Eli Oberstein

b. 13 December 1901
d. 12 June 1960

American record producer and music industry executive, whose career spanned the late 1920s - 1950s. He is best ed as a major force behind the success of the Bluebird (3) label. He later owned a succession of small labels. He may be the most controversial producer of the first 50 years of the record industry, having earned an unsavory reputation through business conduct that was often unethical and perhaps illegal.

Oberstein started in the music industry around 1925, first as an employee of the Victor Talking Machine Co. in 1929. Originally a salesman and ant, Oberstein rose rapidly through the ranks at Victor. By 1931 he was supervising recording sessions and by 1932 he was assigned to manage RCA pressing for the Crown Record Company. He positioned himself within the RCA-Victor establishment to head the budget-labels, including Timely Tunes and eventually Bluebird.

Peer had taught Oberstein to personally hold artist-management contracts with performers he signed for RCA. He developed the race and country-music catalogs, and was responsible for making Bluebird a major pop label. During the 1930s, Oberstein signed Elliot Everett And His Orchestra" and sometimes substituted it for the names of the actual performers on records.

Oberstein was fired (or resigned) from RCA in February, 1939 and sought to become an independent record producer. He established the Paramount recordings and issued under pseudonyms on Oberstein's labels.

After the Elite (3) label, despite wartime shellac shortages. He claimed these were pressed on shellac salvaged from a freighter that had been torpedoed in the Atlantic. He circumvented the 1942-43 Petrillo recording ban by claiming that his recordings were made in Mexico. However, rumors circulating at the time alleged that he was holding recording sessions in New York hotel rooms using amateur talent and professional musicians willing to ignore the ban. To further his estrangement from record industry leaders, Oberstein produced risqué party records and pressed dubbed pseudonymous reissues of decade-old material to which he probably did not own rights. Consequently, he was expelled from the AFM in 1942 and not reinstated until November, 1943, when he agreed to abide by the AFM's .

Oberstein returned to RCA in 1945 to resume his position as director of A & R for Bluebird. His old ambition was lacking, however, and he left again in 1948 to re-launch his Pickwick Sales Corp. He died in 1960 at the age of 58.