Gary Kurfirst
July 8, 1947 – January 13, 2009
Gary Kurfirst was a respected artist manager, label executive and concert promoter. Kurfirst got his first taste of the music industry when he began promoting dances while still in high school. In 1967, he launched New York City’s Village Theater which soon became world famous as Bill Graham’s Fillmore East. The following year, he created the New York Rock Festival which featured the likes of the Doors, Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin. It has been said that the idea of Woodstock came to be thanks to the New York Rock Festival. By the ’80s, Kurfirst was a well-established artist manager. Over the course of his career, he guided the careers of the likes of the Peter Tosh, Toots & the Maytals, Talking Heads, the Ramones, Blondie, Jane’s Addiction, the Eurythmics and the B-52s. Gary Kurfirst was 61 when he died suddenly of an undisclosed cause while vacationing in the Bahamas.
Thanks to Craig Rosen from Number1Albums for the assist.