Early career

Jo was born on October 21, 1925 in Brooklyn, New York. At the age of 12 he saw Billie Holiday

Billie Holiday

Billie Holiday was an American jazz singer and songwriter. Nicknamed "Lady Day" by her friend and musical partner Lester Young, Holiday had a seminal influence on jazz and pop singing...

 singing in a club and fell in love with music. He became an apprentice music journalist, meeting up with Gloria Swanson

Gloria Swanson

Gloria Swanson was an American actress, singer and producer. She was one of the most prominent stars during the silent film era as both an actress and a fashion icon, especially under the direction of Cecil B. DeMille, made dozens of silents and was nominated for the first Academy Award in the...

 and Mel Brooks

Mel Brooks

Mel Brooks is an American film director, screenwriter, composer, lyricist, comedian, actor and producer. He is best known as a creator of broad film farces and comic parodies. He began his career as a stand-up comic and as a writer for the early TV variety show Your Show of Shows...

. Having gone solo, he handled publicity for Miles Davis

Miles Davis

Miles Dewey Davis III was an American jazz musician, trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. Widely considered one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century, Miles Davis was, with his musical groups, at the forefront of several major developments in jazz music, including bebop, cool jazz,...

, Dave Brubeck

Dave Brubeck

David Warren "Dave" Brubeck is an American jazz pianist. He has written a number of jazz standards, including "In Your Own Sweet Way" and "The Duke". Brubeck's style ranges from refined to bombastic, reflecting his mother's attempts at classical training and his improvisational skills...

 and others. After touring Europe with Nat “King” Cole in 1960, he decided to relocate to London.

Anglo-American folk music

In 1962 American folk singer Julie Felix

Julie Felix

Julie Ann Felix is a folk rock recording artist, who was notably produced by Mickie Most on his RAK Records label.-Career:...

 decided to hitch-hike around Europe. In 1964 she finally arrived in Britain. Jo Lustig saw her potential and offered to become her agent. At this time Decca was emphatically uncool. When they signed Julie Felix it was the first time a British label acquired a major folk artist. Lustig promoted her to record an album and a single (“Someday soon”) and an appearance on the Eamonn Andrews TV show. She was the first British-based folk singer to fill the Albert Hall. In 1965 when Nico

Nico

Nico was a German singer, lyricist, composer, musician, fashion model, and actress, who initially rose to fame as a Warhol Superstar in the 1960s...

 met Lustig at a party hosted by the co-producer of the Bond films, she said “I want to be a singer”. A few weeks later she was on “Ready Steady Go”, singing her first single, thanks to Jo.
However, she was not successful, and in 1966 joined Andy Warhol

Andy Warhol

Andrew Warhola , known as Andy Warhol, was an American painter, printmaker, and filmmaker who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art...

 at The Factory.

British folk music

In 1968 Lustig spotted “The Pentangle

Pentangle (band)

Pentangle are a British folk rock band with some folk jazz influences. The original band were active in the late 1960s and early 1970s and a later version has been active since the early 1980s...

”. In 1969 he gave them one of the first mystery album sleeves – a silhouette of the band (see The Pentangle

The Pentangle

The Pentangle was the 1968 debut album of the band Pentangle: Terry Cox, Bert Jansch, Jacqui McShee, John Renbourn and Danny Thompson. It brought together their separate influences of folk, jazz, blues, early music and contemporary song-writing into a unique sound...

). The cover of their second album Sweet Child

Sweet Child

Sweet Child was a 1968 double album by the British folk-rock band Pentangle: Terry Cox, Bert Jansch, Jacqui McShee, John Renbourn and Danny Thompson. One album was recorded at Pentangle's live concert in the Royal Festival Hall, which took place on 29 June 1968: the other was recorded in the studio...

 was designed by Peter Blake

Peter Blake (artist)

Sir Peter Thomas Blake, KBE, CBE, RDI, RA is an English pop artist, best known for his design of the sleeve for the Beatles' album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. He lives in Chiswick, London, UK.-Career:...

, creator of The Beatles

The Beatles

The Beatles were an English rock band, active throughout the 1960s and one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music. Formed in Liverpool, by 1962 the group consisted of John Lennon , Paul McCartney , George Harrison and Ringo Starr...

 "Sgt. Pepper cover. Lustig also brought Pentangle a U. S. concert tour beginning in February 1969 at the Fillmore East.

In 1970 Ralph McTell

Ralph McTell

Ralph McTell is an English singer-songwriter and acoustic guitar player who has been an influential figure on the UK folk music scene since the 1960s....

 changed his manager Bruce May for Jo Lustig. In October he was able to fill the Royal Festival Hall. In 1972 Robin and Barry Dransfield

Barry Dransfield

Barry Dransfield is an English folk singer, fiddler, cellist and guitarist. He has appeared as a session musician on numerous albums by other artists, and has released his own albums as well. Lord of All I Behold was voted Melody Maker folk album of the year...

’s “Lord of all I Behold” was Melody Maker’s Folk Album of the Year. Jo eagerly read the pop press and signed them up, even before the album was released. The two brothers were then signed to Warner Brothers in America, and were off on a big concert tour supporting another Lustig act, Ralph McTell. Unfortunately the brothers not only quarrelled with each other but Barry seemed to be psychologically unable to handle large-scale commercial fame. Jo tore up the contract in disgust. This gives a hint of how impatient and short-tempered Jo Lustig was. By the end of the 1972 McTell had also broken with Jo Lustig. Ralph’s brother Bruce was in charge again. It is perhaps surprising that Jo never managed Donovan

Donovan

Donovan Donovan Donovan (born Donovan Philips Leitch (born 10 May 1946) is a Scottish singer-songwriter and guitarist. Emerging from the British folk scene, he developed an eclectic and distinctive style that blended folk, jazz, pop, psychedelia, and world music...

, the biggest of all British folk artists. The reason is that Mickie Most

Mickie Most

Mickie Most was an English record producer, with a string of hit singles with acts such as The Animals, Arrows, Herman's Hermits, Donovan, Suzi Quatro and the Jeff Beck Group often issued on his own RAK Records label....

 got there first, and managed Donovan well. Another casualty of Jo’s aggressive publicity-seeking approach was Anne Briggs, who was so disgusted that she gave up singing altogether, citing Jo as one of the reasons. Shel Tamany described him as “one of my most unfavourite people”.

Steeleye Span

After the departure of Martin Carthy

Martin Carthy

Martin Carthy MBE is an English folk singer and guitarist who has remained one of the most influential figures in British traditional music, inspiring contemporaries such as Bob Dylan and Paul Simon and later artists such as Richard Thompson since he emerged as a young musician in the early days...

 and Ashley Hutchings

Ashley Hutchings

Ashley Stephen Hutchings is an English bassist, vocalist, songwriter, arranger, band leader, writer and record producer. He was a founder member of three of the most noteworthy English folk-rock bands in the history of the genre; Fairport Convention, Steeleye Span and The Albion Band...

, Steeleye Span

Steeleye Span

Steeleye Span are an English folk-rock band, formed in 1969 and remaining active today. Along with Fairport Convention they are amongst the best known acts of the British folk revival, and were among the most commercially successful, thanks to their hit singles "Gaudete" and "All Around My Hat"....

 were eager for commercial success. They sacked Sandy Roberton and signed up with Jo Lustig. He brought them a lucrative contract with Chrysalis, and lavish studio time. Within a year they had a hit, “Gaudete”. Somewhere along the line, Jo Lustig managed Irish harpist Mary O'Hara

Mary O'Hara

Mary O'Hara is an Irish soprano and harpist from County Sligo. O'Hara achieved fame on both sides of the Atlantic in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Her recordings of that period influenced a generation of Irish female singers who credit O'Hara with influencing their style, among them Carmel...

, who emerged after a decade in a convent to become a popular easy listening act. He also managed folk singer Richard Digence. In 1974, the Chieftains

The Chieftains

The Chieftains are a Grammy-winning Irish musical group founded in 1962, best known for being one of the first bands to make Irish traditional music popular around the world.-Name:...

 were still semi-professional, despite having released “Chieftains 4” in 1974, to worldwide praise. In 1975 they took the plunge to become full-time musicians, and took Jo Lustig as their manager. He brought them a contract with a major label, Island Records. By 1982 Richard and Linda Thompson were also managed by Jo, but it is not clear when this started. About 1980 Jo Lustig created his own record label called Luggage, but only one act is known to have appeared in it – the Home Service

Home Service

Home Service are a British folk rock group, formed in late 1980 from a nucleus of musicians who had been playing in Ashley Hutchings' Albion Band. Their career is generally agreed to have peaked with the album Alright Jack, which is usually considered one of the finest products of the electric folk...

. Jo financed the first Home Service single in 1981. Despite containing talented musicians, the Home Service were not commercially successful. Perhaps this was the reason that he gave up folk bands, and became a film producer.

Lustig in films

In 1985 Jo produced The Doctor and the Devils

The Doctor and the Devils

The Doctor and the Devils is a 1985 horror film directed by Freddie Francis. It stars Timothy Dalton and Jonathan Pryce.-Cast:*Timothy Dalton as Doctor Thomas Rock*Jonathan Pryce as Robert Fallon*Twiggy as Jennie Bailey*Julian Sands as Dr. Murray...

 a historical thriller. In 1987 there came his best-known venture, 84 Charing Cross Road

84 Charing Cross Road (film)

84 Charing Cross Road is a 1987 British/American drama film directed by David Hugh Jones. The screenplay by Hugh Whitemore is based on a play by James Roose-Evans, which itself was an adaptation of the 1970 epistolary memoir of the same name by Helene Hanff, a compilation of letters between herself...

, in which he was associate producer. In 1989 he started to specialise in television documentaries about musicians, starting with The Unforgettable Nat 'King. Blondes: Anita Ekberg was also in 1999. Diana Dors was on television in 1999. Maria Callas : life and art (1999) was produced by Jo for video release. He died of cancer on May 29, 1999 in Cambridge, England, just one day before his music rival, Mickie Most.