Madonna's second father - Jewish music mogul Seymour Stein dies
04/18/2023
He made Madonna, Depeche Mode and the Ramones stars. Seymour Stein, a religious Jew in the crazy world of show business, has died.
At the end of the summer of 1982, a fair-haired girl walked into the lobby of a hospital in Manhattan. She was 24, her name was Madonna Louise Ciccone - but soon she would shorten her name to just Madonna and become known to the whole world with him. At the front desk, the girl was asked what she needed. She replied that she had an appointment with the producer in the hospital. “Are you sure you didn’t get the wrong place?” the nurses asked. “Exactly,” the singer said. "The producer's name is Seymour Stein, and he's in the core section."
This is one of the main legends of modern pop music. The meeting with Stein in the hospital room ended with the signing of the contract and the release of the single Everybody, which brought the singer her first major success. The song peaked at number three on the influential Hot Dance Club Songs chart and nearly entered the top 100 singles on the Billboard Hot chart at number 107. Stein himself, who had previously listened to Madonna's demos right in the hospital ward, having just undergone heart surgery, recalled: “I was lying connected to a hundred medical devices and tubes. But I didn't want to look in front of Madonna like I was about to die. My barber came and shaved and cut my hair. The assistant brought a bathrobe. And yes, we made a deal right in the hospital.”
The life of producer Seymour Stein, the man who made the world aware of Madonna, Depeche Mode, Ramones and Talking Heads, was full of such adventures. Coming from a family of Brooklyn Jews, he spent decades creating new musical stars - although they were as far from the well-behaved religious atmosphere that Stein was used to.
“My father helped the Brooklyn synagogue. And this is how I remember it: he went there at six in the morning before work, and then again - when he returned home. It was like that every day, ”the producer recalled. He was born in 1942 in New York and, in his own words, "fell ill with music early" - while still a schoolboy during the holidays, he found a part-time job at King Records, which released rock and roll records. In 1958, he got a job as a clerk in the main music magazine at that time, Billboard. “A dream job for a young man,” as he later said. “They pay almost nothing, but you have all the information and the best music at your disposal.”
In 1966, Stein and colleague Richard Gotterer founded their own record label, Sire Records. They began working with artists who performed traditional rock and roll. Things were not going well, but in the mid-70s there was a breakthrough. “In 1975, my wife Linda brought four guys into the studio and advised them to listen. The guys looked like scumbags - jeans, leather jackets and sneakers. It seems that they were not in themselves, and they played the same way: three chords, noise, ringing - but how much drive! he said. The four Frostbite Boys were the Ramones. At that time it was one of the many bands of the beginning punk wave, but today its logo can be found in any corner of the world - despite the fact that the band members are already dead.
Hearing that Stein's label signed contracts with punk musicians, other groups from the "underground" reached out to the producer. Among them were Talking Heads, the pioneers of the "new wave" - music at the intersection of punk and melodicism, which inspired, among others, Russian rockers Viktor Tsoi and Boris Grebenshchikov. It is believed that even the term "new wave" was coined by Stein. He did not like the word "punk", and he personally called radio stations, urging the hosts to stop using it. "The term 'punk' sounds dirty, almost demeaning," said Stein, who, despite collaborating with radical musicians, has described himself as an observant Jew all his life. – I recommended another word. Wave. New wave".
In the early 1980s, Stein became the first producer in the US to pay attention to the British band Depeche Mode. “I heard their demo, and the next thing I did was take a ticket to London, fly eight hours over the ocean and go to their concert. It was fantastic,” he recalled. The first Depeche Mode albums sold poorly in the US, but even then the producer did not break off relations with the group. According to him, success came "somewhere after the third record." “Sometimes the journey takes time, and I understand that,” he said. - Artists do not need to be customized. Depeche Mode has grown and expanded with every new record and I've seen it. Talking Heads became themselves only after the third album. And there is nothing to say about the Ramones: they were popular in a narrow environment, but now, 30 years later, look - everyone knows about them! Members are not alive
Rapper Ice-T, who at the dawn of his career also became one of Stein's musicians, described him in the book Memoirs of the Life of a Gangster and a Revolt: “He could be tough, and this made him related to the school of old managers. But at the same time, he was more open, eccentric, sometimes even strange. Ice-T said that Stein "did not get into" his music and lyrics - although at times they were obscene and provocative. “He took completely different artists. Me and the industrial band Ministry - and we work together for one person. This is his style, ”concluded the rap artist.
Seymour Stein continued to "make" stars in the 90s and zero. In 2005, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame for his ability to "see and hear the future." And he himself admitted in an interview that he spends a lot of time traveling: South Korea, Australia, New Zealand - to be the first to hear the music that will blow up the world tomorrow. “Do you want to know what the 21st century will be like on the music scene? he shared his observations. “I will say: Asia will rule, this is a cauldron of new ideas.”
Seymour Stein passed away in early April at his home in Los Angeles. He was 80 years old. The man who worked with the foul-mouthed Ice-T, the Ramones thugs and Madonna in the era when she made sex the spearhead of her personal brand spent a lot of time reading religious books. In the 90s, he visited the Ukrainian Uman to visit the grave of Rabbi Nakhman of Breslavsky. He loved to visit Israel and said that he "feels spiritual uplift" visiting the land of his ancestors.
Depeche Mode vocalist Dave Gahan, upon learning of Stein's death, wrote: "He always had the guts. He was signing bands that scared and confused everyone else." Madonna did not stand aside either. She made a post with a photo where she and Stein pose in the early 80s - the singer is wearing a leather cap and a large cross-shaped earring in her ear. “He was one of the most powerful men in my life,” she wrote.