published by, Shrishti Negi
Last Update: Apr 03, 2023, 08:57 am IST
Seymour Stein died Sunday morning in Los Angeles. (Reuters photos)
Seymour Stein, who helped found the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Foundation and himself was inducted into the Rock Hall in 2005, has died of cancer in Los Angeles.
Seymour Stein, the flamboyant, visionary and highly successful founder of Sire Records who helped launch the careers of Madonna, Talking Heads and many others, died on Sunday at the age of 80.
Stein, who helped found the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Foundation and was himself inducted into the Rock Hall in 2005, died of cancer in Los Angeles, according to a statement from his family.
Born in 1942, Stein was a New York City native who spent summers at Cincinnati-based King Records, James Brown’s label, as a teenager, and co-founded Sire Productions by his mid-20s. which soon became Sire Records.
Obsessed with the Billboard music charts since childhood, he was known for his deep knowledge and appreciation of music and would prove to be an astute judge of talent during the 1970s New Wave era, a term he helped popularize. Signed record deals with Talking Heads. Ramones and The Pretenders.
Talking Heads manager Gary Kurfurst told the Rock Hall at the time of Stein’s entrance, “Seymour’s taste in music has always been a few years ahead of everybody else’s.”
His most fascinating discovery came in the early 1980s, when he heard a demo tape of a little-known singer-dancer from the downtown New York club scene, Madonna.
“I loved Madonna’s voice, I loved the feel of it, and I loved the name Madonna. I loved it all and I played it again,” he wrote in his memoir “Siren Song”, published in 2018, the same year he retired. When Stein first became aware of Madonna, He was admitted to the hospital due to a heart infection, but he was so eager to meet her that he brought her to his room.
“She was all dolled up in cheap punky gear, the kind of club kid who’d look absurdly out of place in the cardiac ward,” they wrote. “She wasn’t even interested in explaining to me how much I liked her demo. ‘What to do now,’ she said, ‘I have to sign a record deal.’
Sire artists included Ice T, The Smiths, Depeche Mode, The Replacements and Echo and The Bunnymen, as well as the more established Lou Reed and Brian Wilson, who recorded with Sire later in their careers.
Stein was briefly married to record promoter and real estate executive Linda Adler, with whom he had two children: filmmaker Mandy Stein and Samantha Lee Jacobs, who died of brain cancer in 2013. Sidney Stein and his wife divorced in 1970 and years later. came out as gay.
“Our family is grateful for every minute we spent with him, and the positive impact on many lives through the music he brought to the world,” Mandy Stein said in a statement Sunday.
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(This story has not been edited by News18 staff and is published from a syndicated news agency feed)
