Pollstar Lifetime Achievement Honoree: Gary Kurfirst

Legendary Manager Guided Careers of Talking Heads, Ramones, B-52’s, Jane’s Addiction

From throwing “dances” as a teenager that grew into historically significant rock ‘n’ roll festivals, to discovering and steering influential artists like the Talking Heads, Mountain, Peter Tosh, The B52’s, Eurythmics and Jane’s Addiction to worldwide prominence, to showing up to your kid’s little league game in a stretch limo (with Deborah Harry), the rock ’n’ roll business can seem like more of the former than the latter. But it takes special personalities and creative genius to succeed for decades as someone artists trust not only with their creative endeavors but consider a true friend in life.

See Pollstar Live 2025! hub for full conference and awards coverage.

An exceptionally rare class is able to do it over multiple decades and in varied genres, proving that success is not just a matter of right place, right time.

“He was our Brian Epstein,” says Tina Weymouth, co-founder and bassist of Talking Heads. “Gary was such a creative person. Not that he played an instrument. He used to say, ‘I do the phone,’ but he was extraordinarily creative.” While in high school in Queens in the mid-’60s, “He was basically borrowing money from his friends’ parents and renting out social halls at the country clubs and booking bands,” says his son, Josh Kurfirst, a partner at WME and global head of festivals at the agency. “He would advertise them out of the guidance counselor’s office at Forest Hills High School, which had thousands of kids, and he was selling them out, coming home with paper bags full of money.”

After a brief stint in college where he found himself unable to be away from high school sweetheart Phyllis for long, Kurfirst came back to New York and dove into the promoting game, putting on what many consider the precursor to Woodstock. The New York Rock Festival in 1968 at the Singer Bowl in Flushing Meadows, featured The Doors, The Who, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Soft Machine and others.

“He was promoting The Who at the Village Theater I think when he was 19,” Josh Kurfirst says, mentioning the venue that was soon to become The Fillmore East after promoter pioneer Bill Graham worked out a deal to be the room’s exclusive promoter. “My dad never forgave him for that, by the way; never sold him a show for the rest of his life.”

Known as a quick-thinking, stylish and charismatic guy, Kurfirst’s scrappy concert parties blossomed into personal and professional relationships with artists, notably Leslie West and Mountain in the late ’60s. Pioneers of heavy metal best known for the chugging hit, “Mississippi Queen,” Mountain landed a slot at Woodstock as one of its first gigs. After noticing how disorganized things were in real time, Kurfirst told the band to split up for the afternoon and meet backstage at 8 p.m., when, inevitably, the stage manager would see a fully assembled band ready to perform and proclaim, “You’re next!” It scored them a primetime slot in front of 500,000 people.

“Gary really protected us as Talking Heads from a lot of, shall we say, unhappy things that went on in the music business,” adds Chris Frantz, drummer for Talking Heads and later, also with wife Tina Weymouth, the Tom Tom Club, both managed by Kurfirst. “He never interfered with our musical composition. He never suggested, ‘I don’t hear a hit.’ He believed we were an album band and that every artist he managed was really an artist. All of Gary’s clients were super artistic, and we were happy to be among that number.”

Again proving his talent and creativity, Kurfirst’s management clients were not limited to up and comers or specific genres.

“With the Ramones, he figured out a way to sustain the band from 1978 to 1996 without them ever selling out,” Josh Kurfirst says. “He kept them cool, put them in the right rooms, and they toured the country in a van and a trailer – literally never went on a tour bus, and figured out a way for them to make money. That brand became more valuable, actually, after they stopped touring. My dad always kept things cool. The B-52’s were another one that he launched off the back of Talking Heads, who were very popular.”

“I liked Gary very much, and we got along very well,” says Deborah Harry, who continued a solo career after leading the groundbreaking Blondie, which broke from the CBGB’s scene much like the Talking Heads and Ramones. “He took me on at a time when I was doing solo work and there was quite a push for me to call everything Blondie, and I decided that it wasn’t Blondie, it was just me. Gary got behind me, and that’s a difficult position when you have established a brand and an identity. He had terrific taste and really liked the artists he signed. He was terrific for me. It was a very good fit.”

His artist management career continued well into the ’90s, with Kurfirst identifying Perry Farrell and Jane’s Addiction as a generational talent and unique style. His own Radioactive Records label released albums by artists including Live, The Ramones, Deee-lite and Angelfish, Shirley Manson’s band before Garbage took off. Originally a joint venture of MCA Records, the catalogue is now owned by Geffen Records.

By that point, he already had a reputation as someone not only with a knack for the sometimes less-than-orthodox music business but with impeccable taste and an ability to identify talent in a way few could.

“Gary Kurfirst was somebody that I admired so much,” said Marc Geiger, formerly head of music at WME and now head and co-founder of Gate 52, recalling the early days of Jane’s Addiction. “He was the first person who I targeted based on his roster of who he represented. I spent a good amount of time thinking about how can I impress this guy and work with him on more of his clients and be meaningful to him. His understanding of credible moves — and that could be on everything from economics and ticket price to packaging and artwork and art direction, who the band can work with and can’t work with — he was just excellent at it.”

“Once you got in and he trusted you, he let you run with the ball and do what you thought was best to sell the most amount of tickets,” says Jerry Mickelson, co-founder of stalwart independent Chicago concert promoter Jam Productions. “He was great to hang with. He was great to talk to. He was a very smart manager and, obviously, when you look at the roster of acts that he had, it shows you how much bands and business managers thought of him. The first time we worked with him was with Bob Marley in 1976 at a place called the Auditorium Theater in Chicago.”

“Gary was a nice guy,” says Ron Delsener, a concert promoter synonymous with New York show business dating back to the early ’60s. “They were making deals and doing shows from my office, but I let them for a while. Gary was very, very, very smart; he was good at talking, and people liked him.”

Kurfirst’s experience as a young hustling promoter in the ’60s and ’70s grew into working with Island Records founder Chris Blackwell as a de-factor tour manager on one of Bob Marley’s U.S. arena tours. That experience also paid off when Kurfirst met the Talking Heads, a quirky, artsy project that largely appealed to college students before the days of consolidated promoters and sophisticated marketing networks.

“Touring was his real strong suit,” says Jerry Harrison, guitarist for the Talking Heads. “Gary would very often travel with us when we were on the road, he was part of the touring party. He knew more about it than any other manager I ever met.” In the days of working from a phone booth or hotel room, Kurfirst, alongside pioneering agent Frank Barsalona, literally drew the map for their artists.

“When he was Mountain’s manager, he traveled with them as well and found the best places to play in hundreds of towns,” Harrison added. “Frank would quiz him, ‘Where would you play in Peoria or Dubuque?’ Frankly, when Led Zeppelin and the Jeff Beck Group and all of the Premier touring groups came over, they would basically be going to the venues that had been discovered by Gary.”

In later years, Kurfirst’s reputation preceded him, one of taste and true passion for his artists, which is hard to fake.

“I was really struck by how protective he was, and I liked how he spoke about his bands so kindly,” says Shirley Manson, who met Kurfirst through Deborah Harry well before forming the popular alt-grunge band known as Garbage. “He had a lot of love in him, even though he was quite a funny character sometimes. He could come across as very brass but actually deep down was very, very sweet, very family oriented in so many ways. I really love him.”