NEW YORK — Seymour Stein, the brash, prescient and extremely a success founding father of Sire Records who helped introduced the careers of Madonna, Talking Heads and plenty of others, died Sunday at age 80.
Stein, who helped discovered the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Foundation and used to be himself inducted into the Rock Hall in 2005, died of most cancers in Los Angeles, in step with a observation by means of his circle of relatives.
Born in 1942, Stein used to be a New York City local who as a youngster labored summers at Cincinnati-based King Records, James Brown’s label, and by means of his mid-20s had co-founded Sire Productions, quickly to transform Sire Records.
Obsessed with the Billboard tune charts since formative years, he used to be identified for his deep wisdom and appreciation of tune and would end up an astute pass judgement on of skill right through the Seventies generation of New Wave, a time period he helped popularize, signing record offers with Talking Heads, the Ramones and the Pretenders.
“Seymour’s taste in music is always a couple of years ahead of everyone else’s,” Talking Heads supervisor Gary Kurfirst advised the Rock Hall across the time of Stein’s induction.
His maximum profitable discovery took place within the early Nineteen Eighties, when he heard the demo tape of somewhat identified singer-dancer from the downtown New York membership scene, Madonna.
“I liked Madonna’s voice, I liked the feel, and I liked the name Madonna. I liked it all and played it again,” he wrote in his memoir “Siren Song,” revealed in 2018, the similar 12 months he retired. Stein used to be hospitalized with a middle an infection when he first realized of Madonna, however used to be so keen to fulfill that he had her delivered to his room.
“She was all dolled up in cheap punky gear, the kind of club kid who looked absurdly out of place in a cardiac ward,” he wrote. “She wasn’t even interested in hearing me explain how much I liked her demo. ‘The thing to do now,’ she said, ’is sign me to a record deal.’”
Sire artists also included Ice T, the Smiths, Depeche Mode, the Replacements and Echo and the Bunnymen, along with the more-established Lou Reed and Brian Wilson, who recorded with Sire later in their careers.
Stein was married briefly 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 the 1970s and years later he came out as gay.
“I am beyond grateful for every minute our family spent with him, and that the music he brought to the world impacted so many people’s lives in a positive way,” Mandy Stein mentioned in a observation Sunday.
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