Seymour Stein dies: Co-founder of Sire Records, which launched Madonna, Talking Heads & The Ramones, turns 80; Madonna pays tribute

Seymour Stein, the founder of Sire Records, which launched the recording careers of Madonna, the Ramones, Talking Heads and the Pretenders, died Sunday of cancer in Los Angeles. He was 80.

His death was announced by his daughter Mandy Stein.

In a tribute posted on Instagram today, Madonna called Stein “one of the most influential men in my life,” adding: “Anyone who knew Seymour knew of his passion for music and impeccable taste. He had ‘ had an ear like no other, intense – insanely funny – a little crazy and deeply intuitive.

Read her entire post below.

Founded in 1966, Stein and his Sire Records have been a major influence on the American pop and rock music scene since the 1970s. In 1973, they scored their first hit with the eccentric million-seller “Hocus Pocus”, a song by the Dutch group Focus – the unlikely combination of hard rock and yodeling.

But it was the downtown New York punk scene, revolving around bars and clubs like CBGB and the Mudd Club, that propelled Stein, along with his then-wife Linda Stein, to the forefront of the new rock wave of music creators . After Linda Stein attended a Ramones performance at Lower East Side Dive CBGB in 1975, Seymour Stein signed the band to Sire, forging the label’s association with Downtown.

Although the self-titled Ramones album was not a commercial hit when it was released in 1976, Sire stayed with the emerging new wave of musicians, soon joining Mudd Club regulars Talking Heads and the Chrissie Hynde-led US-UK hybrid Pretenders undertaken under contract. . , both groups were destined for great commercial success and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. In 1979 Sire had his first no.

Stein’s most successful signing came in 1983 when Sire signed the then-unknown Madonna, who had three No. 1 albums and 10 no. 1 singles envisioned. Madonna left Sire in 1992 to start her Maverick label. In a soon-to-be legendary story, Madonna used a boombox to locate Stein in a hospital while he was recovering from a heart infection.

Other acts Stein has signed and endorsed include Cyndi Lauper, Barenaked Ladies, The Cure, Depeche Mode, The Smiths, Ice-T, Seal, kd lang, The Replacements, Everything but the Girl, My Bloody Valentine and Men Without hats . .

Stein co-founded the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Foundation in 1983 and was inducted into the Rock Hall as a non-performer in 2005. In 2018 he retired.

Born Seymour Steinbigle on April 18, 1942 in Brooklyn, Stein began his career in the music industry after high school with a junior position at billboardthen worked at King Records in Cincinnati and Red Bird Records, the latter a label founded by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller that had a #1 hit in 1964 with the Dixie Cups’ “Chapel of Love.”

Stein’s marriage to Linda Stein ended in the late 1970s (he came out as gay in his 2017 memoir). Linda Stein, who became a co-manager of the Ramones and later a real estate agent in New York City, was murdered in 2007 by a former assistant.

Stein is survived by daughter Mandy, a filmmaker whose credits include the 2009 documentary Burning down the house: the story of CBGB; three grandchildren; and a sister. He was preceded in death by his daughter Samantha Jacobs.