Sandy Pearlman

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Sandy Pearlman
Background information
Birth name	Samuel C. Pearlman
Born	August 8, 1943 (1943-08-08) (age 66) USA
Occupations	Music producer, manager, record executive
Years active	1978 – present
Associated acts	Blue Öyster Cult The Clash The Dictators Pavlov's Dog Black Sabbath Dream Syndicate

Sandy Pearlman (born Samuel C. Pearlman, August 8, 1943) is an American music producer, artist manager, professor, poet, songwriter, and former record company executive. He is best known for founding, writing for and producing nearly every album by Blue Öyster Cult, as well as important albums by The Clash, The Dictators, Pavlov's Dog, Space Team Electra and Dream Syndicate, and for being the founding Vice President of e-music.com. He is currently the Schulich Distinguished Professor Chair at the Schulich School of Music at McGill University in Montreal.

[edit] Biography

Pearlman received his B.A. from the State University of New York at Stony Brook in 1966, where he had been Student President. He was awarded a Woodrow Wilson Fellowship in the History of Ideas, and completed graduate work at Brandeis University. He was also a New School Fellow in Sociology and Anthropology. As a University student, Pearlman wrote a series of poems called Imaginos, whose characters and lyrics would feature in his later career.

In 1967 he was one of the original rock music critics for Crawdaddy! magazine, along with Paul Williams, Jon Landau and Richard Meltzer.

Also in 1967, Pearlman hand-picked musicians for a rock band to perform the songs that he was writing, based on a series of poems called "Imaginos." He dubbed the band "Soft White Underbelly" (from a speech by Winston Churchill in World War II) and later changed their name to "Blue Oyster Cult". He managed the band from 1967 - 1995, and produced 12 of their albums. Significantly, Pearlman produced BÖC's "(Don't Fear) The Reaper" in 1976 (which reached #12 on the Top 40 charts ^[1] and has remained an FM radio staple since. A character based on Pearlman was portrayed by Christopher Walken in the Saturday Night Live parody skit of the making of the song.^[2] However the name mistakenly used for the character was that of Bruce Dickinson, another record producer who later compiled BÖC remastered reissues but never produced any in-studio tracks and had nothing to do with the original recording.^[3][4]

He is considered an important figure in the development of both alternative and commercial American rock music, and for his intervention in British punk. He was drafted by record company CBS to produce Give 'Em Enough Rope, The Clash's second album, which gave the band their largest audience to date, and also produced many of the tracks that were compiled in "Black Market Clash".

Pearlman also worked as a full-time artist manager, managing the careers of Blue Oyster Cult, Black Sabbath (1979 - 1983), Romeo Void, The Dictators, Aldo Nova and others. In the 1980s, he pioneered the mega-tour stadium format of several bands traveling together, sharing promotional costs and production and travel costs, a format persisting today with Lollapalooza, Lillith and related tour packages. ^[5]

In 1989 he took over as president of the alternative record company 415 Records and established a production and distribution deal for the label with MCA Records. In the late 1990s, he served as the founding vice-president of e-music.com. He also served as vice-president of media development for MoodLogic.com, the first on-line music recommendation engine, from 2000-2003.

Pearlman is presently the Schulich Distinguished Chair of music at McGill University in Montreal, specializing in the programs in music theory, sound recording and music technology. He has been a visiting lecturer at Harvard, Stanford, University of California Berkeley, UC Santa Cruz, and has been an invited speaker at the Mill Valley Film Festival, Future of Music Coalition, Canadian Music Week and SxSW Festivals. As a Professor and as a public speaker, Pearlman lectures on the architecture of the music industry, strategies for remonetizing music downloads, and the history and future of music.

[edit] Awards

Pearlman is the recipient of more than 17 gold and platinum records.

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• The Village Voice, BÖC reviews by Robert Christgau
• Blue Oyster Cult FAQ