Unsung Heroes VIII: Ivor Haarburger
by Sheldon Rocha Leal
The Music industry in South Africa is small, with the same characters making repeat appearances wherever one turns. Over the years I have had the opportunity of meeting many great Music Business leaders, but Ivor Haarburger, also affectionately known as “Monna Moholo” (big brother), is a standout. Our history, unknown to him, dates back 24 years, when I first heard him speaking at the college at which I was getting my formal Music training, Allenby Campus (2000). This was followed, shortly thereafter, by a visit to his offices in Rosebank, where he dispensed with some sagely advice, which I have lived by my entire career. In 2011 we shared a panel at the prestigious Moshito Conference, Africa’s biggest industry conference, speaking about South Africans who altered Music history.
Recently we were reacquainted after the publication of my last “Unsung Heroes” article about
. This resulted in a meeting, where I had an opportunity to delve deeper into the psyche of this exceptional Music business leader. Ivor Haarburger is an iconic record executive, who I can safely say is the South African equivalent of Clive Davis, having headed up the country’s most famous recording label, Gallo Records. At his time at the helm he discovered and signed some of the country’s greatest talent, whilst exposing audiences to some of the world’s most iconic stars.In order to tell the Haarburger story, however, I need to preface the narrative with a brief background of Gallo Records, the company with which he was associated for 40 years. The years in question are probably the most integral epoch in the history of the company, as well as the story of South African Music, with some of the country’s greatest stars represented by the label during Ivor’s tenure. This, therefore, explains Gallo’s dominant presence in the Johannesburg City centre in its heyday, occupying three key addresses in the country’s economic hub.
Although Gallo Records no longer occupies these addresses, the buildings are still there and stand as a testament to the greatness of the company. The first building occupies the corner of Helen Joseph and Troye Streets. The Art Deco building, completed in 1920, was later bought by Eric Gallo in 1932 and was designed by architects Hanson, Tomkin and Finkelstein. In 1949 the building underwent minor alterations with friezes of vinyl records added to the facade, still evident today. The other location was a 10 story building on No130–132 Kerk Street. The massive compound consisted of recording studios, rehearsal spaces, record shops and administrative offices of Gallo, Trutone and Gramophone Record Company.
Additionally, Gallo also owned a vinyl reproduction facility in Steeldale in the South of Johannesburg and in the 1990s established a CD production facility in Midrand, run as a separate business called Compact Disc Technologies. The state-of-the-art facility not only produced CDs for Gallo, but also for all the other major recording labels, like Universal and some motion picture companies. Ivor explained that in 2008 when the “Great Fire” destroyed countless master recordings housed at Universal Studios in Hollywood, California, executives from the company contacted Gallo to retrieve some of these masters. Because Gallo’s production facility in Midrand manufactured records for other labels, they were usually given the requisite master recordings to enable them to reproduce the relevant records (albums & singles).
Now that you know where Gallo was, I guess we are nowhere closer to understanding the importance of the company, so here we go…It was started in 1926, before the Great Depression (1928) by Eric Gallo (of Italian descent) and was originally called the Brunswick Gramophone House. It started off as a record store in downtown Johannesburg, created to distribute records from the US based Brunswick Records in South Africa. Gallo is the Italian, French and Portuguese word for Rooster, hence the company’s logo. To provide context, SAMRO (South African Music Rights Organisation), the country’s first collection society (CMO), was established in 1962 by Dr. Gideon Roos and his sons, with the assistance of Eric Gallo. This means Gallo (the continent’s first recording label) predates the continent’s first CMO by 36 years.
As with many fledgeling companies and because Gallo had a license to distribute Brunswick goods in South Africa, the original business saw Eric selling anything from refrigerators to phonographs. One of the businesses Brunswick owned was a recording label, founded in 1910, which consisted of the distribution and the sale of a popular line of phonograph recordings. This business was later sold to Warner Brothers in the 1930s, which could explain Gallo Records’ license to distribute Warner’s artists in South Africa for a period of time.
Ivor Haarburger was born in the judicial capital of South Africa, Bloemfontein, where he attended school at the Christian Brother’s School (CBC), a well known private Catholic school. When he completed the 12th grade his parents urged him to move to Johannesburg (the “Big City”), where greater opportunities could be explored. With some money, loaned to him by his parents, he moved to the city and initially stayed in a boarding house, later moving into a shared apartment. To make ends meet he worked at a restaurant and at a record bar which he frequented regularly at the OK Bazaars. That is how his love affair with Music and the business began. These jobs were only meant to tide him over for three months before he commenced his compulsory military conscription.
After returning from the army he was offered a job at Associated Music Distributors, the biggest distributor of Music to retailers in South Africa, supplying records to retailers such as OK Bazaars and Checkers. Whilst working at Associated Music Distributors one of his colleagues suggested he apply for a job at Gallo. He applied and was eventually interviewed by Alec Delmont, the director of Gallo Africa and Eric Gallo’s second in command. Ivor got the job, joining the company in 1968. Once again to place the story in context, Ivor started working at Gallo 13 years after the beginning of the Rock ‘n Roll movement (1955), six years after the formation of SAMRO, in the midst of Beatlemania and a year before Woodstock.
Ivor was initially assigned a Music Rep and followed him around to learn about sales. He was then sent to warehousing to learn about Music distribution, eventually landing up in Promotions (the people responsible for getting Music on radio) and working closely with the A&R department (talent scouts). At his time at Gallo he worked with the great record executive David Fine. Fine originally started his career at Trutone, a label created to discover black artists, in the 1950s. David along with Peter Gallo (Eric’s son) and Rupert Bopape (an exceptional A&R poached from EMI in 1964) started a new label under Gallo called Mavuthela Music Company.
Mavuthela grew to become one of the biggest indigenous labels in the country and represented artists like Mahlathini and Mahotella Queens, The Makgona Tsohle Band, West Nkosi and Spokes Mashiyane. Gallo was also the label to which Solomon Linda, the writer of “Mbube” who was signed in 1938 by Griffith Motsieloa. David Fine eventually emigrated to the U.K. and became a world renowned recording executive, occupying the roles of president and CEO of the Polygram Group and chairman of Decca Records. He also served on the boards of the IFPI (International Federation of the Phonographic Industry) and BPI (British Phonographic Industry), and was part of the Phillips team that created the CD. When he passed away in 2005, aged 76, his death was acknowledged by the world’s greatest Music publications, Billboard Magazine.
One of the first tasks Ivor was given in his new role at Gallo was to try and better utilise the license that the company had acquired to promote talent from the 20th Century Fox Records roster. Peter Lotis, head of A&R and Marketing, had received correspondence from the American recording label expressing their discontent with the fact that their artists weren’t being adequately represented in South Africa. Lotis gave Ivor a stack of records and asked him to find something within the pile that Gallo could promote. Peter Lotis was not only an iconic Music Business Man, he was also a celebrity recording artist and radio personality, who hosted various shows on radio, including a Gallo hour on Springbok Radio. One of the records Ivor found in the pile was a song by Barry White, “You’re The First, The Last, My Everything”, placing our story in 1974.
Ivor felt Barry White had something that would go down well with South African audiences. Initially only 250 records were ordered for South Africa, which Haarburger personally distributed to various clubs. The DJs loved the record, and an additional consignment of 2,500 units were ordered and quickly sold-out. The sales of Barry White’s Music went through the roof in South Africa in the early to mid-1970s. Eventually, Peter Gallo was contacted by 20th Century Fox Records to commend Gallo on their amazing efforts to promote their roster of artists. Furthermore, they wanted to articulate that an award would be conferred on Ivor for the biggest sales in the world, outside the USA, of Barry White’s Music. Ivor was expected to fly to Las Vegas, where he would attend a Barry White show.
At the show Haarburger was invited on stage to meet Barry White and was handed his award by executives from 20th Century Fox Records. Ivor eventually took over the 20th Century Fox portfolio at Gallo. This was the first of many achievements for the record man and illustrates his fine ear for Music, ability to “back the right horse” (so to speak) and his hands-on approach to promoting artists. Because of trade embargo placed on the country during the Apartheid era, although international content was available in South Africa, it made it difficult to break domestic talent on global stages. For this reason, Gallo spent a lot of time trying to break international acts in South Africa. Back then it wasn’t a given that because an artist was big in a specific country, that their success would translate into commercial victories in other territories.
This was an era before the Information Age, and news travelled slowly. Furthermore, recording artists needed to sign separate deals for all the territories in which they wished to be released. This had an impact on what Music would be released in which country’s, the look and feel of the records and even an album’s tracklist. That is why one will often find an album by an artist released in two different country’s, with slightly different tracklists. When deals were signed for an artist, the “mother label” would send the master recordings of the album to the new territory so they could reproduce and distribute the artist’s records. The territory would then decide which tracks they wished to release and the final look of the product.
Another artist Ivor was instrumental in “breaking” in South Africa was “The Queen of Disco”, Donna Summer. Haarburger happened upon a song he thought would do well in South Africa, “Love To Love You Baby”, before it broke internationally. He approached Peter Gallo (then more integrally involved in Gallo and its eventual CEO) to establish if he could fly to Germany to sign Donna Summer for the South African market. In Germany he met “The Architect of Disco”, Giorgio Moroder, and signed Donna Summer for South Africa, obtaining the master recordings for “Love To Love You Baby”. When the song was released in South Africa it was a major hit, but the strict SABC censorship board had a problem with the sexual nature of Summer’s vocal. Gallo was forced to release an instrumental version of the song to capitalise on the licenses they had obtained.
This caused the vocal version of the song to become highly collectible, as everyone went out to buy the record before it was withdrawn from the shelves. Gallo then took the SABC to court about the censorship of the song, ultimately winning the case, allowing them to continue releasing the vocal version. When that happened the instrumental version became highly collectible as it was discontinued. This was in 1975, before Casablanca Records signed Donna Summer for release in the USA. Later on, Neil Bogart, head of Casablanca, decided to consolidate the rights for the global pressing and distribution of Donna Summer content at Casablanca. The problem was that when Bogart attempted to release Summer’s Music in South Africa he was required to obtain permission from Gallo as they had signed the star to a five album deal.
Marché International du Disque et de l’Édition Musicale (MIDEM) is the leading international Music industry trade show and a place where countries gather annually to share Music. It started in 1967 and in those days it was an essential tool, utilised by recording labels, to discover new talent. Naturally, as head of marketing for Gallo, Ivor wanted to attend the fair, but Peter Gallo verbalised he had already committed to taking the head of publishing and A&R to the fair. Peter, however, committed to registering Ivor as a MIDEM delegate if he found the funding to travel to Cannes. Ivor approached Al Venter, head of Republican Press (owner of Scope Magazine, Personality and Farmer’s Weekly), to establish if he would advance him the money to fund his trip.
Ivor proposed taking pictures and writing articles about the trade fair for Al’s various publications, in return for the required funding. Al struck a deal with Ivor: for every black and white photo he managed to capture the editor would pay R15 and for every colour photo, R75. Ivor set about finding the money to pay for the trip with the intention of recouping the costs with photographs he captured and articles he wrote for Al’s various publications. MIDEM is held annually at Palais des Festivals et des Congrès in Cannes, France. On the first night of the festival Ivor attended a Commodores concert and at the entrance to the show, he discovered a wall of colour photographs, for sale, of all the artists that would be performing at the festival. Ivor bought photographs of all the acts, in a quest to pay for his trip.
On his last night at the festival he walked past a sign advertising “Miss Nude Europe” and once again there was a wall of colour photographs of all the contestants for sale. He bought a photograph of each one of the contestants for inclusion in Al Venter’s Scope publication (South Africa’s answer to Playboy Magazine). He was forced to smuggle the images into South Africa, as they were forbidden during the Apartheid era, under The Immorality Act. Al Venter was grateful for the photographs, but indicated he would need to publish them with stars on the exposed parts, as the images were too risqué for the South African market. Needless to say the photographs acquired by Ivor at Cannes more than paid for his trip. By these actions Ivor illustrated that he was adept at converting gaps into opportunities.
At the time, the way in which labels decided on which artists to release in a particular territory was by keeping an eye on the international Music publications (Billboard Magazine, NME and Rolling Stone). Whilst reviewing these publications, Ivor started picking up a trend. There was a French artist who was making waves on the European charts and his name was Richard Clayderman, placing our story in the mid-1970s. He approached Peter Gallo who recommended Ivor go to France to speak to the artist’s recording label, Delphine Records. Clayderman was a hard-sell, as a recording artist, as his Music was largely instrumental. Singing artists generally sell better than instrumental artists. That aside, Ivor believed Clayderman was going to be a big star and travelled to Paris, not knowing the culture or language, to meet with the label.
When he got to the given address, he was baffled as there was no signage and the location didn’t look like a place a recording label would be situated. After cracking open a small door he discovered a courtyard and a sign which read Delphine Records. He approached the location of the sign and saw mannequins. He asked the people at the location if this was was where Delphine Records was situated. The people indicated the label was on the second floor. He went upstairs and struck a deal with the recording label. In 1977 Richard Clayderman released probably his biggest hit and one of the greatest recordings of all time, “Ballade Pour Adeline”. The single went on to ship more than 22million records worldwide, making Clayderman an international star and vindicating Ivor’s belief that this instrumental artist was going to be a major star.
Later in the 1970s Ivor heard of another act that was making inroads in Europe. The band, Boney M, was produced by Frank Farian (later also responsible for Milli Vanilli) and managed by Hans-Joërg Mayer. Ivor travelled to Germany to strike a deal with the team, but returned to South Africa with bad news: the German team wanted 5,000 Deutche Mark (DM) (this is pre Euro) to sign the deal. Gallo felt it was too expensive and did not want to sign the agreement. Ivor, however, had a feeling the band was going to “blow up” and insisted Gallo pay the 5,000 DM, which they did. The first track delivered was “Daddy Cool”, which shipped over 300,000 units (6x platinum) and peaked at No2 in South Africa. Outside South Africa it peaked at No1 in Germany and seven other countries, No6 UK and shipped 2.2million units globally.
In the follow up deal with Boney M, for the release of their Christmas album, the management team communicated they wanted 25,000 DM, which Gallo gladly paid this time. Ivor travelled to Frankfurt with the 25,000 DM and in exchange received the Boney M master recordings which he brought back to South Africa. The Boney M Christmas album has become a perennial best seller in South Africa and one of the country’s biggest selling albums, having shipped over 800,000 units in the country alone. Hans-Joërg Mayer and his team were so thankful that South Africa backed the band before many other countries that they made a point of sending Ivor an annual Christmas parcel as a gesture of gratitude for their loyalty. In 2024 when Frank Farian passed away, aged 82, Ivor Haarburger was invited to the memorial service in Miami, Florida. Sometimes a person needs to stick to their guns if one truly believes in what one is doing, by doing this maximum rewards are reaped.
In the mid-1980s Peter Gallo was alerted to the fact that Paul Simon was in South Africa producing a new album, partially being recorded at Ster Kinekor’s new facility in downtown Johannesburg. In Simon’s research he discovered a South African band, he couldn’t name, that was distributed by a US Folk Music label, Shanachie Records. The band was Ladysmith Black Mambazo and they were discovered by West Nkosi, who had encouraged Ivor Haarburger to travel to Natal to see the guys and possibly offer them a deal. West Nkosi, who had been discovered by Rupert Bopape, was the new Bopape at Gallo, taking the role of producer and A&R for local indigenous acts. Peter Gallo encouraged Ivor to go to the Ster Kinekor studios to offer Paul Simon assistance.
Haarburger was reticent to strike up an unsolicited conversation with the superstar and asked former Gallo employee and new Ster Kenikor Studios manager, Peter Thwaites, to facilitate an introduction, which he did. Thwaites was a famous engineer who worked with some of the country’s greatest acts (Lucky Dube, Rabbitt, Soul Brothers and Ray Phiri). At the studios, whilst conversing with Simon he verbalised that Gallo represented some for the country’s greatest indigenous acts, including Mambazo. Ivor added that if Paul required the contribution of any of the talent Gallo represented he would facilitate the deals. “Graceland” was released in 1986 and was critically acclaimed winning the Album of the Year Grammy in 1987. Many great South African’s appeared on the album and owed their “big break” to their featuring roles in the project. Many of these acts were represented by Gallo including Ray Phiri, Stimela and Mambazo.
Harkening back to the early days of Gallo, a situation that occurred at the company’s inception played out during Haarburger’s tenure as CEO: The “Mbube” case, which reached its apex in the late 2000s/early 2010s. At the time Geoff Paynter, head of Gallo Publishing (who now runs his own independent publisher), was being pressured to deal with the emerging problem. The reality, however, was that Gallo had sold the rights to the song many years earlier to Folkways. Geoff approached Ivor for assistance and between the two men they started asking questions, to which they received very little feedback or adequate responses and a decision was made to do something.
At that time a journalist, Rian Malan, had published an article in Rolling Stone magazine (2000) about the case and the Linda estate had hired a lawyer to assist them in their quest for justice. A meeting was organised between Prof Owen Dean, the Linda Estate, Ivor and Geoff to see what could be done. A decision was made to attach Disney’s 240 trademarked properties in South Africa, a ploy to gain the company’s attention, which was successful. As a result a meeting was brokered between the respective stakeholders at the Palazzo Hotel at Monte Casino in Johannesburg. Ivor cut his December holiday short to attend the meeting and when he arrived at the hotel he was confronted by a team of “heavy weights” from Disney.
Negotiations commenced and a settlement was finally reached for retroactive as well as future royalties. In the midst of the negotiations it was decided that Disney would ultimately bring “The Lion King” to South Africa. The deal included the construction of a new theatre at Monte Casino at a cost of over R100million, “The Teatro”. With a capacity of 1,870 people the theatre is one of the 10 biggest lyric theaters in the world. “The Teatro” finally opened in 2007 and the first production hosted at the theatre was “The Lion King”. I have read many articles about this case and what I find unfathomable is that no one has ever approached Ivor Haarburger for his commentary on the case, yet he was so integrally involved in the story as the CEO of Gallo at the time.
Ivor occupied various roles at Gallo in his 40 years from Marketing and Sales to A&R and eventually CEO. In his time not only did he break iconic international acts in the country, like Boney M, Donna Summer, Richard Clayderman and Barry White, he also signed some of the country’s greatest artists. Some of these include Ladysmith Black Mambazo, The Mahotella Queens, Stimela, Ray Phiri, Don Laka, Harari, Lucky Dube, Gito Baloi, Miriam Makeba and Sipho “Hotstix” Mabuse. Ivor articulated that the secret to his success was communication. He explained that he was always clear about his expectations and the parameters of any of his business relationships. He feels he always dealt with his artists ethically and reinforced this by saying that most of the artists he signed, remained with Gallo for the duration of their careers.
With many of his earlier artists Ivor actively promoted the acts across the country. He would hire busses and speakers and play the Music at taxi ranks and parking lots. He would distribute records amongst influential DJs, frequented the respective clubs to establish if the Music was landing with audiences and actively pushed radio stations to play his artist’s Music. One can safely say he was part of every level of a recording label and the recording industry value and supply chain. Additionally, in 2006 Haarburger was elevated to the role of managing director of Warner Music Group Africa, representing the Music of artists like Michael Bublé, The Red Hot Chilli Peppers and Josh Groban.
In 2008 when he finally retired, after 40 years at Gallo, his exit was reported in some of the world’s greatest Music publications, like Billboard Magazine. The very same publications he and the company used to consult about emerging Music trends at the beginning of his career, a full circle moment. Ivor Haarburger personifies what it is to be a success in the Music industry, or any business for that matter, and is an example of how to lead a sustainable long-term career in the business. Integrity, good communication, a good ear for Music, ability to spot talent and the ethical treatment of artists and creators made him the success he became. These traits enabled him to maximise opportunities presented.
By rising through the ranks at the label, he learnt invaluable lessons about the mechanics of the business, which meant when he was finally elevated to the role of CEO he was more than prepared. This profound understanding of how the business of Music operates is an additional factor in Ivor’s success. He wasn’t given anything on a silver platter, but rather worked through the different spaces in Music to rise as an expert in his field. The Ivor Haarburger story is inspirational and something that deserves to be documented (hopefully someone will write a book). He is a shining example of what a record executive should be and will go down in the annals of South African Music history as one its major contributors. The lessons he teaches are invaluable and I’m just glad I got the opportunity to tap his brain to establish how he has become a South African “Unsung Hero” of Music.
