Freddy Bienstock

Freddy Bienstock (April 24, 1923 - September 20, 2009) was an American music publisher who built his career in music by being the person responsible for soliciting and selecting songs for Elvis Presley's early albums and films.

Early life

Bienstock was born to a Jewish family in Switzerland on April 24, 1923, and relocated to Vienna with his family when he was three-years old. After the Anschluss, he immigrated to the United States in 1938, just before the outbreak of World War II, with his brother Johnny Bienstock, who later founded Big Top Records. The family ended up settling in New York after his parents came to the U.S. in 1940.

Music career

After visiting a cousin, Jean Aberbach, who worked as an executive with Chappell Music at New York City's Brill Building, Bienstock found employment in the stock room there. He worked his way up to song plugger, offering sheet music for new songs to their prospective performers. He was hired in the 1950s by Hill & Range, a music publishing firm owned by his cousins Jean and Julian Aberbach that had long specialized in country music. There, Bienstock was given the task of finding songs for the company's most promising performer, Elvis Presley, supplying him with such songs by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller as "Don't" and "Jailhouse Rock", two of the King's earliest hit songs.