Julian Aberbach

Julian J. Aberbach (8 February 1909 – 17 May 2004) was an Austrian-born music publisher, who lived and worked in both the United States and France. He was responsible, with his younger brother Jean Aberbach, for establishing the Hill and Range music publishing house, and was instrumental in the careers of many leading country and popular music performers of the mid and late twentieth century, including Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Ray Charles, Edith Piaf and Jacques Brel.

Life and career Julius "Julian" Aberbach was born in Vienna, Austria-Hungary, the son of Aron Adolf Aberbach (1878–1959, of Bolechow, then Austria-Hungary) and Anna Aberbach (née Schmetterling, 1883–1964, of Chorostków, then Austria-Hungary). They were Ukrainian Jews. He had a brother, Joachim "Jean" Aberbach (1910–1992). Their father ran a jewelry business.

Julian left school at the age of 17 and went to the Tyrol with his brother, selling upholstery, before returning to Vienna. His brother Jean then began working in Berlin for a music publisher, Will Meisel, before moving to Paris to work for another publisher there. Julian joined him in Paris in 1932, and soon established his own publishing business, which concentrated on securing royalties for movie screenwriters. After the brothers sold the business in 1936, Jean began working in the US as an agent for French music publisher Francis Salabert, while Julian remained in Paris. In 1939 he secured an exit visa to travel to New York City. He was drafted in 1941, and after working with Free French troops in Fort Benning, Georgia, became an instructor at a military intelligence school in Maryland, from where he was discharged in 1944.

By this time he had developed an interest in country music, which he saw as a potentially profitable component of American popular music. After leaving the Army he set up a publishing business, Hill and Range, in Los Angeles with business partners Milton Blink and Gerald King. There, he heard the Western swing bandleader Spade Cooley who was performing at the Venice Pier. He signed Cooley to a songwriting contract, and had immediate success with Cooley's hit song "Shame on You". Soon afterwards, he began working with Bob Wills, setting up a publishing company in Wills' name in which Aberbach had a 50% share. He developed contacts in the music industry in Nashville, and organised the songwriting agreements for such stars as Red Foley, Ernest Tubb, Eddy Arnold, Hank Snow, and, later, Johnny Cash. At one point, about three quarters of all the music produced in Nashville was represented by Hill and Range. When Max Dreyfus of rival publishers Chappell Music sought to buy the company, Aberbach refused, and his brother Jean, who had been working for Dreyfus, joined the company. From then on the two brothers shared the management of Hill and Range, gradually expanding the business, with Julian notionally based in Los Angeles and Jean in New York, although the two frequently swapped roles and met regularly in Chicago to discuss business.

Julian Aberbach died of heart failure in New York in 2004 at the age of 95.