Roy Flynn is an English former music manager. He managed The Speakeasy Club in 1960s London, in which capacity he associated with and befriended rock stars of the era like Keith Moon and Jimi Hendrix. He began managing bands, and after one night when Yes was called in at the last minute to replace Sly and the Family Stone at a 1968 gig, Flynn was so impressed with the band he offered to manage them.[1]
Flynn would become best known for managing Yes, to whom he devoted his sole attention and much of his personal savings. The band was signed to Atlantic Records and recorded their first two albums on that label. But those albums failed to sell well in Britain and made no impression in the U.S., leaving most of the members unhappy with Flynn. As the band was writing songs and rehearsing for its third album, The Yes Album, at a Devonshire farmhouse he was renting for them, he and the band parted company.
After Brian Lane replaced him and Yes finally achieved the success it sought, Flynn negotiated a deal which, in addition to a share of the band's publishing revenues, gave him five percent of all its future revenue. They were not happy about this, and renamed a short Bill Bruford-penned instrumental on their next album, Fragile, "Five per Cent for Nothing", as a protest. Flynn claims he did not receive any revenue from the deal, and sued the band and Lane, eventually settling for what he considers to be a small portion of what he was owed.[1] He has not managed any bands since then, and later ran pubs and restaurants in South West England.