'The Most Curious Music Man': Read Seymour Stein's A2IM Lifetime Achievement Award Acceptance Speech
Seymour Stein was recently virtually presented the 2020 A2IM Lifetime Achievement Award for his trailblazing co-founding of Sire Records, where he signed such acts as the Talking Heads, the Ramones, the Pretenders, and Depeche Mode before going on to sign artists like Madonna and Ice-T when he was affiliated with Warner Music.Earlier in his career, he worked at such legendary indie labels as Syd Nathan’s King Records, which put out James Brown’s first records; as well as Jerry Leiber, Mike Stoller and George Goldner’s Red Bird Records, which brought the world the Shangri-Las and the Dixie Cups among others.In a video before presenting the award, Sire co-founder Richard Gottehrer cited Stein as bridging the "music industry that grew up in