Died On This Date (January 12, 2009) Gary Kurfirst / Respected Manager and Label Veteran
themusicsover 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.
John Byrne is best remembered as the lead guitarist for ’60s garage rock band, the Count Five, who, although from the San Francisco area, chose its name to sound more akin to the popular British invasion bands of the time. Byrne sang lead on and wrote the band’s only hit, 1966’s “Psychotic Reaction,” which made it to #5 on the Billboard charts, and is generally included in any respectable garage compilation of the era. The band surprisingly turned down numerous high-paying gigs in order for Byrne to go back to college, but did find time to appear on an episode of American Bandstand. The band went on without him, touring with the likes of the Doors and the Beach Boys with Byrne joining the band for special engagements in later years. John Bryne, 61, died of cirrhosis of the liver on December 15, 2008.
