Current:Home > ScamsSeymour Stein, the record executive who signed Madonna, is dead at 80-LoTradeCoin
Seymour Stein, the record executive who signed Madonna, is dead at 80
View Date:2024-12-25 01:50:35
NEW YORK — Seymour Stein, the brash, prescient and highly successful founder of Sire Records who helped launched the careers of Madonna, Talking Heads and many others, died Sunday at age 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 by his family.
Born in 1942, Stein was a New York City native who as a teenager worked summers at Cincinnati-based King Records, James Brown's label, and by his mid-20s had co-founded Sire Productions, soon to become Sire Records.
Obsessed with the Billboard music charts since childhood, he was known for his deep knowledge and appreciation of music and would prove an astute judge of talent during the 1970s era of New Wave, a term he helped popularize, signing record deals 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 manager Gary Kurfirst told the Rock Hall around the time of Stein's induction.
His most lucrative discovery happened in the early 1980s, when he heard the demo tape of a little known singer-dancer from the downtown New York club 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," published in 2018, the same year he retired. Stein was hospitalized with a heart infection when he first learned of Madonna, but was so eager to meet that he had her brought 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 said in a statement Sunday.
veryGood! (42)
Related
- Georgia's humbling loss to Mississippi leads college football winners and losers for Week 11
- The Botanic Matchmakers that Could Save Our Food Supply
- Insurance firms need more climate change information. Scientists say they can help
- Is AI a job-killer or an up-skiller?
- School workers accused of giving special needs student with digestive issue hot Takis, other abuse
- Selling Sunset's Amanza Smith Finally Returns Home After Battle With Blood Infection in Hospital
- A Tennessee company is refusing a U.S. request to recall 67 million air bag inflators
- Is the California Coalition Fighting Subsidies For Rooftop Solar a Fake Grassroots Group?
- What is ‘Doge’? Explaining the meme and cryptocurrency after Elon Musk's appointment to D.O.G.E.
- Progress in Baby Steps: Westside Atlanta Lead Cleanup Slowly Earns Trust With Help From Local Institutions
Ranking
- Best fits for Corbin Burnes: 6 teams that could match up with Cy Young winner
- Daniel Radcliffe Shares Rare Insight Into His Magical New Chapter as a Dad
- Target removes some Pride Month products after threats against employees
- Families scramble to find growth hormone drug as shortage drags on
- Vikings' Camryn Bynum celebrates game-winning interception with Raygun dance
- Racing Driver Dilano van ’T Hoff’s Girlfriend Mourns His Death at Age 18
- LA's housing crisis raises concerns that the Fashion District will get squeezed
- Mauricio Umansky Shares Family Photos With Kyle Richards After Addressing Breakup Speculation
Recommendation
-
Family of security guard shot and killed at Portland, Oregon, hospital sues facility for $35M
-
LA's housing crisis raises concerns that the Fashion District will get squeezed
-
Is AI a job-killer or an up-skiller?
-
A Pipeline Giant Pleads ‘No Contest’ to Environmental Crimes in Pennsylvania After Homeowners Complained of Tainted Water
-
32-year-old Maryland woman dies after golf cart accident
-
The U.S. is expanding CO2 pipelines. One poisoned town wants you to know its story
-
A Tennessee company is refusing a U.S. request to recall 67 million air bag inflators
-
In Georgia, Bloated Costs Take Over a Nuclear Power Plant and a Fight Looms Over Who Pays