Albert Bernard Grossman (born May 21 1926 Chicago; died January 25 1986) is best known as the manager of Bob Dylan. Grossman was born to Russian-Jewish immigrant parents. He received an economics degree from Roosevelt University. He worked for the Chicago Housing Authority, leaving, possibly after being dismissed for misconduct, to go into the club business in the late 1950's.

He also handled, at one time or another, the careers of Peter, Paul and Mary; Odetta; Bob Gibson; Gordon Lightfoot; The Band; Ian and Sylvia; and Janis Joplin. Before going into management, he was a co-owner of The Gate of Horn, a successful Chicago folk club, and in 1959, with George Wein, organized the first Newport Folk Festival.

In 1969 he built the Bearsville Recording Studio (still run by his widow, Sally Grossman, the woman in red on the cover of Bob Dylan's album Bringing It All Back Home), in the Catskill Mountains near Woodstock, New York, and the next year founded Bearsville Records. Nick Gravenites, singer of the band Electric Flag, whom Grossman managed, said of him; "He didn't know music from dog shit, but he knew the cash register."

He appears in the film Dont Look Back.

Quote: "I'd rather be the architect than the janitor."

Bob Dylan

Albert Grossman | Albert Grossman