Eddie Rosenblatt, the longtime Geffen Records executive who played a vital role in the careers of such artists as John Lennon, Don Henley, Aerosmith, Guns N’ Roses, Beck and Nirvana, and who helped turn Geffen and its spinoff, DGC, into two of the most successful labels of the era, died on Tuesday at a Santa Barbara hospital. He was 89. His son Michael said the cause of death was pneumonia.

David Geffen appointed Rosenblatt president of Geffen when he founded his namesake label in 1980, after the two had struck a friendship when Geffen was managing Joni Mitchell and Rosenblatt was working at Warner Bros. Records in the sales and marketing department. Geffen Records made an early splash, signing big-ticket acts like Elton John and Donna Summer, but it was John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s Double Fantasy, released shortly before Lennon was killed, in 1980, that became its first landmark LP.

Rosenblatt, known affectionately as “The Chief,” presided over the label’s run of success in its early years, breaking acts like Peter Gabriel, Quarterflash and Whitesnake, and overseeing releases by established stars Henley, Mitchell and Neil Young. In 1990 David Geffen sold the label to MCA for $550 million and announced the launch of DGC, with Rosenblatt serving as its president. DGC became synonymous with the boom in alternative rock and its harder-edged offshoot grunge, releasing seminal titles from Nirvana, Sonic Youth, Weezer, Hole and Beck, while Geffen continued its success with the likes of Guns N’ Roses and Counting Crows. In 1994 alone, Geffen and DGC generated $500m in album sales, more than a quarter of the global revenue of MCA’s music division.

In ’95, David Geffen stepped down from his position as Geffen Records chairman to co-found DreamWorks SKG, naming Rosenblatt as his successor. At the time, Rosenblatt’s former boss at Warner, Mo Ostin, said, “If you think of David as the vision behind Geffen Records, then Eddie is the heart. That label is not just profitable, it’s got hipness and heat, and Eddie is the glue that has held it together all these years.”

During his tenure, Rosenblatt served as mentor and leader to such executives as Johnny Barbis, Bill Bennett, Dennis Dennehy, Al Coury, Tom Zutaut, Gary Gersh, John Kalodner, Bryn Bridenthal, Marko Babineau, Peter Baron, David Berman, Mark DiDia and Wendy Goldstein.

Amid the massive consolidation brought about by Seagram’s purchase of PolyGram in 1998 and the merger of PolyGram with Universal Music Group, Rosenblatt departed the company and retired from the music business.

Eddie Rosenblatt was born on Nov. 6, 1934, in Far Rockaway, Queens, New York. He received a degree in Applied Arts from Brooklyn College in 1952, then served two years in the Army. After a stint in Macy’s management-training program, he moved to Cleveland to work at Cosnat Distributing, where he got to know early rock & roll impresarios Phil and Leonard Chess, among others.

In 1962 he left Cosnat to join Main Line Distribution, forging important relationships with such future machers as Gil Friesen, Jerry Moss and Jac Holzman. In 1967, Rosenblatt moved west to work in the sales department at A&M Records, then took a job in 1971 with Warner Bros. By 1972, he, Dave Glew and Mel Posner, under the watchful eye of Joel Friedman, were running the new distribution company WEA; the three were known internally as “Grip” (G for Glew, sales head at Atlantic; R for Warner sales manager Rosenblatt; and P for Elektra's Posner). Rosenblatt remained at Warner until the launch of Geffen Records in 1980.

He'd been living in Montecito since his retirement. An avid tennis player and philanthropist, he is survived by his four children—Michael, Steven, Peter and Gretchen—six grandchildren and one great-grandchild. Bobbi, his wife of 68 years, died in 2023.

In lieu of flowers, gifts in memory of Rosenblatt can be made to the Sansum Clinic, a nonprofit outpatient health-care organization, at https://www.sansumclinic.org/donate-now.

From top of photo array: Rosenblatt with Mo Ostin and George Harrison; with Joni Mitchell; with Henry Droz and Lenny Waronker; with Robbie Robertson; with Rickie Lee Jones; with Debbie Harry.