SEYMOUR STEIN
Sire Records visionary
(1942–2023)
ONE of Talking Heads’ fondest memories was of Seymour Stein exuberantly singing one of their songs during a breakneck taxi ride across New York City. “He was our champion,” they wrote. “Some people can spot a diamond in the rough and Seymour was one of them.”
As co-founder of Sire Records, Stein offered to sign Talking Heads in 1975 on the strength of one show. He was prepared to wait another year for them to agree. A similar scenario played out with the Ramones. Tipped off by his wife Linda, who’d seen them at CBGB the night before, Stein auditioned the band in June ’75. They eventually joined the label seven months later. Both episodes served to illustrate Stein’s tenacity when it came to business, alongside his sheer enthusiasm and impeccable taste, despite griping that “radio stations wouldn’t touch the Ramones with a toilet brush”.
An avid music fan, he’d begun as a junior clerk at in 1958, followed by short spells at King and Red Bird Records in the early ’60s. In 1966 he teamed up with songwriter-producer Richardfirst major hit in 1973 with “Hocus Pocus”, by Dutch outfit Focus.
