Music entrepreneur Allen Klein, blamed by many for contributing to the demise¹ of The Beatles, has died in New York at 77 after suffering from Alzheimer's.

音乐企业人Allen Klein，被大家指责为甲壳虫乐队解散责任人，因患阿尔茨海默病在纽约逝世，享年77岁。

Allen Klein described himself as a "shark"

In a career spanning five decades, Klein earned a reputation as a ruthless（残忍的，无情的） operator, extracting lucrative²（获利的，合算的） deals from labels for his clients.

In the mid-1960s, he managed The Rolling Stones for five years.

Later managing The Beatles, he tried and failed to secure control of copyrights on their behalf.

Though reviled³ by many, others admired his ability to negotiate with record labels.

"Don't talk to me about ethics（道德规范）," he once told Playboy magazine. "Every man makes his own. It's like a war."

He said John Lennon had hired him to protect his interest in The Beatles, because he wanted what he called "a real shark - someone to keep the other sharks away".

Charity gig

Klein helped the Stones negotiate a new contract with their label but the relationship soured（算的，刻薄的） after he bought the rights to the band's 1960s songs and recordings⁵ - classics like (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction and Jumpin' Jack⁶ Flash - from a former manager.

Keith Richards later described Klein's time with the group as "the price of an education".

The Beatles hired Klein in 1969 over the objections of Paul McCartney, who preferred his father-in-law, Lee Eastman.

At the time, a New York Times profile referred to him as "the toughest wheeler-dealer（追求利益的人，独断专行者） in the pop jungle".

Klein himself once sent out a holiday card parodying⁷（拙劣模仿） the 23rd Psalm⁸:

"Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, because I'm the biggest bastard⁹（私生子） in the valley."

His copyright battle for the Beatles came as tensions（紧张，张力） among the four reached breaking-point.

Eventually he did score a rich recording⁴ deal for The Beatles but by then John, Paul, George and Ringo were not even on speaking terms, and the band dissolved in 1970.

One year later, however, George Harrison hired Klein to put on the all-star Concert for Bangladesh at Madison Square Garden in New York - the forerunner¹⁰（先驱） of the mammoth¹¹ charity gigs of the 1980s and 1990s.

Accountant at heart

"I never wanted to be a manager," Klein told The Star-Ledger of Newark in 2002. "It was going over the books that I loved. And I was good at it."

Allen Klein was born in Newark, New Jersey¹², on 18 December 1931 and spent several years in an orphanage¹³（孤儿院） after his mother's death during his infancy¹⁴.

Later raised by a grandmother and an aunt, he served in the US Army before joining a Manhattan accounting¹⁵ firm, according to his company.

He started his own firm, which later became ABKCO, in the late 1950s.

His other clients in the music business including Sam Cooke, Bobby Darin and Herman's Hermits¹⁶.

According to the Associated Press, he was reputed to（被认为是） be the basis for the slick（光滑的，完全的） manager Ron Decline played by Jon Belushi in the 1978 film The Rutles, as well as the inspiration for John Lennon's 1974 song Steel and Glass.

His funeral will take place in New York on Tuesday.