Armstrong, Pat
Originally from Atlanta, Armstrong came to Jacksonville with his family as a toddler. At Bishop Kenny High School, he got his first taste of the music business hiring local bands for teen dances. After earning a law degree at Mercer University in Macon, he became partners in a booking and talent-management agency with Alan Walden, brother of Capricorn Records founder Phil Walden. The agency’s first client was Jacksonville rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd. Another was Gainesville-based Mudcrutch, which featured Tom Petty. After falling out with Walden in 1973, Armstrong rebounded with Southern rock band Molly Hatchet, who sold 4 million records for Epic. In the early 1980s, Armstrong moved to Orlando, where he managed the careers of Pat Travers, Quiet Riot and Stranger, and built a state-of-the-art recording studio as well as a Sony-distributed label, PARC Records. His studio has been host to clients like The Backstreet Boys, N’Sync, and Britney Spears. Armstrong re-launched the PARC label with distribution through Minneapolis-based Navarre. Besides the music business, he has interests in commercial real estate and banking. Also see Molly Hatchet; Lynyrd Skynyrd; China Sky; Mudcrutch.
[...] hundred signed acts from a town the size of Jacksonville is a whole lot,” said Pat Armstrong, president of PARC Records in Orlando. “Of course, major music-industry towns like Los [...]