Hill & Range

Hill & Range (originally "Hill and Range Songs, Inc.") is a music publishing company which was particularly responsible for much of the country music produced in the 1950s and 1960s, and had control over the material recorded by Elvis Presley over that period. It is today part of Warner Chappell Music.

Background

Hill and Range Songs, Inc. was incorporated in New York on December 9, 1944, by Austrian-born brothers Julian Aberbach and Jean Aberbach and their business partners Milton Blink and Gerald King, who owned Biltmore Music. It opened an office in Los Angeles in 1945. Aberbach's brother Jean joined in the early 1950s after working for Chappell Music, and thereafter the two shared control of the company, with Jean Aberbach being based in the Brill Building in New York City. After initially finding success representing Spade Cooley and Bob Wills, the company became active in the country music industry, particularly in Nashville, and at one point were reportedly responsible for three-quarters of all the music produced in Nashville. In 1955, the Aberbachs were responsible for setting up an unprecedented arrangement in which the publishing rights to all songs recorded by emerging star performer Elvis Presley were split 50:50 between the Hill & Range company and Presley and his management. The Aberbach brothers established their younger cousin, Freddy Bienstock, as head of Elvis Presley Music - in effect, a subsidiary of Hill & Range. It also employed writers (including Leiber and Stoller) to provide songs for Presley's films and albums.