Read George Fearon’s eulogy for Led Zeppelin’s veteran accountant Joan Hudson.
George Fearon, the lawyer who worked with Led Zeppelin for decades beginning in the early 1970s, gave a moving eulogy for Led Zeppelin’s veteran accountant Joan Hudson during her funeral in London on February 2.
Hudson, who died aged 87 on December 31, was Led Zeppelin’s devoted accountant who was the band’s longest-serving employee. Key figures from the world of Led Zeppelin including Robert Plant and Fearon attended her funeral earlier this week.
In his eulogy, Fearon said that “Joan was in every respect a wonderful person.
She helped me and supported me throughout my career. I will always remember her as an esteemed colleague and dear friend.”
Good morning my name is George Fearon and I came here today from New York to honor Joan’s memory. I am a lawyer based in New York City who shared some of Joan‘s clients.
I first met Joan in 1973 when she was an accountant with the firm Maw, Ellis and Warne. She left the firm and went out on her own. Some of the firm’s most important clients followed her. For nearly fifty years I worked with Joan on a frequent, sometimes daily basis so I know firsthand about Joan’s character, competence and dedication to her staff and clients.
Everyone here today knew Joan and we all know Joan as a woman of great competence, the utmost integrity and generosity. So I wanted to share with you two personal events which I witnessed firsthand and of which many of you may not have heard. I think these simple anecdotes give insight to Joan as a professional who always strove to be fair and honest in business dealings without compromising her responsibilities to her clients.
First, at times Joan had direct interaction with Atlantic Records the record label to which some of her clients were signed. On one such occasion Joan discussed a business matter with Ahmet Ertegun, the founder and Chairman of Atlantic Records. Ahmet was the number one guy at the label. After that Ahmet directed his Business Affairs department to flush out the business terms with Joan and ultimately draft the final written agreement.
I later learned that when Ahmet instructed Business Affairs to close the deal with Joan he told the them to give Joan whatever she asked for because she would not ask for a penny less or a penny more than her client was entitled to. Joan taught me that treating business opposites as partners and not as adversaries serves everyone interest in the long run. This lesson has served me well over the years.
Second, I know some of you here today have heard me tell this next one but many have not.
Among other things Joan was responsilble for the overall accounting for her clients live performance tours. I did the legal work for those tours in the US and I worked with Joan based in her London office and the road accountant who was at all of the shows and who did the box office settlements for each of the venues on the tour. At the end of the tour the road accountant would submit to Joan a final accounting which basically consisted of balancing the books for the net road balance of the tour by documenting the revenue received against the expenses incurred on the tour.
The accountant did his submission to Joan for the final accounts for a tour which grossed hundreds of thousands of dollars. At the time that was a lot of money. The final tally was close but off by a relatively small amount ( I don’t recall the exact amount). The accountant thought he had done a good job. Joan, however, did not. She told him to redo the accounts, find the discrepancy and get the accounts to balance properly. He commented to me that he considered his submission was within allowable tolerances and that he was surprised and disappointed with Joan’s reaction .
I knew this road accountant fairly well from prior tours and he was highly regarded with decades of experience.
I agreed with him that the difference seemed to be close enough. So I told him I would speak to Joan about it. Well I did speak to Joan who politely and firmly told me — George- that’s not how it works on my end. If the accounts don’t balance you really don’t know if they are off by a little or by a lot. It’s only when they do balance that you know they are correct.
After the tour accountant got the numbers to balance to Joan’s satisfaction he called me to let me know the matter was resolved. And then he said to me. One more thing George. What’s that I replied. “If I ever get any real money Joan’s gonna be MY accountant.”
Joan was in every respect a wonderful person. She helped me and supported me throughout my career. I will always remember her as an esteemed colleague and dear friend.
