The announcement was made in a Facebook post by his friend Robert Duncan.
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Sandy Pearlman, a pioneering rock critic who later produced and managed Blue Oyster Cult and worked with The Clash, Patti Smith and other punk artists, has died.
Duncan had earlier paid tribute when he set up a GoFundMe page a year ago in a bid to raise money for medical fees after Pearlman had suffered a cerebral haemorrhage in December 2015.
Duncan wrote that Pearlman “passed peacefully surrounded by love” Tuesday morning, and that a celebration of his life would be announced in the coming days.
He eventually moved from writing about music to becoming an influential player in New York’s burgeoning underground music scene, helping launch the careers of bands Blue Oyster Cult and The Dictators.
Pearlman managed the band and produced nine of their albums starting with their 1972 self-titled debut and running through 1988’s Imaginos, their last album on Columbia and the set that finally brought Pearlman’s vision to life.
“One of the most iconic songs in rock history is Blue Oyster Cult’s “(Don’t Fear) The Reaper” from their 1976 album Agents of Fortune.
“He is a poet, producer, songwriter, manager, label owner, member of the Library of Congress preservation board, professor of music and philosophy at McGill and University of Toronto”. He was immortalised in the Saturday Night Live sketch, “More cowbell”, where Christopher Walken played a fictionalized version of the producer.
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Pearlman’s career also included stints as Black Sabbath’s manager (1979 to 1983) and vice president of the early online music retailer, eMusic.
