'I signed her for $15k from my hospital bed': The legendary record exec Seymour Stein recalls how he signed the bolshie unknown Madonna but how she would never allow herself to be controlled by any man
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/event/article-5816461/Seymour-Stein-recounts-Madonnas-rise-fame.html
With her seductively catchy smash hits and signature style, Madonna had the competition licked from the start. As she turns 60, Event looks back on the dazzling rise and sheer gall of the Material Girl, through the eyes of those who know her best – starting with the untold story of the man who unleashed pop’s biggest and brashest plucky star!
I was awaiting open-heart surgery in New York’s Lenox Hill Hospital in mid-1982 when the demo tape arrived. As penicillin dripped into my heart, I slotted it into my Sony Walkman and immediately felt an excitement. I liked the hook, I liked the voice, I liked the feel, and I liked her name. I liked it all and played it again.I reached over and called up Mark Kamins, the DJ who was hustling this new singer and her song to record companies all over town.
Seymour Stein on Madonna: 'Lots of people have written about Madonna’s natural star power, and it’s absolutely true that when she was still a complete unknown she oozed a dazzling aura'
‘Can I meet you and Madonna?’
He called back and said they’d drop by the hospital that evening.
‘What?’
‘I know. I told her you were sick, but she really wants this.’
I hit all the panic buttons. ‘Get me a pair of pyjamas,’ I told my secretary. ‘Oh, and send me a hairdresser as soon as you can.’
Months before, Mark had started dropping hints about a dancing beauty who had introduced herself to him at Danceteria, the number-one downtown New York club. She charmed the pants off him, literally, and played him a self-made demo of a song called Everybody. He had reworked and revamped it and I was finally hearing it.
By the time Madonna walked into my hospital room, my hair was good and I no longer smelled like a farm labourer. Of course, she took one look at the tube stuck into my skin and squirmed. Not that she really cared about my predicament. She’d come to get a record deal before this old record guy croaked, along with his cheque-signing hand.
Madonna ended up selling more than 300 million records for Warner. Over two decades she clocked up 12 No 1 singles, 48 Top 10s and eight No 1 albums, and all that’s just in the US alone
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