Kalman Fagan sits in his Legal Issues for the Musician course. He’s surrounded by students working to break into the music industry, but he already did that — over 50 years ago.

Seventy-eight-year-old Fagan had minor success in the 1960s when he managed the band Robby and the Troubadours. The Florida Atlantic student — who has earned several bachelor’s and one master’s since 2000 — is currently working on a master’s in music business administration.

As manager for Robby and the Troubadours, Fagan was able to get the band members from their hometown of Byram, Connecticut, to New York City, to Hallandale Beach, Florida, to Rush Street in Chicago and finally to Las Vegas.

Now, he’s back in school to learn about the modern industry, and making connections while he’s at it. His professor, Ira Abrams, took a liking to Fagan when he took his Legal Issues for the Musician and Artist Management courses.

“It’s like going into a time machine, having Kal in a class,” Abrams says. “Kal has been away from the business and getting back into it for him was like learning and relearning things he had never known.”

Abrams decided to connect Fagan to someone who would appreciate his history — Grammy-winning and ex-Columbia Records audio engineer, Glen Kolotkin, who is known for his work on guitarist Carlos Santana’s 17th album, “Supernatural.”

After Kolotkin spoke to Fagan’s legal issues class, the two began talking and realized they had worked with similar artists in the 1960s.

“Kal and I became friends real quick,” Kolotkin says. “He is a real veteran, it’s nice meeting people that were in the business in the beginning.”

He adds, “Keyboardist Barry Goldberg was in Robby and the Troubadours, he later was in a band called Electric Flag, who I also worked with.”

Kolotkin re-engineered a collection of songs previously recorded by Robby and the Troubadours as a favor to Fagan.

When finished, Fagan called the collection, “The Bucket List,” which was released on his record label, Tea Pot Records. The album crosses the generational gap of analog reel-to-reel recording and digital recording.

“The bucket list is your last hoorah,” Fagan says. “I’m 78, before I croak I want the band to be heard again.”

The album is currently streaming on Fagan’s page on CD Baby — a music purchasing website for independent artists.

In the 2015 fall semester, Fagan also worked with FAU’s Hoot/Wisdom Recordings Assistant Director of Commercial Music Alejandro Sanchez-Samper. Fagan helped to promote the label’s Latin Grammy-nominated album, “Bogota Buenos Aires.”

“We met privately and he helped me with the marketing campaign on that album,” Sanchez-Samper says. “He helped out with traditional promotion of the album by calling different dance companies and doing traditional press releases.”

Professors who have taught Fagan have noticed that although he struggles with new technology at times, he remains fascinated by it.

“He was insatiably curious about technology and how the music business has changed with technology,” Abrams says. “He’s very interested in finding out how things work compared to his experience.”

Graduate instructor Dominique Fuentes had Fagan as a student in her Graduate Business Communication Applications course in the fall of 2014.

“Most students expect to see someone their own age in class,” Fuentes says. “He was always very positive and encouraging of all other students.”

She says, “In class, there was nothing he didn’t want to learn, he never gave up.”

Joe Pye is a Staff Writer for the University Press. For information regarding this or other stories email [email protected] or tweet him @Jpeg3189