Larry Butler has devoted his entire life to the music business, specializing in live performance and touring, artist management and publishing.

See Larry on House of Blues’ “Bringin’ Down the House” Panel

Larry played keyboards in Ohio bands during high school and college, also serving as band manager and lead singer. While still in college, he was a successful nightclub owner and local concert promoter in Cincinnati.  Also during that time period, his band performed as the opening act for the Rolling Stones, the Beach Boys and the Byrds, among others. He even jammed with Jimi Hendrix once at a late night Northern Kentucky club following his Cincinnati show.

Larry moved to Los Angeles to begin working as a tour manager for such artists as Randy Newman and Ry Cooder. He then took on an international tour for Isaac Hayes, which included the first-ever performances for mixed race audiences in South Africa. Following the tour, he accompanied Isaac and his band into the studio for his post-Shaft comeback album.

In the late ‘70s, Larry began working with Warner Bros. Records as an in-house tour manager for brand new artists, bringing professionalism to their staging, performance techniques and touring logistics. Those efforts led to a full-time position at WBR, first as National College Manager, then West Coast Artist Development Director and finally as VP of Artist Relations.

Larry spent the next 20+ years touring with an unrivaled roster of talent, winning a couple of PollStar Artist Development Executive awards along the way. In addition to guiding a touring field staff, he devised, cleared, funded and settled all artist tour support budgets while overseeing the tour marketing and promotion tours for the Warner Bros. and Reprise promotion and sales teams.

More recently Larry joined Bill Silva Management as General Manager where he coordinated the projects of the firm’s managers and artists. He also organized and ran Jason Mraz’s publishing during the wild run of “I’m Yours.” Simultaneously, he served as day-to-day manager for Silva client Robert Francis through his Atlantic Records signing and subsequent #1 single and touring success in Europe.

Larry now heads up his own Did It Music Management, Consultancy and Publishing from the relative security and serenity of the San Fernando Valley. He is also affiliated with ASCAP as a songwriter and music publisher.

In 2014, Larry concurrently took on the position of General Manager for The Artist Cooperative, an independent record label services company comprised of mostly former Warner Bros. and Reprise Records promotion and marketing executives.

Larry has written a book of advice and tips for songwriters, musicians and performers entitled The Twelve Lessons of Rock ‘N’ Roll (for Your Career and Your Life), which is available at Amazon/Kindle. The Lessons are based on experiences and events he witnessed while on the road with rock ‘n’ roll artists and bands. There’s even a chapter about being in the right place at the right time, with specifics about the Rolling Stones gig and the Jimi Hendrix jam.

In a related endeavor, Larry has accumulated 365 Musical Tips of the Day from rock stars he has encountered along the way regarding songwriting, recording, and performing, and he posts one a day on Twitter. You can follow him at @larryfromohio .