"Brash music mogul" Allen Klein, whose lengthy career "included stints" as the business manager for the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, said Geoff Boucher in the Los Angeles Times, died on Saturday at the age of 77 after battling Alzheimer's disease. The former New Jersey accountant became "a firebrand figure who worked with some of the biggest names in music but also made enemies out of many of them."

In "rock myth," said Neil McCormick in the Telegraph, Klein "will be remembered as the prototypical untrustworthy and self-serving manager." He proudly displayed a plaque on his desk that read, "Though I walk in the valley of the shadow of evil, I have no fear, as I am the biggest bastard in the valley." And "somehow," Klein "ended up owning the rights to many" recordings by the bands he worked with, "and almost always ended up in litigation" with them.

Klein was "reviled by many," said BBCNews.com, but "others admired his ability to negotiate with record labels." John Lennon reportedly hired Klein "to protect his interest in the Beatles because he wanted what he called 'a real shark—someone to keep the other sharks away.'" Perhaps Klein's early life contributed to his fierce instincts: He "spent several years in an orphanage after his mother's death during his infancy."