In this latest excerpt from our recently published special issue, History of the Music Biz: The Mike Sigman Interviews, the great Eddie Rosenblatt recalls the early days and first extraordinary signings of Geffen Records, and a devastating loss.

“I’m set to start with David right after Labor Day (1980) and I take a week in Hawaii. The minute I walk into my hotel room in Hawaii, David calls and tells me he signed Elton John and Donna Summer. I say, ‘Holy shit, it’s serious.’ I come back. We start.”

“I get a call from Phil Spector, who I knew from A&M. He says, ‘[John] Lennon’s in the studio—he doesn’t have a deal.’ ‘Oh, thank you, Phil!’ I go up to see David and I say, ‘Do you know Yoko?’ He says, ‘Of course.’ I say, ‘Call her, and make the deal.’ Which of course he did.”

Dec. 8, 1980 â€¯

Eddie tells a riveting story about the awful night of Dec. 8, 1980. â€¯

“I’m in New York, staying at the Sherry Netherland. David had an apartment right next door, still does. I’m in bed. I know something’s happening, but it’s all vague. So I call David and say, ‘What’s going on?’ He says, ‘Meet me downstairs in two minutes.’ I go downstairs, we hop a cab to Roosevelt Hospital. It was too late. John had already passed.

“We walk out with Yoko—a photo of us made the front page of theâ€¯Daily News.â€¯We get into two police cars and they take us into the underground of the Dakota. We go up to their apartment, where I had been the previous day talking to Yoko about marketing and all the stuff we were gonna do with John.

“We stayed with Yoko all night. In the morning I went back to my hotel, passing throngs of saddened fans lining the streets in front of their building. I tried to pull myself together. What a tragedy. Words cannot express my grief, and the grief that shook the world.”

To obtain a copy of History of the Music Biz: The Mike Sigman Interviews, contact Robin Gerber at (818) 506-8800.