Tommy Mottola
Encyclopedia
Thomas Daniel "Tommy" Mottola (born July 14, 1949) is an American music executive, co-owner of Casablanca Records
in a joint venture with the Universal Music Group
. He is the ex-husband of Mariah Carey
and is married to Mexican singer Thalía
. He headed Sony Music Entertainment
, parent of the Columbia
label, for nearly 15 years.
Apart from his experience in managing music outfits, Mottola is known as a mentor and former talent manager. His most famous proteges were Hall & Oates
, Carly Simon
, John Mellencamp
, Diana Ross
, and Taylor Dayne
in the 80s, Mariah Carey (his second wife) in the 1990s, Gloria Estefan
, Shakira
, Jessica Simpson
and Jennifer Lopez
in the early 2000s.
He is widely well-known for signing, developing, and nurturing the careers of Celine Dion
, Destiny's Child
, Shakira
, Gloria Estefan
, the Dixie Chicks
, Barbra Streisand
, Bruce Springsteen
, Billy Joel
, among others. He also is credited with creating the Latin Explosion in popular music by championing such Sony artists as Jennifer Lopez
, Marc Anthony
and Ricky Martin
. He also worked with Michael Jackson
from the time he began recording his "Dangerous" (1991) album. Jackson would later state that his relationship with Mottola dissolved based on corruption in Mottola's working practices, publicly referring to him as a "racist" and "devil". "The recording companies really, really do conspire against the artists", Jackson said.
In June 2010, he decided to sell his ranch in Colorado, for $27.5 million, as he was not spending time in it anymore and wanted to be closer to his family.
, whom he married in December 2, 2000. They have a daughter and a son.
until January 2003. Since leaving his post as chief of Sony Music, Mottola has been building a new entertainment company, complete with recorded music, television production, theater, and fashion, alongside a branding and management company launching. He was instrumental in re-launching the various careers of such artists as Grammy winner and Latin pop star Marc Anthony, and teen sensation Lindsay Lohan. Later signings included Cassie Ventura in 2006 and Mika, who in 2007 had a #1 single in the UK.
A collaboration with former Miramax chief Harvey Weinstein
has them teamed on two current projects for live theater, namely producers of Pink Floyd's The Wall. Mottola's TV production arm is currently producing and developing many shows for cable and network television.
Mottola bought out the rights to Casablanca Records
(a then-diminished imprint of Polygram
), and resurrected it, signing actress Lindsay Lohan
, and singer Mika
.
, T.J. Martell Foundation for Cancer, Leukemia and AIDS Research, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Foundation and Museum, and the Federal Law Enforcement Foundation.
is loosely based on Mottola, in particular his time as manager of Hall and Oates.
In 1977, Mottola's name was mentioned in the first line of Dr. Buzzard's Original Savannah Band's "Cherchez La Femme".
The Australian band Regurgitator include the song "i love tommy mottola" on their 1999 album "...art".
Mentioned in the Lil Wayne
song Spitter off the mixtape Dedication 2
"I got that Tommy Mottola..."
Mentioned in the opening chorus of Ghostface Killah
's song Cherchez LaGhost
off of the Supreme Clientele
album, released in 2000.
Mentioned by Wyclef Jean
in the Fugees song "How Many Mics" from their 1996 Grammy award
winning album The Score
, "...One day I have a label and make deals with Tommy Mottola."
Mentioned in Mariah Carey songs as an antagonist, such as "Side Effects".
Mentioned in "No Show," Season 4, Episode 2 of the series "The Sopranos". Tony says in sarcasm to his sister, Janice, "That Tommy Mottola, he's one slow motherfucker. What's it been, about a year now?" He intends to say that she does not actually have any connection to a music executive of Mr. Mottola's caliber.
Casablanca Records
Casablanca Records was an American record label started by Neil Bogart, who partnered with Cecil Holmes, Larry Harris, and Buck Reingold in 1973, and based in Los Angeles. The label was formed after all of them had left Buddah Records and secured financing by Warner Bros. Records to start the venture...
in a joint venture with the Universal Music Group
Universal Music Group
Universal Music Group is an American music group, the largest of the "big four" record companies by its commanding market share and its multitude of global operations...
. He is the ex-husband of Mariah Carey
Mariah Carey
Mariah Carey is an American singer-songwriter, record producer, and actress. She made her recording debut with the release of her eponymous studio album in 1990, under the guidance of Columbia Records executive Tommy Mottola, whom she later married in 1993...
and is married to Mexican singer Thalía
Thalía
Ariadna Thalía Sodi Miranda , known simply by the mononym Thalía , is a Mexican singer and actress. She has sold over 40 million albums worldwide...
. He headed Sony Music Entertainment
Sony Music Entertainment
Sony Music Entertainment ' is the second-largest global recorded music company of the "big four" record companies and is controlled by Sony Corporation of America, the United States subsidiary of Japan's Sony Corporation....
, parent of the Columbia
Columbia Records
Columbia Records is an American record label, owned by Japan's Sony Music Entertainment, operating under the Columbia Music Group with Aware Records. It was founded in 1888, evolving from an earlier enterprise, the American Graphophone Company — successor to the Volta Graphophone Company...
label, for nearly 15 years.
Apart from his experience in managing music outfits, Mottola is known as a mentor and former talent manager. His most famous proteges were Hall & Oates
Hall & Oates
Hall & Oates are an American musical duo composed of Daryl Hall and John Oates. They achieved their greatest fame in the late 1970s and early to mid-1980s. Both sing and play instruments. They specialized in a fusion of rock and roll and rhythm and blues styles, which they dubbed "rock and soul."...
, Carly Simon
Carly Simon
Carly Elisabeth Simon is an American singer-songwriter, musician, and children's author. She rose to fame in the 1970s with a string of hit records, and has since been the recipient of two Grammy Awards, an Academy Award, and a Golden Globe Award for her work...
, John Mellencamp
John Mellencamp
John Mellencamp, previously known by the stage names Johnny Cougar, John Cougar, and John Cougar Mellencamp, is an American rock singer-songwriter, musician, painter and occasional actor known for his catchy, populist brand of heartland rock that eschews synthesizers and other artificial sounds...
, Diana Ross
Diana Ross
Diana Ernestine Earle Ross is an American singer, record producer, and actress. Ross was lead singer of the Motown group The Supremes during the 1960s. After leaving the group in 1970, Ross began a solo career that included successful ventures into film and Broadway...
, and Taylor Dayne
Taylor Dayne
Taylor Dayne was born Leslie Wunderman on March 7, 1962 before later adopting her current stage name. She is an American pop vocalist, songwriter, and dance artist. Overall, she has had eighteen individual hit songs reach the top ten in Billboard magazine...
in the 80s, Mariah Carey (his second wife) in the 1990s, Gloria Estefan
Gloria Estefan
Gloria María Milagrosa Fajardo García de Estefan; known professionally as Gloria Estefan is a Cuban-born American singer, songwriter, and actress. Known as the "Queen Of Latin Pop", she is in the top 100 best selling music artists with over 100 million albums sold worldwide, 31.5 million of those...
, Shakira
Shakira
Shakira Isabel Mebarak Ripoll , known professionally as Shakira , is a Colombian singer who emerged in the music scene of Colombia and Latin America in the early 1990s...
, Jessica Simpson
Jessica Simpson
Jessica Ann Simpson is an American recording artist, actress, television personality, and fashion designer whose rise to fame began in 1999. Since that time, Simpson has achieved many recording milestones, starred in several television shows, movies, and commercials, launched a line of hair and...
and Jennifer Lopez
Jennifer Lopez
Jennifer Lynn Lopez is an American actress, singer, record producer, dancer, television personality, and fashion designer. Lopez began her career as a dancer on the television comedy program In Living Color. Subsequently venturing into acting, she gained recognition in the 1995 action-thriller...
in the early 2000s.
Sony
During his tenure, he transformed Sony into one of the most successful global music companies, expanding its businesses into over 60 countries, while creating one of the strongest management teams in the industry. He revitalized Sony Music's publishing division by making such acquisitions as the Beatles catalogue and enabled Sony to become the first major music company to make available commercial digital downloads. Additionally, Mottola was the architect for some of Sony's biggest global brands such as Celine Dion and Mariah Carey. During his 15 year tenure, Mottola built Sony up from a company with revenues of $800 million a year to one with over $6 billion of annual revenue by the year 2000.He is widely well-known for signing, developing, and nurturing the careers of Celine Dion
Celine Dion
Céline Marie Claudette Dion, , , is a Canadian singer. Born to a large family from Charlemagne, Quebec, Dion emerged as a teen star in the French-speaking world after her manager and future husband René Angélil mortgaged his home to finance her first record...
, Destiny's Child
Destiny's Child
Destiny's Child was an American R&B girl group whose final line-up comprised lead singer Beyoncé Knowles alongside Kelly Rowland and Michelle Williams. Formed in 1997 in Houston, Texas, Destiny's Child members began their musical endeavors in their pre-teens under the name Girl's Tyme...
, Shakira
Shakira
Shakira Isabel Mebarak Ripoll , known professionally as Shakira , is a Colombian singer who emerged in the music scene of Colombia and Latin America in the early 1990s...
, Gloria Estefan
Gloria Estefan
Gloria María Milagrosa Fajardo García de Estefan; known professionally as Gloria Estefan is a Cuban-born American singer, songwriter, and actress. Known as the "Queen Of Latin Pop", she is in the top 100 best selling music artists with over 100 million albums sold worldwide, 31.5 million of those...
, the Dixie Chicks
Dixie Chicks
The Dixie Chicks are an American country band which has also successfully crossed over into other genres. The band is composed of founding members Martie Erwin Maguire and Emily Erwin Robison, and lead singer Natalie Maines...
, Barbra Streisand
Barbra Streisand
Barbra Joan Streisand is an American singer, actress, film producer and director. She has won two Academy Awards, eight Grammy Awards, four Emmy Awards, a Special Tony Award, an American Film Institute award, a Peabody Award, and is one of the few entertainers who have won an Oscar, Emmy, Grammy,...
, Bruce Springsteen
Bruce Springsteen
Bruce Frederick Joseph Springsteen , nicknamed "The Boss," is an American singer-songwriter who records and tours with the E Street Band...
, Billy Joel
Billy Joel
William Martin "Billy" Joel is an American musician and pianist, singer-songwriter, and classical composer. Since releasing his first hit song, "Piano Man", in 1973, Joel has become the sixth best-selling recording artist and the third best-selling solo artist in the United States, according to...
, among others. He also is credited with creating the Latin Explosion in popular music by championing such Sony artists as Jennifer Lopez
Jennifer Lopez
Jennifer Lynn Lopez is an American actress, singer, record producer, dancer, television personality, and fashion designer. Lopez began her career as a dancer on the television comedy program In Living Color. Subsequently venturing into acting, she gained recognition in the 1995 action-thriller...
, Marc Anthony
Marc Anthony
Marc Anthony is an American singer-songwriter, actor and producer. Anthony is the top selling tropical salsa artist of all time. The two-time Grammy and three-time Latin Grammy–winner has sold more than 30 million albums worldwide. He is best known for his Latin salsa numbers and ballads...
and Ricky Martin
Ricky Martin
Enrique "Ricky" Martín Morales , better known as Ricky Martin, is a Puerto Rican and Spanish pop singer and actor who achieved prominence, first as a member of the Latin boy band Menudo, then as a solo artist since 1991.During his career he has sold more than 60 million album copies worldwide...
. He also worked with Michael Jackson
Michael Jackson
Michael Joseph Jackson was an American recording artist, entertainer, and businessman. Referred to as the King of Pop, or by his initials MJ, Jackson is recognized as the most successful entertainer of all time by Guinness World Records...
from the time he began recording his "Dangerous" (1991) album. Jackson would later state that his relationship with Mottola dissolved based on corruption in Mottola's working practices, publicly referring to him as a "racist" and "devil". "The recording companies really, really do conspire against the artists", Jackson said.
In June 2010, he decided to sell his ranch in Colorado, for $27.5 million, as he was not spending time in it anymore and wanted to be closer to his family.
Thalía
Mottola later went on to date other stars before dating Mexican singer ThalíaThalía
Ariadna Thalía Sodi Miranda , known simply by the mononym Thalía , is a Mexican singer and actress. She has sold over 40 million albums worldwide...
, whom he married in December 2, 2000. They have a daughter and a son.
After Sony
Tommy Mottola was the head of Sony Music EntertainmentSony Music Entertainment
Sony Music Entertainment ' is the second-largest global recorded music company of the "big four" record companies and is controlled by Sony Corporation of America, the United States subsidiary of Japan's Sony Corporation....
until January 2003. Since leaving his post as chief of Sony Music, Mottola has been building a new entertainment company, complete with recorded music, television production, theater, and fashion, alongside a branding and management company launching. He was instrumental in re-launching the various careers of such artists as Grammy winner and Latin pop star Marc Anthony, and teen sensation Lindsay Lohan. Later signings included Cassie Ventura in 2006 and Mika, who in 2007 had a #1 single in the UK.
A collaboration with former Miramax chief Harvey Weinstein
Harvey Weinstein
Harvey Weinstein, CBE is an American film producer and movie studio chairman. He is best known as co-founder of Miramax Films. He and his brother Bob have been co-chairmen of The Weinstein Company, their film production company, since 2005...
has them teamed on two current projects for live theater, namely producers of Pink Floyd's The Wall. Mottola's TV production arm is currently producing and developing many shows for cable and network television.
Mottola bought out the rights to Casablanca Records
Casablanca Records
Casablanca Records was an American record label started by Neil Bogart, who partnered with Cecil Holmes, Larry Harris, and Buck Reingold in 1973, and based in Los Angeles. The label was formed after all of them had left Buddah Records and secured financing by Warner Bros. Records to start the venture...
(a then-diminished imprint of Polygram
PolyGram
PolyGram was the name of the major label recording company started by Philips from as a holding company for its music interests in 1945. In 1999 it was sold to Seagram and merged into Universal Music Group.-Hollandsche Decca Distributie , 1929-1950:...
), and resurrected it, signing actress Lindsay Lohan
Lindsay Lohan
Lindsay Lohan is an American actress, pop singer and model. She began her career as a child fashion model before making her motion picture debut in Disney's 1998 remake of The Parent Trap at the age of 11...
, and singer Mika
Mika (singer)
Mika is a British singer-songwriter.After recording his first extended play, Dodgy Holiday EP, Mika released his first full-length studio album, Life in Cartoon Motion, on Island Records in 2007. Life in Cartoon Motion sold more than 5.6 million copies worldwide and helped Mika win a Brit...
.
Philanthropy
Known also for his many philanthropic activities, Mottola has served on the Board of Directors of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, the Police Athletic League of New York CityPolice Athletic League of New York City
The Police Athletic League, Inc. is an independent, non-profit youth development agency in New York City. PAL is funded by a combination of private donations and public funding sources and is a designated charity of the New York Police Department. Robert M. Morgenthau, retired District Attorney...
, T.J. Martell Foundation for Cancer, Leukemia and AIDS Research, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Foundation and Museum, and the Federal Law Enforcement Foundation.
Cultural references
The character of Gene Balboa in the Channel 101 Internet TV Series Yacht RockYacht rock
Yacht Rock was an online video series following the fictionalized lives and careers of American soft rock stars of the late 1970s and early 1980s. The series debuted on Channel 101 at the June 26, 2005 screening. It placed in the top five at subsequent screenings until the June 25, 2006 screening,...
is loosely based on Mottola, in particular his time as manager of Hall and Oates.
In 1977, Mottola's name was mentioned in the first line of Dr. Buzzard's Original Savannah Band's "Cherchez La Femme".
The Australian band Regurgitator include the song "i love tommy mottola" on their 1999 album "...art".
Mentioned in the Lil Wayne
Lil Wayne
Dwayne Michael Carter, Jr. , better known by his stage name Lil Wayne, is an American rapper. At the age of nine, Lil Wayne joined Cash Money Records as the youngest member of the label, and half of the duo, The B.G.'z, with B.G.. In 1997, Lil Wayne joined the group Hot Boys, which also included...
song Spitter off the mixtape Dedication 2
Dedication 2
Dedication 2 is a 2006 mixtape by DJ Drama and Lil Wayne. It is a sequel to Lil Wayne's previous mixtape, Dedication, and is second in DJ Drama's Gangsta Grillz series with Lil Wayne. It is one of the few mixtapes in the hip hop genre to be both financially successful and critically acclaimed...
"I got that Tommy Mottola..."
Mentioned in the opening chorus of Ghostface Killah
Ghostface Killah
Dennis Coles , better known by his stage name Ghostface Killah, is an American rapper and prominent member of the Wu-Tang Clan. After the group achieved breakthrough success in the aftermath of Enter the Wu-Tang , the members went on to pursue solo careers to varying levels of success...
's song Cherchez LaGhost
Cherchez LaGhost
"Cherchez LaGhost" is a song from Supreme Clientele, the second album by rapper Ghostface Killah, and features fellow Wu-Tang Clan member U-God and singer Goldie.It was released as the album's second single, with an accompanying music video....
off of the Supreme Clientele
Supreme Clientele
Supreme Clientele is the second studio album of American rapper and Wu-Tang Clan member Ghostface Killah, released January 25, 2000 on Epic Records. The album was recorded at several studios in New York and Florida, with the sessions taking place in 1999...
album, released in 2000.
Mentioned by Wyclef Jean
Wyclef Jean
Wyclef Jean is a Haitian musician, record producer, and politician. At age nine, Jean moved to the United States with his family and has spent much of his life in the country...
in the Fugees song "How Many Mics" from their 1996 Grammy award
Grammy Award
A Grammy Award — or Grammy — is an accolade by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences of the United States to recognize outstanding achievement in the music industry...
winning album The Score
The Score (album)
The Score is the second and final studio album by the hip hop trio Fugees, released worldwide February 13, 1996 on Columbia Records. The album features a wide range of samples and instrumentation, with many aspects of alternative hip hop that would come to dominate the hip hop music scene in the...
, "...One day I have a label and make deals with Tommy Mottola."
Mentioned in Mariah Carey songs as an antagonist, such as "Side Effects".
Mentioned in "No Show," Season 4, Episode 2 of the series "The Sopranos". Tony says in sarcasm to his sister, Janice, "That Tommy Mottola, he's one slow motherfucker. What's it been, about a year now?" He intends to say that she does not actually have any connection to a music executive of Mr. Mottola's caliber.