Alan Callan

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Alan Callan (born 1 August 1946) is an English-born businessman, music executive, and film producer. He was a vice-president of Swan Song Records (1977 - 1983) and Jimmy Page's business manager for many years.

Career

Callan was born in London, England. He first began his working life as a photographer and was hired by a number of music acts to take promotional photos. At the time, the most notable was Ian Matthews who formed Matthews Southern Comfort, and who later joined Fairport Convention, and T-Rex founder Marc Bolan. Callan switched to film making, and working with British director Anthony Stern they created the 1968 short film San Francisco, which featured a soundtrack by Pink Floyd. Clips from this film were later shown on the BBC television programme Tomorrows World. Callan met Page during a screening of this film, and years later was asked by Led Zeppelin's manager Peter Grant to manage their record label Swan Song Records as vice-president.[1] He learnt music production at Island Record's Basing Street Studios. While running Swan Song, he oversaw several releases on the label and was behind the efforts to sign-up John Lennon and Vangelis. Releases on the label included artists such as Maggie Bell, Dave Edmunds and the Pretty Things. Independent of his work at Swan Song, Callan produced artists that included Alexis Korner, Back Street Crawler, Paul Carrack, Bob Weston, and Murray Head.

After the closure of Swan Song Records, Callan became director of media company CPMA Group in 1983, which controlled international rights to the Rugby World Cup (1989 - 2003), golf (the European PGA Championship, the British Open Golf Championship), and the 1993 World Chess Championship. CPMA also held the distribution rights for the PGA Tour of America (1985 - 1990). Eventually Callan sold all of his interests in CPMA to the International Management Group. In December 1995, Callan delivered Peter Grant's eulogy.[2] In 1996 Callan founded WorldSport Networks, which had aimed to become an authoritative Internet presence on global sports with its official partnership with the General Association of International Sports Federations.[3] GAISF is the umbrella organization for ninety international federations, such as FIFA (association football), FIBA (basketball), FINA (swimming) and the IAAF (track and field). In 2000 the company was due for a public offering led by Credit Suisse First Boston (CSFB), when Callan was forced to stop work due to being diagnosed with multiple myeloma, a cancer of the bone marrow. During April 2000, the seriousness of his condition caused him to resign both as Chairman and CEO of WorldSport Networks. WorldSport Networks eventually lost direction and was placed into receivership by insolvency advisers Leonard Curtis, during the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney, while Callan was undergoing chemotherapy and treatment at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota.[4]

In 2003, Callan returned to work as an adviser to PGA European Tour Executive Director, Ken Schofield, and founded events right brokering group iMC Technology in 2005.

Callan is a lifetime member of BAFTA, and has one daughter. He currently resides in Monaco.

References

  1. Welch, Chris (2002). Peter Grant: The Man Who Led Zeppelin. London: Omnibus Press, 251. ISBN 978-0-7119-9195-8. OCLC 779456406. 
  2. Callan, Alan (January 1996). "Eulogy for Peter Grant". Proximity 7 (20). Retrieved on 12 December 2013.
  3. Stuart, Jay (7 June 1999). Web War Focus: Consolidation. Sports Business Journal. Street and Smith's Sports Group. Retrieved on 12 December 2013.
  4. Vickers, Amy. Receivers Blow Final Whistle on Worldsport, The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 28 September 2000. Retrieved on 12 December 2013.