I was fortunate enough to visit with him numerous times in the past couple of months; these visits were some of the best times I have had with him since we were kids. He was so smart, funny, generous, a loyal sports fan (Yankees, Knicks) and despite spending a lot of time in CA, he was a true New Yorker at heart. His passion for music originated in our home in South Orange. He turned me on to many artists/music that shaped our youth, and beyond.
I too am pissed that I'll never get to see him again. My hero since I was a little girl; he will always be in my heart.
Sari Leon
P.S. Last spring he thought he was suffering from Covid… headaches, lethargy, etc. And his disposition changed. Saw physicians in NYC.. battery of tests, surgery.. Yadayada. Stage 4 glioblastoma. They moved to LA for treatment - in early October- poor prognosis. He had minimal treatment and went downhill quickly last week. Still was watching basketball, golf but took drastic turn about a week ago. Was praying he went soon…Txs for asking .. I will miss him …forever.
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I was happy to have Michael as a close friend for 42 years, and fortunate to spend a good amount of time with him during his last six months in LA.
I've never met anyone who approached the end with such dignity and equanimity. From his initial diagnosis, his mantra was 'It's fine, I've had a great life.' At first I thought he was just being Michael, but it soon dawned on me he was telling the truth. He did have a great life: lots of professional success, two great marriages, two wonderful kids, a tremendously loving wife, many friends. He spent his last months in a beautiful house high in the hills, surrounded by family and friends. When I left him for what turned out to be the last time, about 10 days ago, I said 'I'll see you next week.' He said, with a smile, 'If I'm still around.'
I thought he would be, but I was wrong. I learned a lot watching him approach the end, and hope I can emulate him when my time comes.
Take care,
Jeff Gold
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Michael was a suave cool NYer. I met him during his A&M days and he did a great job making the East Coast A&M shine with style. As independents, we all looked up to Herb, Jerry and Gil. Michael represented them and their Artists well. I was down the block at Chrysalis on Madison Avenue and ran into Michael often.
I was lucky to work with him at SBK which then evolved into EMI Records Group NA. Michael was a great head of International. When I became president we traveled a lot together. Most memorable trip was to Germany. He knew his stuff and we broke Artists and records globally.
My warmest memory is when we sold SBK to EMI we were interviewing press companies. PMK was very prominent, somewhat legendary. Pat Kingsley called me to say she cannot make it to the NY offices personally but highly recommended her East Coast "right hand" Leslee Dart. Leslie was already building her reputation as a force in fil , tv and music.
When Leslie came for her tour of our offices I unexpectedly lost her on the way. I thought she was close by as I was introducing her to various executives on the sprawling floor. It turns out she stopped after I brought her to meet Michael… and it was love at first sight. A beautiful story and marriage. Michael was an awesome Dad too. I will miss him.
Daniel Glass
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I met Michael in the 70's and both being "Jersey Boys" hit it off immediately with much in common. Michael was one of the first record company executives to understand that some promoters were "producers". He introduced me to much of the A&M staff and helped me nurture a relationship with Gil who loved to pick my brain about what was going on in N.Y.C. This was time period when the good labels embraced promoters and included us in helping to break their artists. As time went on another Jersey Boy (Al Cafaro) succeeded Gil and continued A&M's artist first strategy and continued to look for good partnerships with leading promoters/producers. Then in around 1990 all three of us ended up at Polygram. Michael and Al on the A&M side and me starting Polygram Diversified Entertainment. We all stayed friends and when the Alain Levy reign was all over the three of us united and together with my promoting and management duties formed an independent label (Hybrid Recordings). Michael retired and Al left A&M and joined me and our staff. Michael was perhaps the best networker in the business and his combination street and well educated smarts made him stand out as one of the greats in our business. I'll miss my friend.
John Scher
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Devastating news. I met and worked with Michael at EMI in the late 90's and he was one of the nicest and most genuine people I've ever met in the business. He didn't want anything from me. He enjoyed music, the business of music, art, travel, wine, food and socializing with various people. He was likable and fun to be around. I'm sad I didn't keep up with him. I have nothing but fond memories.
Larry Stessel
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So many of your points are so true, so spot on. But, you touch my heart when you speak about Michael Leon. Initially, our paths crossed in the mid-seventies when I managed a band on A&M records and Michael was east coast head of promotion.
He did a superlative job trying to get a midwest rock band, Head East, airplay in some tough markets. The important point to me was his honesty and caring attitude whenever he brought me news. He was then, and will always be remembered as a mensch: a person of integrity and honor.
We didn't connect for many years after our manager/promotion rep relationship had ended, as the band departed from A&M. Yet, to my good fortune we had a mutual personal friend, Bobby Margolis, who reintroduced us in Palm Springs. Golf was the connection for us, and we played many rounds together when he visited the desert. He stayed at Bobby's house with a bevy of friends making our reacquaintance seamless, and so much fun!
Thanks to Bobby, I was able to see Michael and have lunch with him in LA a few weeks ago. He was in good spirits while knowing that his life was near the end. It was my blessing to have seen him. He seemed content and at peace. That, in and of itself, was who he was-happy to have lived a good life. Thank you for remembering him.
RIP, Michael.
Irv Zuckerman
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Tough to read this one Bob, not only because one can't help but self-reflect when an artist dies, let alone someone in the business you were close with, or even of course a friend or relative. We're all on this tightrope walk and we try to do the best for ourselves and others that we can. Speaking of doing the best for others, this post is also tough because Michael Leon was very good to me and played an important role in my life as Jim Merlis and I started Big Hassle Media out of the ashes of the Univsersal-Polygram merger in 1999. Jim started the company with Rufus Wainwright as his sole client two weeks before I joined in early Feb of that year. When I came on board, Melinda Newman was nice enough to run an item about us in her very well-read Billboard column. I hadn't done pr for a couple of years because I left Atlantic to go to Mercury's marketing department in 97. When I got laid off, I went back to pr thanks to Jim and was more than a little nervous about the future. I had never known Michael Leon before, but he read that item in the column and called me!! We had a great meeting the next day, and he sent me home with an advance of "Lost and Gone Forever," by Guster. Needless to say, I fell in love with the record and I was back in business working with great artists, and I very much have Michael Leon to thank for that. SO Big Hassle hoists one for Michael Leon today. Thanks for taking a chance on us! RIP.
Ken Weinstein
Big Hassle Media
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A real gut punch to read that Michael Leon is gone.
We grew up in the same neighborhood, went to the same elementary school. He was a year older and a lot taller than I was. Long before we knew that we'd both devote the rest of our lives to music, I used to play basketball with him in his backyard. Not too many kids our age were adept at cross-over dribbling or stopping on a dime to hit a rainbow jumper. Michael was really flashy on the court, a Pete Maravich type. I looked up to him and he was as decent a person as you describe.
As an aside, Michael Leon's younger sister Sari was my first girlfriend. The first girl I ever made out with. The first girl who dumped me (7th grade) for another guy. My first love lost that caused me to cry crocodile tears in front of my friends. Sari and I made up a few months later and have remained lifelong friends to this day. She is a music junkie/sports fanatic of the highest order and I know how devastated she must be. Michael was her only sibling.
Michael and I were only acquaintances who hooped together because I'd be hanging out with Sari at the Leon house in the North Newstead section of South Orange, New Jersey. We both ended up in the music business. When I changed careers from radio/journalism/bandleader to concert promotion and moved from Boulder to San Diego, I started bumping into Michael every year at the New Music Seminar or APAP. I chewed his ear off trying to make him aware of the new concert venue I was booking (Humphrey's by the Bay in San Diego) so that he might steer me toward some A&M acts' agents and managers. I mentioned in passing that I had been the lead singer in a rock 'n' roll band in Boulder (Kenny & the Kritix), and had achieved some local renown before giving it up to move to San Diego.
Michael could have cared less about me as a concert promoter. All he asked about was my band. Could I send him a tape. Send him a promo package. Did I have a video. I explained to him that my band days were over and I was trying to reinvent myself as a concert producer. When I would see him the following year at yet another convention, the first thing he'd say was "How come you haven't sent me a tape of your band???" Michael Leon was the consummate A&R guy, a talent scout, music loving pathfinder. No matter how much I told him that I wasn't the next big thing, he wanted to hear my stuff anyway. I have never forgotten that.
As I get ready to watch the San Diego State Aztecs try and finish their improbable/impossible journey and take down mighty UConn, I'm sad that Michael won't be watching the game (I know that his sister Sari will be). The first thing most people will remember about Michael Leon is his passion for music. I remember that too, but will always first flash back to his ball handling skills and other worldly jump shot.
--Kenny Weissberg
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Michael and I both were East Coast GM's - he A&M and I at Elektra. I was so jealous of his ponytail that I grew one.
Bill Berger
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I got hired to do local Boston promo for A&M in 1981...Michael Leon was the GM of the East Coast office in NYC. He flew me down to welcome me into the A&M "family". Working at A&M
did feel like a family. and yes, I agree Michael was "warm and intelligent"...always enjoyed our work together and conversations...thank you Michael for being a gentleman in a business where that was not
so common.... gone way too soon...RIP...
Peter Wassyng
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This is very very sad news indeed.
Michael was one of the first people that I met in the industry when I started at Arista as an advertising copywriter right out of college.
In addition to his love of music and of New York, he was also a huge sports guy, and we played a lot of pick up basketball together and were teammates on a very good Arista Records cormpany softball team.
I hadn't really seen him since he moved to LA but am very shocked and saddened to read of his passing.
RIP
Stephen Dessau
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Thanks, Bob. I enjoyed that. I knew and loved Michael Leon I spent five years doing promotion for A&M. He WAS smart and he was elegant and a gentleman. Not many like him. Wish I had stayed in touch. And everything else you said rang true too. We're the same age (I think) and it's interesting how the reality of situations and people get clearer every year. Our time is looming. I still feel good. Still work a few records. And still have a few laughs So maybe I will outlast everyone!
Patti Martin
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I had the pleasure of working with Michael during my MTV days both in the U.S. with A&M and later in Europe where he wore the SBK flag. I knew Michael professionally, but once at a lunch we went off topic and started talking about life and things other than music.
There I learned of his passion for baseball and his NY Yankees. He told a story I'm sure he'd told many times, but as a "brother in baseball", I was riveted when he told me that as a kid (I think he was around 9) his father pulled Michael and his brother out of school and they bore witness to an event that has never happened before or since and most likely won't ever again...a perfect game (thrown by Don Larsen) in the 1956 World Series. His attention to every detail was that of a historian, but the glee and joy in that conveyance was that of Michael's inner kid. RIP ML...
Brian Diamond
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I wanted to tell you something, you, actually YOU are the main reason I have started to go to the doctor. I'm a 43 year old roadie and former army ranger, my saying was if The taliban couldn't kill me what else can. Then reading your notes and constant talk about regular illness and doctors made me second guess. I guess it's because I have been reading your letter for so long that I have to admit sometimes I see you as my friend and I worry about you. Nonetheless, thanks for doing what you do. I have begun to take my health more seriously and dropped the bravado because of you. Thanks man.
Andy Cormack
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So sorrt to hear about Michael, he was one of the really nice ones. Lots of golfing together. All this is reallys scary, as I am almost 77, and plan on making it well past 80. Gotta last at least as long as your sister Jill and my boss, Mr. Buffett. Cross your fingers
Harold Sulman
President, Mailboat Records
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I always admired his charm and fun
Bobby Tarantino
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Michael Leon……a class act.
Mike Bone
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I liked Mike Leon a lot, he was gracious. I looked forward to working with him on A&M acts. In the early '80s when I was at DIR our offices were directly across 57th St from the beautiful building where A&M's offices occupied the penthouse.
Paul Zullo
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Thanks for this. My wife and I host a retreat each year at onsite for parents who lost kids. Out of order is hard to ever accept but it does bring the two worlds closer together, and makes parents not fear death as much . Coming from a city which is still is reeling from last Monday's shooting
John Huie
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I think it is time for NARAS or the Rock Hall to fund a Music Industry Hall of Fame. No voting… with just a few requisites. A memorialization of those who helped to make the music and those artists to be heard.
There's a very long list… and one day we will be on that list.
Bruce Garfield
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It seems like everyone is passing away - an acceleration of the stars and singers and music bosses and producers that were as gods to me.
Some of them are so arcane they pass with barely a notice, but for those who were, well, say for me when I was 15-24 - they will forever remain. And when they pass - my heart stops.
death of despair.
I wrote music for film and tv for 30 years and in 48 hours it ended. If you don't know what meniere's disease is google Huey Lewis. Meniere's disease. I have suffered with it for so long, and it is horrific. It's like being a painter for your whole life and waking up blind. My case is worse than Huey Lewis' - but reach out to me Huey. I could use someone to talk to. Or try to. Friggin's stars you guys. Right side along Michael. I remember Clover! And your voice - the hits - you must be so grateful for them. And now you are fly fishing in Wyoming. I know what you feel. I know. I live it every day.
When you get Meniere's comorbid with diplacusis dysharmonica you cannot hear pitch anymore. One ear hears a Bb, the other a D. So it renders all music atonal serial horror. You can't play, sing, go to concerts, listen to any of the music you wrote. When Burt Bacharach died I tried to hear "Raindrops keep Fallin' On My Head" thru my laptop with specialized eq - it was so sad. I couldn't hear any of it. All the songs that defined me, everything I found on my own - becoming a successful composer for decades - only to face being tone deaf and prone to vertigo attacks beyond description.
It was not the way I imagined my retirement. I had worked long and hard enough to travel the word, write my own music - but now I can hardly do anything. My body is strong. My will is strong. Nothing has ever knocked me down. So...
Assisted suicide is now legal in many states and started in, err, Sweden?
You don't die because of meniere's, you die with it. It is progressive, chronic and incurable. You become anhedonic and agoraphobic. It occurs differently for everyone. In many cases, or some, or few, I don't really know - it leads to Alzhiemer's and then dementia.
That is when I will go. Here in Washington State it is legal. I was very successful for a long time and I make a decent amount of money from royalties. Enuf money that I pay the same for Medicare as Bill Gates does, while it still gets taken out of my own check from my own corporation. Plan A B and D - if you are getting there do a deep dive.
I will not have my precious, loving children standing by my side at my hospital room looking at me drooling and saying "now who are you again?", when the person I am talking to is my daughter. Oh my baby, remember my swagger, remember my music. My fans. Remember my Emmy nomination, Ascap award, remember me playing guitar to soothe you to sleep. I was never a star. But I always got on base.
For as much as it will hurt you and your brother for life, it is already so hard to keep going. At 67. And a better end than suicide. They interview you. Analyze you. Talk to you. And if it seems like the right thing they put you in a chair, put the IV in you, but then you have to turn the knob yourself.
I didn't see things ending this way.
William Anderson
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From: Dan Navarro
We live as long as we live. Some get more, some get less. No one gets out alive, and every day above ground is a good one. Period. Any illusion to the contrary is psycho. And we have lots of friends who are psycho.
BUT... how we live is the real battle. Do we value every day? Do we laugh every day? Do we stop complaining about bullsh*t little things? Do we invest in community and the generation coming up? Do we learn the landscape on the horizon? Do we value new, different, unknown, outside the comfort zone? Nothing worth a sh*t ever came from a comfort zone.
Or do we petrify our mindset and maintain a death grip on what is no longer possible. Do we still use outdated standards as we navigate the obstacle course of the immediate present, oblivious to the future.
Our industry has changed, irretrievably. Yeah, it was better before, when it was fresh, important, inspiring, and the public ethos revolved around what an artist said or did in their creations. I sure hung on every word and every note. Just like you did.
I mean, hell, I'm not in the music business any more. Haven't been for years. I just make music for a living in the niches, where I found an eager and generous audience. And I've managed to learn what is still relevant -- communication.
It means driving thousands of miles a year, setting up my own gear, little sleep, more than a few frustrations, some broken field running, and planning my moves pretty much alone (though I do have an agent, a digital coordinator and a social media person). My journeyman career is still productive, profitable and worth-it. I've had fun. A boatload of fun, and I'm still having it, very fricking day.
Why am I writing this? I'm older than you, by a few months, we've compared notes on that before. My health is good, somehow I still have my all hair, not even receding, and it's still 90% not grey (not so for my beard, LOL). Nothing but genetics and still more dumb luck.
And, like you, I'm losing people like crazy. My age, older, younger. Croz, Jeff Young, David Lindley, Peter Cooper, Chicago legend Lin Brehmer (closest friend of the bunch), never mind Lisa Marie, Kirstie Alley, Michael Rhodes, Tom Leadon, Jeff Beck, or Michael Leon or Seymour Stein, none of whom I knew. Seems like a new one every week. Or every day.
We notice it because we are aging and not dying just yet.
As we've discussed, Eric Lowen died at 60, eleven years ago. He didn't get to see 70. We were 30 years together and at 60 I had to reinvent. Nothing blasted fresh air into my perspective more than that. He's gone, and I'm still here. Time to get to work and be more grateful for the time I have left, determined to spend it vigorously doing what I love every single day. Use it or lose it.
Dude, you're tops at your game, and still throwing punches. Your health appears to be under control. You're in a good relationship and you are still vertical and above ground, with a platform. Your perspective is razor sharp and you still care about the new even as you reminisce about the old.
Let's face it. You won.
xx
dn
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