Bud told me he cut the Scotti Brothers in on Foreigner, gave them a percentage from record one.

He recited how he rescued the uber-talented Terry Thomas from a life of drudgery by selecting him to produce the reconstituted Bad Company.

Bud told me how he convinced Atlantic to let his best friend Felix Pappalardi produce Cream.

Today, Bud Prager was reunited with his old buddy in heaven.

A great manager can’t work for anybody else, he’s sui generis, he cares.  Through sheer force of personality, he bends wills, he gets his act a slot, he schemes until his proteges break through.

Conventional wisdom is labels break acts.  This is untrue.  Behind every legendary performer is a great manager.  Bob Dylan would still be little Bobby Zimmerman without Albert Grossman’s direction.  The Beatles wouldn’t have become icons without Brian Epstein. Aerosmith wouldn’t have broken through without David Krebs.  Rather than study the label legends, dig deeper and discover the managers, who believed, oftentimes when no one else did, and shepherded their charges to greatness.

Bud Prager cared.  He was compassionate.  He could argue minutiae with you til dawn.  No detail was too small for his attention. He may be gone, but the acts and records he brought into the marketplace will live forever.

I can still remember the first time I heard "Feels Like The First Time" on the radio.  I drove straight to Music Odyssey on Wilshire and bought the album.  Good isn’t good enough, we’re truly only interested in great.  Bud Prager was a great manager.