The Scottish-born executive worked with Radiohead, My Morning Jacket and St. Vincent across stints at Warner/Chappell, Chrysalis and his own indie publisher.
Kenny MacPherson at The Art Of Collaboration: Songwriters & Music Publishers Making Music & History Together at The GRAMMY Museum on Oct. 20, 2016 in Los Angeles. Rebecca Sapp/WireImage for The Recording Academy
Kenny MacPherson, the longtime music publishing executive who co-founded independent publisher Big Deal Music, died Oct. 23 in Los Angeles. He was 71. No cause of death was given.
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Over nearly four decades, MacPherson became one of the most recognizable figures in music publishing, known for a sharp ear for left-of-center talent and a loyalty to the songwriters he signed. “Kenny was one of a kind,” Supertramp bassist Dougie Thomson, a friend of 50 years, told HITS Daily Double. Former Big Deal partner Jamie Cerreta, now president of Peermusic U.S. and Canada, said MacPherson “was beloved by the songwriters he fought so hard for.”
Born in Largs, Scotland, MacPherson got his start in live music in Glasgow, eventually managing concerts at the city’s Apollo Theatre. There he met comedian Billy Connolly, whom he went on to tour-manage, and it was in the London offices of Connolly’s publishers that he got the advice that set his course. “You know, Kenny, if you want to be in the music business, get into publishing — it’s a gentleman’s game,” publisher Bill Martin told him, as MacPherson recalled in a 2019 interview with Billboard.
He moved to the U.S. in the late 1970s and early ’80s, working with the Manhattan Transfer and then Supertramp’s management company, where he helped launch a publishing arm. In 1989 he joined Warner/Chappell to run its New York office, and over 13 years there he signed or developed acts including Radiohead, Underworld, Paul Westerberg, the Afghan Whigs and the Blue Nile.
He then took over Chrysalis Music’s North American division, where he and his team signed OutKast, My Morning Jacket, Ray LaMontagne, TV on the Radio, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Beach House, St. Vincent and Thom Yorke, along with producers including Ethan Johns and Dave Sitek. He led the division until BMG acquired Chrysalis in 2010.
In 2012, MacPherson co-founded Big Deal Music with longtime colleagues Dave Ayers and Jamie Cerreta. “I wanted to build a place that was culturally significant and great for people to work, where manners, courtesy and high touch are important,” he told Billboard in 2019. With offices in Los Angeles, New York and Nashville, the company reunited him with past signings like LaMontagne, My Morning Jacket and St. Vincent while adding Blake Mills, Weyes Blood, Kamasi Washington, Sharon Van Etten, Sylvan Esso, Sleater-Kinney and hitmaking writers Teddy Geiger, Julian Bunetta and John Ryan. It regularly ranked among the top 10 U.S. publishers by market share, and the Association of Independent Music Publishers named it indie publisher of the year in 2017.
In September 2020, Hipgnosis Songs Fund acquired Big Deal, which became Hipgnosis Songs Group with MacPherson as CEO.
MacPherson was an outspoken advocate for songwriters, arguing that writers deserved seats on industry boards and backing the idea of a publisher-funded health care fund for songwriters. “A world without songs would be a very dull place,” he told Billboard.
He is survived by his wife, photographer Melanie Nissen; daughter Nicole Walker; granddaughter Kate Land; sister Anne Cowgill; and extended family.