Bienstock was a longtime indie music publisher who led Carlin Music, the publishing company her father Freddie renamed after her in 1966 after buying out the owners of the firm he had worked for. The company was sold to Round Hill Music for approximately $250 million in 2017.
Carlin Music’s catalog included classic American Songbook standards and hits spanning decades, among them “What A Wonderful World,” “Sea of Love,” “Spanish Harlem,” “Happy Together,” “Viva Las Vegas,” “Monster Mash,” “Good Lovin'” and “Total Eclipse of the Heart.” The publisher represented works by Frank Sinatra, Billie Holiday, Stephen Sondheim, AC/DC and James Brown. In 2016, Carlin had 8,500 songwriters in its royalty system and more than 80,000 titles in its catalog.
Born in 1958, Bienstock was the daughter of music industry figures: her mother Mariam was an executive and co-founder of Atlantic Records; her father Freddie bought out the owners of the publishing company and renamed it after realizing he could not use “Caroline Music” due to Radio Caroline’s trademark. After graduating from Yale College, earning a law degree from Boston University and an MBA from Wharton, Bienstock practiced law and worked at Goldman Sachs before joining Carlin in the late 1980s. She became CFO and COO by 1993 and president by 1998.
Beyond Carlin, Bienstock served on the boards of the National Music Publishers Association, ASCAP, the American Independent Music Publishers and the Songwriters Hall of Fame, which awarded her the Abe Olman Publisher Award in 2017.
She is survived by her husband Douglas Rodrigues, her children, grandchildren and her brother Robert Bienstock, also a Carlin Music executive. The family requests donations to the ALS Association and Target ALS in her honour.
Source: Billboard
