank with Gregg Allman & Capricorn employees Rob Duner-Fenter with wife Hillary Evans & daughter Kikan Duner-Fenter