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Donald's Encyclopedia of Popular MusicA B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y ZPEARLMAN, Sandy(b Samuel Clarke Pearlman, 8 August 1943, Queens, NY; d 26 July 2016) Producer, songwriter, manager, music biz executive, educator. He attended the State University of New York at Stony Brook, then graduate school at Brandeis after he had already promoted concerts, as well as writing a science-fiction epic in verse called The Soft Doctines of Imaginos. In 1967 he was also writing for Crawdaddy, one of the first rock mags to take criticism seriously, where he is said to have coined the term 'heavy metal'. At Stony Brook he had begun to form a rock band, calling them at first Soft White Underbelly (from a WWII Winston Churchill quote about the invasion of Italy); later they became Blue Öyster Cult. Pearlman produced and co-produced their albums from 1972-1988, as well as managing them and writing some of their lyrics. The band had a lot in common with the British band Black Sabbath, and the two bands eventually toured together; Pearlman became Black Sabbath’s manager from 1979-1983, and also managed other bands, among them the Dictators. With his longtime business partner Murray Krugman, he produced one of the earliest albums described as punk rock, The Dictators Go Girl Crazy! '75, as well as the Clash's second album, Give ’Em Enough Rope '78. He also produced The Medicine Show '84 by the neo-psychedelic band Dream Syndicate. Meanwhile he had begun working with Blue Öyster Cult’s drummer, Albert Bouchard, on an immense concept project based on the sci-fi epic of his school days; what finally emerged was a Blue Öyster Cult album called Imaginos '88. Having helped to invent heavy metal and punk, he unsurprisingly turned out to be a businessman with his eye on the future. He founded a recording studio, first in San Francisco, then in Marin County, where he lived, and bought a San Francisco record label, renaming it Popular Metaphysics. He was a founder of Goodnoise Corporation, one of the first online music stores, later renamed eMusic. He lectured and consulted widely on the music business in the new digital era, and finally became a college professor, at McGill University in Montreal, then at the University of Toronto, where he taught and created courses in music, English, religious studies, law and management. He had planned to return to teach at Stoney Brook, where it all began, when he had a cerebral hemorrhage in December 2015.
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