Q&A: 2015 Ted Albert Award winner Fifa Riccobono

Fifa Riccobono, lauded industry veteran and former CEO of Albert Music, has been announced as the recipient for the Ted Albert Award this year.

The honour, which has previously gone to Slim Dusty, Michael Chugg, Paul Kelly and most recently Lindy Morrison, to recognise their contributions to the music industry, is particularly poignant this year. Riccobono worked closely with Ted Albert, who started Albert Productions in 1963.

Riccobono in the promo department at Albert Productions

Riccobono joined Alberts in 1968 as Ted Albert's secretary and by went on to run the company by the '90s, making her the first female head of a music company in Australia. Her instrumental involvement in the careers of Stevie Wright and the Easybeats, Vanda and Young, The Choirboys, Angels, Rose Tattoo and AC/DC has been well documented in both international press and biographical print releases. Between 1974 and the early 1980s, Alberts commanded 20% of Australian chart action –an astounding feat for an independent.

In an interview with TMN last year, she spoke of the excitement of watching acts buzzing at Alberts’ offices and studios. This included watching an act like AC/DC pull off early killer shows in Sydney to a crowd of seven, to playing to a million fans at Moscow’s Tushino Airfield and before 450,000 at Rock In Rio.

She served as a Director on the boards of APRA, AMCOS and AMPAL for 15 years. She was also Director of Nordoff-Robbins Music Therapy for ten years. In 2006 she set up her own publishing company, Viola Jade Music and she still works closely with Alberts in a consultation capacity. 

Riccobonno with Stevie Wright of the Easybeats

Speaking to TMN, Riccobono discusses how it feels to be honoured by APRA's Board of Writer and Publisher Directors, what it means as the fourth woman to be awarded for forthcoming honourees, and which practices Ted Albert passed down that she’s keeping alive.

How does it feel to be honoured by your peers with an award that was established to recognise the contributions of your mentor and friend?  

I am truly honoured to receive this Award especially as Ted Albert was such a major influence in my career, and life for that matter!  He was a visionary and really quite modest, something not common in this industry.

You carried on Ted Albert’s tradition of adding a handwritten note to royalty statements, what other practices did you inherit to use both at Alberts, APRA AMCOS, AMPAL and now Viola Jade Music?  

I wanted to be able to keep the respect and sense of fairness alive, something that I admired in him and valued greatly from a very early age.

You’re the fourth female to be honoured with the Ted Albert award since its ’91 inception, does the local industry have a gender bias in your opinion?

I believe that in my early days in the industry women didn’t see themselves in managerial roles and played more of a supporting role. However, things have changed quite a lot now and there are some wonderful women out there who have worked their way up into Senior Management, and as the Ted Albert Award generally relates to people who have spent a great deal of their lives in the industry, I think you’ll start to see more women being put forward for this Award.

You became Alberts first female A&R Manager in 1976, when you were just 24-years-old; what were those years like in the boy’s club that was A&R?

Fortunately, in a company like Alberts with people like Ted Albert, George Young and Harry Vanda there, the boy’s club didn’t really exist. I was able to go head to head with anybody, and do what I had to do to the best of my ability because I had their absolute support.

You were also the first female CEO of a music company, did you see yourself as the trailblazer you were at the time?

Never thought much about that!  I have always been of the belief that if you were capable of doing something well and you had the respect of the people you worked for and with, that you could achieve anything. 

Other recipients of the Ted Albert Award are:

1991    Allan Hely

1992    John Sturman

1993    Peter Sculthorpe

1994    Ian Meldrum

1995    Harry Vanda and George Young

1996    Ron Tudor

1997    No awards

1998    Michael Gudinski

1999    Slim Dusty

2000    Triple J

2001    Charles Fischer

2002    Barry Chapman

2003    Angus Young, Malcolm Young and Bon Scott

2004    Don Burrows

2005    Michael Chugg

2006    Bill Armstrong

2007    Michael McMartin

2008    Roger Davies

2009    Denis Handlin

2010    Jimmy Little

2011    Paul Kelly

2012    Mary Lopez

2013    The Seekers

2014    Lindy Morrison

Riccobono will be presented with the award at the APRA music awards on Tuesday March 24 at Sydney’s Carriageworks.