Steve Popovich, Jr. with Steve Popovich, Sr. (c) Steve Popovich, Jr.
Steve Popovich: Cleveland International Records
Steve Popovich (1942–2011) was an American music producer, promoter, and founder of the record label Cleveland International Records, an American of Serbian descent who left a deep mark on the history of rock 'n' roll.
He was born in 1942 in Nemacolin, a small coal-mining town in Pennsylvania. After his father's death, at the age of seventeen, he moved with his family to Cleveland. He entered the music business from the bottom rung, as a stockroom worker at the warehouse of Columbia Records, landing that job with the help of the Slovenian-American polka star Frank Yankovic, to whom he would remain grateful his entire life.
Thanks to his hard work and his ear for talent, he rose quickly: at the age of thirty he became the first Vice President of Promotion at Columbia Records and the youngest vice president in all of CBS, where he worked on launching names such as Bruce Springsteen, while some of the most famous names whose promotion he handled include Bob Dylan, Janis Joplin, Simon & Garfunkel, the band Chicago, and Miles Davis.
In 1977 he founded his own record label, Cleveland International Records. Its greatest success - and at the same time one of the greatest in the history of rock 'n' roll - was Meat Loaf's album "Bat Out of Hell."
The record, produced by Todd Rundgren to songs written by Jim Steinman, had been rejected by every major label; it was believed there was no market for eight-minute rock operas of Wagnerian sweep.
Popovich, however, believed in the project and worked tirelessly to promote it, and his months-long effort paid off. The album sold more than 40 million copies worldwide and to this day is considered one of the best-selling records of all time.
Popovich was also a great champion of polka music: as executive producer he was behind the album by his old acquaintance Frank Yankovic that in 1986 won the first Grammy Award ever presented in that category, while the album by the group Brave Combo took home a Grammy in 1999. His work connects him to six nominations and two Grammy Awards, and in 1997 he was inducted into the National Cleveland-Style Polka Hall of Fame.
In his final years Popovich moved to Tennessee to live near his son Steve Popovich Jr. and his family. He died aged 68 on June 8, 2011, in his home in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, and was survived by son Steve Jr, daughter Pam and his grandchildren Steven and Tanner. He is buried in Western Reserve Memorial Gardens in Chesterland.
Sources: Pupin Initiative & Wikipedia