The annals of show business are replete with great duos: Martin and Lewis, Abbott and Costello, Burns and Allen, Newman and Redford… and Cliff and Peter, whose 40-plus-year partnership in music management has outlasted most marriages and redefined stability, success and accomplishment in an extremely fickle and often transitory line of work.

Cliff Burnstein and Peter Mensch both began their illustrious careers at record companies. In 1982 they launched New York-based Q Prime Artist Management with a solitary client, Def Leppard. Since then, they’ve built a behemoth on the backs of such metal acts as Queensryche, Tesla and Dokken.

In 1984, Mensch and Burnstein signed four kids from the Bay Area who called themselves Metallica. Shortly thereafter, the band dropped the genre-altering album Ride the Lightning. Q Prime still manages the group, which has been playing stadiums for two decades and has become one of the most bankable acts in music history.

Q Prime’s current roster also boasts Cage the Elephant, Three Days Grace, Pantera, Gillian Welch, The Last Dinner Party, Disturbed, Silversun Pickups, Dogstar, Volbeat, Foals, Declan McKenna, Annie DiRusso, Nell Mescal and Lydia Night.

After building an unbeatable rock stable, Cliff and Peter established a beachhead in country by launching Q Prime South in 2001 with John Peets, who manages Eric Church, Brothers Osborne, Ashley McBryde, Marty Stuart, Brett Eldredge and Harper O’Neill.

Two years ago, Q Prime joined forces with Aaron Frank to create Q Prime AF, bringing latter-day noisemakers Greta Van Fleet, St. Paul & the Broken Bones, Dashboard Confessional, Matt Maeson and All Them Witches into the fold. Frank also co-manages, with Beau Boggs, Jesse Welles and Richy Mitch & the Coal Miners.

Messrs. Burnstein, Mensch and team have achieved untold success at top volume. Even so, listening to us gives them a headache.