Siren Song_My Life in Music

by Gareth Murphy

  And I say to my three grandchildren, I don’t know if this book clearly expresses that, despite ups and downs, double-dealing, naivety, and lack of experience on my part and all that goes with it, I wouldn’t have traded my life in music, which I love, for just about anything else in the world. It’s been a bumpy ride, but an exciting one. It is one thing to discover a great song, record, or artist and watch it slowly climb the charts, become a hit, and the artist or band you believed in become famous as a fan. Double, triple, quadruple all that, and it doesn’t bring you anywhere close to the joy and satisfaction of being part of it. I have enjoyed occasions like this for many years, and I am most grateful to the artists and to God for this ride I’ve been on for so many years, and old as I am, I’m still in no hurry to get off.

  And what about my remaining daughter, the light of my life, Mandy, who’s lived through so much heartache? The childhood she endured, finding her mother dead like that, her only sister dying at forty? If ever there was someone in this story who graduated through the School of Hard Knocks, who has survived through a forty-year assault course, it’s Mandy. She’s my connection to much of the past. She’s the light that warms me every time I visit her in Los Angeles and watch her play with her two young daughters, Leia and India.

  Now I’m the grandfather at the Thanksgiving table and proud of it. I give thanks to the mothers whose love matters so much in a child’s self-confidence. My own success owed so much to my happy, selfless, kindhearted parents and my big sister, Ann, who loved and encouraged me like a mini mom. I know I was the difficult child, the black sheep, and I thank my family for accepting me as I was. They were the supportive record label, and I was the troubled artist whose strange talent only they recognized, accepted, and kept believing in. That’s where it all began.

  But beware of love alone; it’s not enough. A teenager needs to learn a trade before his own dreams drive him to insanity. How lucky was I to have lived in an era of mentors and apprenticeships? Where did we lose that great old tradition of showing youngsters real jobs and careers to follow? I know I was given more than I ever gave back, and maybe that imbalance was the failure of my generation. The postwar era created so much great music and pop culture, we were a rare crop, but in growing so big, we sucked the soil around us barren. So, dear reader, please don’t write me off just yet—my chores are not done. We oldsters must keep handing down our toolboxes and our trade secrets. Dignity in transmission. This chapter has a few more pages left to figure out.

  All that’s now left is me, Mandy, and my three granddaughters. The other survivor is Sire, which I run out of an office in midtown. Sire is not the smoking hit factory it once was, but it’s my own little corner store, still open for business, and helping young artists make music and prosper. Over the last fifteen years or so, I’ve been releasing records from the likes of Kill It Kid, Cold Fronts, Residual Kid, Lottery Winners, Sugarmen, and Paul Shaffer. I’ve even just worked on a Cindy Lauper album. I’m still doing what I do and will continue working for as long as I can. It was never “work” anyway. Not in the way most people mean the word. Sire was always a way of life, a vocation, a necessity, a privilege.

  You should see me now: I’m a bit of a rambling wreck (sans Georgia Tech) held up by a cane and a stubborn determination to keep going. People joke about high mileage, but mine really is fifty-plus years of jet lag. I’d love to be able to put a number on the air miles I’ve clocked up; I’m sure it’s in the same league as Apollo astronauts. As for the amount of gigs I have seen, how I’m not deaf is a mystery. Yes, I’m out there with all the obsessive-compulsives who sacrificed family and even sleep for a hobbyhorse that has kept galloping through the decades. At the age of seventy-five, I’m not done yet. I love going to the office every day and traveling the world.

  You may cross my path in airports. Whether it’s happening in Los Angeles, Liverpool, Bombay, Toronto, Tel Aviv, New Orleans, Beijing, Hamburg, Brighton, or Chicago, I’ll make it on time. You’ll see me in Cannes during Midem, in Austin, Texas, for SXSW. You’ll find me in Trinidad for Mardi Gras, or sitting on the shores of the Dead Sea in winter, or shuffling around Sotheby’s on a rainy Thursday. You’ll see me in the corner of my favorite restaurants in London and Paris. You’ll even see me still walking to work every morning down the streets of Manhattan. Please say hello. Please play me your songs. For as long as I’ve got time on this earth, I’ve always got time for a good story and a great song. My ears are forever young.

  The world I live in today is not the same as the one I entered. When I visit boomtown cities in India and China, I can feel the same infectious, self-confident energy that I felt in London in the sixties or New York in the early eighties. Power moves around, and with it, the mojo strikes kids as randomly as lightning storms. You can feel an artistic storm ready to burst in the developing world; in Israel, too, there surely must be Palestinian and Israeli musicians somewhere out there who will inspire a generation.

  Last year, I unexpectedly lost two close personal friends who were also Sire artists, actor Bill Paxton, who recorded two amazing singles, both with sensational accompanying videos: “Reach” with video directed by Academy Award winner James Cameron; and “How Can the Labouring Man Find Time for Self-Culture,” directed by Rocky Schenck. Also tragic was the passing of Tommy Page, who in 1990 had a number-one hit on Sire, “I’ll Be Your Everything.” Both deaths shocked and saddened me immensely. I’m still not over them.

  I am grateful for the extra-large helping that has been heaped on my plate. I have been able to do what I love. What more can a man ask for? My happiest moment in recent years, and possibly the ultimate feather in my fedora, after being inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame several years earlier, was being inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2016. I couldn’t believe seeing my name on the roll call, because it’s a club that record men aren’t invited into. I never wrote a song nor was I allowed to be a publisher. But its gatekeepers, Linda Moran and Charlie Feldman, invited me in because I was one of the few record industry deans who always believed, hard as cast iron, that musical brilliance boils down to songwriting. I was always skeptical of producers who claimed that sound mattered most. For me, it’s always been the what-you-have-to-say. Listen for yourself. Behind every pop masterpiece, there’s always a killer song. It’s the source of the magic and always will be.

  Having listened to so much music over the years, I’ve reached the simple conclusion that the greatest music in history is the stuff that’s made it into the public domain. I refer to our most familiar melodies and lyrics, our hymns and bedtime lullabies, our social rituals and national anthems. They are bigger than national treasures; they’re humanity’s greatest hits that have outlived all statutory limits of copyright. These are the people’s songs that have been immortalized by the test of time.

  I refer to the great classical airs and folk monuments. The beauty of “Silent Night,” “Adeste Fideles,” “It Came Upon a Midnight Clear,” and “The First Noel” get me excited every time I hear them at Christmas. I’m Jewish, of course. I don’t celebrate the holiday, but that doesn’t mean I don’t love the music. One of my personal favorites is the “Song of the Volga Boatmen,” a true masterpiece guaranteed to send you tumbling back through time to nineteenth-century Russia. Or “Kol Nidre,” the heart-melting vow that begins the solemn ceremony of Yom Kippur every year. It can be chanted orally, or it can be played by musicians without its words. Like all truly great songs, its magic can be evoked in so many ways. “Hatikvah,” the Israeli national anthem, meaning the hope, is another stirring beauty that envelops you from its unmistakable opening line. Its long story began in nineteenth-century Russia as a wistful, prayer-like poem about the dream of every Jew to return to the ancestral homeland. Before Israel was even a vague possibility, it brought solace to millions of Jews in times we can barely imagine. If you want to understand Israel, listen to it carefully.

  Our own national anthem, “The Star-Spangled Banner,” is on
e that always brings a lump to my throat. We almost chose “Columbia, the Gem of the Ocean,” whose melody I love, but I think we missed an opportunity to not have adopted the fourth and final stanza of “The Star-Spangled Banner” in the standard shortened version. “O thus be it ever when freemen shall stand, between their loved home and the war’s desolation. Blessed with victory and peace, may the heaven rescued land praise the power that hath made and preserved us a nation. Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just, and this be our motto—‘In God is our trust.’ And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave, over the land of the free and the home of the brave.”

  The strange thing about all these old songs, and too many others to mention, is how they unleash a sort of genie into the air. You don’t put these songs on like a record; they only fit serious occasions in the way that prayers are reserved for collective rituals. Of all the songs ever written, there’s a special place in my heart for “La Marseillaise,” the French national anthem. I first discovered it as a boy watching the famous scene in Casablanca when Rick’s Café erupted into song to drown out the Nazi soldiers singing their beer-hall dreck. Casablanca was released the year I was born, which I guess makes it another great war baby to add to my long list. I never understood the lyrics of “La Marseillaise” until they were explained to me years later, but its sheer emotional power hit me in the chest and continues to floor me every time.

  The song was originally written in 1792 as a citizen’s call to resistance at a time when revolutionary France had just declared its republic. The neighboring Prussian and Austrian empires were poised to invade and stamp out these new ideas of rights and citizenry. The song was actually written in Strasbourg, right where the imperial armies were coming. Like all great songs, it was personally felt—it was lived by its authors from the front line of human experience. “Tyranny is out to get us,” go the lyrics, roughly translated. “Its bloodstained banners are risen.” Then, as the melody moves into its melancholic middle section, it asks, “Can you hear it in your countryside? The thunder of ferocious soldiers who’ll march into your homes. They’re coming to slit the throats of your daughters and your wife.” In its final melodic pivot from pain to hope, it lifts the roof with its great battle cry: “To the guns, citizens!” Whenever I hear it, I feel like jumping on a horse, pulling out a sword, and screaming, “Charge!”

  In times of peace, France’s fainter hearted wondered about the song’s bloody imagery, but you can see how it fit so perfectly into Casablanca, when the bloodstained banners of tyranny had once again marched into people’s lives. I never thought I’d see it, but the song came back to life when I was in Paris conducting the interviews for this book following a series of terrorist attacks throughout 2015 and 2016. A wave of evil psychos claiming allegiance to ISIS went on a killing spree, murdering writers, music fans, Jews, youngsters, families at the Bastille Day fireworks display. It was the most grotesque outburst of extreme violence France had experienced since Nazi occupation.

  Suddenly, those old lyrics resonated like the year it was written, mystifying the very people who’d been hearing it for years. France happened to be hosting the European soccer championship that bloody summer, and before every match involving the home team, “La Marseillaise” raised the sky and, I think it’s fair to say, stole the show of the whole sporting event. In bars and village squares, the whole country sang along, tears in their eyes, feeling every word. They didn’t want this senseless bloodshed, but in equal measure, they knew they had to stand up for what they believed in. It was like Rick’s Café in real life.

  These are the great mysteries of music. A song can unite and lift a divided and demoralized nation in ways that no political leader can. Never let it be said that music is just entertainment. Most of the time it is just entertainment, but when bigger things need to be said, when humanity needs to see clearly, music is the higher language that designates the righteous.

  Looking back into the last century and beyond, I’ve come to realize that music is like a river flowing through the ages. Sometimes it’s a flood, sometimes it’s a stream, but as long as there are people roaming this earth in search of happiness, it will never dry up; it just keeps winding through new landscapes with new tributaries loaded with new musical genres and ideas coming along all the time. We can feel it flowing through our lives, but only some can tap into it. David Byrne tapped into that river. The Ramones, Talking Heads, the Pretenders, Madonna, the Replacements, Chrissie Hynde, Depeche Mode, the Smiths, Seal, k.d. lang, Ice-T, Ian McCulloch, they and many others all did in their own different ways. But even the very greatest artists of all time cannot move the river. Not Dylan, not Hank Williams, not Duke Ellington, not Mozart. The river follows only the story of humanity, and we are all just travelers down its banks. Every great song that was ever written or recorded is like a bottle of distilled life. Uncork any one and you will be magically transported to a time. You will breathe its air and see through its eyes.

  Sixty-plus years in the music business, and I keep hearing the same old groan: that pop music isn’t what it used to be. If you really believe that every generation is getting dumber, I’m afraid you’re just over the hill. Every crop of kids thinks it’s more clued in than the previous one, and as they get older and their parents die, they turn their contempt to youngsters. The truth is there’s always great stuff happening, albeit in small amounts. You just have to go out and find it. There are always budding geniuses locked in rooms, locked inside themselves, out of sight and unappreciated until they’re given a stage and world full of love. You can’t stop it. That big river just keeps rolling onward, right where the absolute present and the timeless world meet. Right now, teenagers are dancing round fires along its banks and howling at the moon. They’re just as happy as you and I were at their age. And the reason they don’t care if we like or dislike their songs is because they are coming of age. They are addressing their own future that we’re not part of.

  Long ago, I pitched my tent somewhere back down that riverbank. For years and years, I’ve kept walking, just trying to stay close to the kids. The faces come and go, and sometimes the songs are hard to understand. It’s not easy keeping up with such a fast-moving language. But I’ll tell you this: it’s still the best place on earth. That magical water keeps us young in spirit. It’s what’s keeps my heart still pounding. Rest assured, there’s great music still to come and always will be.

  Keeping our spirits high is the only way to get through life. So, make the most of what you have. And do it now while you can.

  David and Dora Steinbigle, and Linda and Seymour Stein at a celebration of David and Dora’s fortieth wedding anniversary. (Seymour Stein)

  Seymour at age thirteen, en route from New York to Detroit, with his aunt Edith Weiberg and cousins. (Seymour Stein)

  Brett Ratner and Mandy Stein. (Seymour Stein)

  Seymour with Antony Langdon. (Seymour Stein)

  Married life. (Seymour Stein)

  Linda, Mandy, Samantha, and Seymour Stein at Samantha’s wedding. (Seymour Stein)

  Baby picture. (Seymour Stein)

  Seymour with Lenny Kaye. (Bob Gruen)

  Seymour with Larry Uttal. (Bob Gruen)

  Seymour with Joe Galkin and mentor Paul Ackerman. (Bob Gruen)

  Seymour with Syd Nathan. (Seymour Stein)

  Seymour with Bette Midler and Henry Edwards. (Bob Gruen)

  Seymour with Danny Fields, Bowie, and the Ramones. (Bob Gruen)

  Seymour with Tommy Ramone and Lenny Kaye. (Bob Gruen)

  Ice-T introducing Seymour at the 14th Annual Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony. (Bob Gruen)

  Seymour with David Byrne and Madonna during the 14th Annual Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony. (Getty Images)

  Seymour with Bette Midler and Danny DeVito during the 14th Annual Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony. (Getty Images)

  APPENDIX

  People in My Music Life

  At age seventy-five and
still actively involved in music, looking back, I realize that one of the main reasons for my success, and the joy and happiness derived, was because I decided at such a young age, without even knowing what it entailed, that being in the music business was the life for me. Meeting so many people while still in high school, working afternoons at Billboard, was a major factor.

  I would be remiss if I didn’t make mention of as many people as possible that I can recall whose paths I crossed along the road, especially in those early days, from the mid-1950s to the mid-1960s. Some were people I might have met just once or twice, others much more, and some with whom I’ve worked closely.

  I’ve assembled this list rather quickly. Many of these people are also mentioned in the book. It’s been a great musical ride through many eras and genres, and I wouldn’t trade it for anything.

  I hope I haven’t left anyone out, and if so, I apologize.

  King Records: Syd Nathan (Cincinnati), Zella Nathan, John Kelley, Mary Lou Smith, Al Miller, Johnny Miller, Eddie Smith (amazing engineer), Milt Dragul, Al Rogoff, Arnie Orleans, Sonny Thompson (Chicago), Rudy Toombs, Nat Tannen, George Levy (New York), Hy Penzell, Lefty Stevens, Jack Pearl (King lawyer)

  Publishers: Lester Sill, Ralph Peer, Julian and Jean Aberbach (Hill & Range), Freddy Bienstock (Carlin), Irving Mills (Mills Music), Lou Levy (Leeds Music), Don Kirschner and Al Nevins, Jon Platt (Warner-Chappell), Bill Lowery, Wesley Rose, Joe Santly and Georgie Joy (Santly-Joy), Harry and Gene Goodman (Regent and Mark Music), Goldie Goldmark (Sheldon Music), Joe Csida (Trinity Music)