Art Fein, a Los Angeles music-scene renaissance man who worked as a journalist, publicist, manager and television host over a six-decade career, has died. He was 79.
Fein died of heart failure on July 30 while recovering from surgery for a broken hip, according to Cliff Burnstein, co-founder of Q Prime Management and a longtime friend.
Arthur David Fein was born June 17, 1946. Growing up in Chicago, he was transfixed by a Chuck Berry concert at age 10 and devoted his life to discovering, championing and preserving rock music. After moving to Los Angeles in 1971 to pursue a career in music journalism, he got a job in Capitol Records’ then-nascent college promotion department. There, he befriended John Lennon and Yoko Ono, while coordinating interviews with college radio stations for Ono’s latest album, “Approximately Infinite Universe.”
After leaving Capitol, he wrote music reviews for the Los Angeles Times, Herald-Examiner, Billboard and others before being hired as music editor at Variety. “By the time I got this job, I was sick of the new, aggravating profession of rock criticism,” he recalled in his 2022 memoir “Rock’s in My Head.” “It was about writers, not the music. I wasn’t interested in being terribly critical. I was an advocate. I wanted to help the music along; rock critics wanted to help their sense of superiority.”
He returned to the label world with stints at Elektra/Asylum and Casblanca but pivoted to management, incubating a proto-punk scene that would yield influential L.A. acts like the Cramps, the Blasters and the Heaters. A compilation he assembled, 1983’s “(Art Fein Presents) The Best of L.A. Rockabilly,” became a bible for bands inspired by X and Social Distortion, which drew from vintage rockabilly but amped it up for the punk age.
His public access cable TV show, “Lil Art’s Poker Party,” featured interviews and performances with his favorite musicians and ran in SoCal for 24 years. Rhino Records co-founder Richard Foos recalled that “for years we had a weekly poker game either at his house or mine. I was there the night [music critic] Lester Bangs was playing. We started the first hand, started talking music, and never played another hand.”
In 1990, Fein published “The L.A. Musical History Tour: A Guide to the Rock and Roll Landmarks of Los Angeles,” a compendium of locations guiding readers to grave sites of stars such as Roy Orbison and Ritchie Valens, and sites where Sam Cooke, Janis Joplin, Marvin Gaye, Tim Hardin, Dennis Wilson and Darby Crash died.
Fein also developed a complicated relationship with producer Phil Spector, to whom Lennon had introduced Fein as the man who “knows all about music.” Fein became part of Spector’s inner circle, even into his deeply troubled years when he was convicted of murdering House of Blues hostess Lana Clarkson. Fein maintained contact with Spector even after he was sentenced to life in prison.
The Blasters’ lead guitarist Dave Alvin wrote on Facebook that “Back in the early days of The Blasters, when few outside of Rollin’ Rock Records knew or cared who we were, Art cared deeply. In early 1980, I was a wannabe poet working as a fry cook in Long Beach … Art Fein played ‘Marie Marie’ to a Welsh rock ‘n’ roll singer named Shakin’ Stevens, who quickly recorded my song and made it into a huge international hit. … Thanks to Art Fein, I was soon able to quit my job as a cook and pursue music. I can never, ever thank you enough for all you did for me, Art.”
Singer-songwriter-guitarist Rosie Flores added that “back in ‘94 when I was touring with Butch Hancock in Europe, I took a bad fall, at the end of our month-long tour. I slipped in the rain on a cobblestone street in London and severely broke my wrist. Three months later I was invited to sing at the Elvis [annual birthday] bash at The House of Blues … It was normal protocol to donate all the money from the proceeds of the show and give it to an organization or a charity. This year, Art surprised me and handed me a stack of money to the tune of $1,500 for my medical bills. I didn’t expect that at all [and] it brought tears to my eyes.”
In the closing lines of his memoir, Fein wrote that “I can’t say anything terribly pithy or canny about the state of record sales, or streaming, or new delivery systems. Or how YouTube or TikTok are shaping contemporary music.”
“It turns out I didn’t want to be in the music business; I wanted to be in the music,” he wrote. “There I remain.”
Fein is survived by daughter Jessie and wife Jennifer.
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