Eddie Rosenblatt, Longtime Geffen Records President, Dies at 89
variety.comJem Aswad Executive Editor, Music Eddie Rosenblatt, who was president of Geffen Records from its inception in 1980 through its glory years of Guns N’ Roses, Nirvana, Don Henley and countless others, died Tuesday at a hospital in Santa Barbara, Variety has confirmed.
His son Michael told Hits the cause of death was pneumonia; he was 89. Under Rosenblatt’s watch, Geffen became the gold-standard label of the music industry throughout most of the 1980s and 1990s, spawning not only dozens of hits by the above acts as well as artists ranging from Whitesnake to Weezer, it also boasted a carefully curated roster that included such deeply credible acts ranging from Peter Gabriel and Sonic Youth to XTC, John Hiatt and the Roots.
It also cultivated an enormous number of executives who would become leaders themselves, including such top A&R execs and future label presidents or CEOs Gary Gersh, Tom Zutaut, John Kalodner and Wendy Goldstein.
Rosenblatt was born in 1934 in Queens, New York and after a stint in the army, followed by Macy’s management-training program, he moved to Cleveland to work at Cosnat Distributing, which was essentially his his introduction into the music business.
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