Bob,

We’ve never actually met before, but I feel like I have read hundreds of your emails over the years and they were all forwarded to me by my father, Gary Kurfirst.  I know he agreed with a lot of what you had to say about the music business and he admired your writing abilities and passion for music.  I’m writing to let you know that Gary (aka notalk888@aol.com) passed away yesterday.  It all happened very sudden, the details of which do not matter, bottom line is he was way too young.  I’m not sure why I am reaching out to you, but I feel like I need to make sure that my dad’s accomplishment in the music business are recognized and you have a lot of people’s attention.  He was a true music pioneer, an ole gunslinger back when the music business was like the wild, wild west and crafty kid from Forest Hills, Queens could carve out a living promoting (and later managing) cutting edge acts not because they were popular, but because they were different.  I actually got to work wit
h him for most of my adult life. He taught me about the importance of artist development, building the brand and finding acts that did not fit the mold but rather broke it. He believed in artistry and did not sign acts because they sounded like "so and so," he signed acts that were an extension of his creative being, ones that tested the boundaries of modern music and would change the face of music forever.  He was not a musician, or music historian and would readily admit that he knew zero about music in general.  However he understood how to identify, create and manage unique artists as good as any human being on the planet over the last 40 years.  He always stuck to his guns.  Didn’t care what other people thought and believed passionately that over time the cream always rises to the top.  Sometimes that rise took years (see the Ramones & the Talking Heads) and something it happened almost instantly (see Live).  My point is that my dad represented a lot of the good that h
as happened in music over the past 40 years.  He started out as a pioneer and morphed into an anomaly and at the end of it all I’m very proud to be his son and only wish that my two boys (Gary’s only grandchildren – Lucas 5 & Landon 13 months) got a chance to know him like I did.

Regards,

Josh Kurfirst

ps: Gary’s work history can be found here: www.garykurfirst.com
pps: two stories have broke so far http://www.nme.com/news/talking-heads/42077 and one at www.hitsdailydouble.com

Here are some quotes that have been rolling in from some of his friends, artists and colleagues:

Chris Frantz & Tina Weymouth, Talking Heads

Gary Kurfirst has been our manager since 1977. He never failed to take care of business for us. He protected us. He allowed Talking Heads to be Talking Heads while he took the blows that the music business dealt us.  Together we suffered heartbreaks and celebrated great triumphs. Gary truly was the fifth Talking Head.
We were very close friends and we will miss him terribly.


Ed Kowalczyk, Live

In my view, Gary’s greatest strength and the thing I will remember most about him was his unwavering loyalty. When he fell in love, whether it was an artist, a song, a painting or a grandchild, he did it totally and joined with what he loved completely. He literally became one with the things he loved. I used to joke with him that when I got kicked, he screamed out in pain. To say that I will miss his guidance, his wisdom and his love is an understatement to the maximum degree.

Seymour Stein, Sire

Gary was brilliant in his ability to spot changes in music ahead of most people and had the courage to act on his instincts.  Gary was tough, but not cut-throat in business.  He could fight hard, but fair and never held grudges.  Gary had great style.

Certainly one of the best and most successful relationships I ever enjoyed with a manager, working together on Talking Heads, The Ramones or Deborah Harry.

Can honestly say he will be surely missed.

Jeff Ayeroff, Creative Director Warner Bros Records

Gary was  one of the only managers I worked with who understood
the "art" in Artist Management….He cared deeply about the integrity of his artists, (Talking Heads)  what they did and how they did it.  And interestingly, his own personal art collection was as interesting as the artists he managed and he loved and understood his artists and his art…he wasn’t easy about anything…but he was smart about everything

Jerry Harrison, Talking Heads

My biggest remembrance of Gary is how much fun we had. How we used to get up early and fly through El Paso so the two of us could shop for cowboy boots at the factory stores located there. About the time he drove us up to northern Arizona to see the Red Rocks and how we drove through someone’s back yard in order to get a better view of the sunset and how I drank twice as much tequila as we passed a bottle back and forth because I was in the middle.
Our friendship really blossomed from a train ride in France. It was the first tour that Gary had come on. We had had a very late night at La Coupole and rushed to Charles DeGaule to catch the flight to London. The flight was cancelled because of snow and we were crowded on a bus to return to the train to the ferry to the train to London. As everyone dozed off on the train I realized that I had left my passport at the hotel in Paris, Gary and I began to plot what we would say when we would be questioned by customs and the conversation roamed all through our mutual histories and the hopes that we had for the Talking Heads. I delighted in telling him how I had bribed the doorman at the East Village Theatre to get into "The Who" concert he had promoted and he regaled me with stories from the days of "Mountain" and growing up in Forest Hills. I had been a stickler about paragraphs in our management contract which he had found to be insulting, but at the end of the conversation we
had grown to have mutual respect for each other’s judgment and he knew that I knew enough about "the business" to understand the value of his counsel.

Though we saw each other infrequently since I moved to San Francisco, there was always a recognition of the bond between us when ever we spoke; I shall miss him greatly and my heart goes out to Phyllis, Lindsay, and Josh and everyone else who was close to this extraordinary man.

Julian Turton, UK lawyer Mick Jones (Clash, Big Audio Dynamite)

My first impression of Gary was of a superb deal maker.  We worked together on the Thompson Twins’ deal with Warners in the late 1980s and the terms he secured were amazing.  It remains one of the best deals for an artist I have encountered in 30 years of practice.
 
When we got to know each other better through Mick Jones (of the Clash and Big Audio Dynamite), I realized how brilliantly he connected with artists.  He just exuded a cool self belief and sense of style which instilled confidence in his artists.  My lasting impression is of a decent human being who cared for his clients’ interests and always conducted himself with dignity.
 
His death marks the passing of a major player on the business side of music.  Had he been an artist, he would definitely have been inducted in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame years ago.

Gary Kurfirst: Retrospective Highlights

Over the course of four decades, Gary Kurfirst, known to insiders for his discerning taste, had been involved in record sales in excess of 100 million units worldwide. He has been pivotal in the careers and successes of major of recording artists, producers, film and video directors, agents, and major recording labels. Kurfirst’s professional achievements continue to shape pop culture and influence the global music community.

Gary Kurfirst was responsible for bringing the sixties music revolution to New York. In 1967 he opened the doors to the infamous Village Theater later known as the Fillmore East, where he promoted the East Coast debuts of more than twenty icons including, Jimi Hendrix, the Doors, the Who, Janis Joplin, Jeff Beck, and Jimmy Page’s Yardbirds. In 1968, at twenty years old and one year before Woodstock, he created the model for the contemporary music festival by producing and promoting the legendary New York Rock Festival at the Singer Bowl in Flushing Meadow Park where Hendrix, the Doors, Joplin, and the Who appeared together, among others. He was also at the forefront of bringing acid-rock guitar bands to the music community with the band Mountain, who he managed from 1967 to 1975.

In 1971 Kurfirst signed the Brazilian artist Deodato and helped guide his album to gold status and achieve a number-one single.  In 1975 he helped Chris Blackwell introduce Bob Marley, Peter Tosh, and reggae to America, delivering a new consciousness and sound to mass audiences. For the rest of the seventies and through the eighties Kurfirst rode a new wave of culture in an expanding musical landscape and signed the now-immortalized punk icons the Ramones, art-rockers Talking Heads, B52s, Annie Lennox’s Eurythmics, and also Jane’s Addiction who inspired the grunge music movement of the early nineties. His defense of creative expression earned both the Talking Heads and the Ramones induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2002. He holds the exclusive honor of having two management clients inducted in the same year, and he continues to manage and protect both bands’ catalogs, images, and artistic integrity.

In 1984, 1986, and 1987 Kurfirst produced three feature-length films while simultaneously managing his impressive stable of platinum-selling recording artists. Respectively, they were the Talking Heads’ critically acclaimed and award-winning concert film Stop Making Sense, directed by Jonathan Demme; the quirky satire of American life, True Stories, directed by David Byrne; and Siesta, directed by Mary Lambert and featuring an all-star cast including Jodi Foster, Ellen Barkin, Isabella Rossellini, and Martin Sheen, as well as a Miles Davis soundtrack.

In 1990 Kurfirst joined forces with MCA and launched Radioactive Records. His marketing strategies brought MCA rock credibility and their first modern music success of the era with Radioactive’s band Live. The band has sold more than 20 million albums worldwide, which include two number-one Billboard albums and dozens of number-one albums in international territories. Kurfirst also signed Shirley Manson in 1991 and then brokered her deal with Almo as the lead singer of Garbage who went on to sell more than 10 million albums.

In 2002 Kurfirst and longtime friend Chris Blackwell launched two new music ventures: a talent management company, Kurfirst-Blackwell Entertainment, and Rx Records, a uniquely structured imprint offering its artists more contractual flexibility and creative latitude than the majors.  Entering the new millennium and drawing on his vast experience, resources, and network, Gary Kurfirst continued to develop careers and influence the expanding global market, pioneering new business models and creative marketing strategies.