[UPDATED: Nov. 06, 2008 1:21 PM]
CORRECTION:
Longtime industry exec Lisa McCall reached out to SR.com today to say, “Jheryl and I were never married, but we were close friends and business associates. I’ve been running his companies for over ten years.”
Longtime music executive Jheryl Busby has passed away. Busby was found dead Tuesday in his hot tub at his home in Malibu, California. He was 59-years-old.
The cause of death is thought to be drowning, but a corner’s report has not been released. “It appears it could be a possible accident, or he died of natural causes,” Ed Winter, a spokesman for the Los Angeles County coroner’s office, said Wednesday. An autopsy was planned.
Busby got his start in the music business doing promotional work for now-defunct Stax Records in the early 1970s.
He was so successful at stirring up interest in his label’s acts that he quickly moved on to promotional and artist development roles at Casablanca, Atlantic, CBS and A&M Records.
At his next stop, MCA Records, Busby rose to become president of the company’s black music division by 1984. He made a priority of signing established performers, including Patti LaBelle and Gladys Knight, who had lost their record company deals in the post-disco era.
He also helped discover and market such groups as New Edition, Jody Watley, Bobby Brown, and the Jets, helping them cross over from the R&B music charts to the more mainstream top 40 lists. Along the way, he turned MCA into the industry’s black music sales leader.
In 1988, he was hired at Motown. “I thought it couldn’t get any better: president and CEO of probably the most important record label in America in terms of black music,” he told the New York Times.
But Busby was forced out in 1995 after a legal dispute with MCA. Three years later, he was named head of the urban music division at Dreamworks SKG.
Busby also became a majority stakeholder in Founders National Bank, the first African-American-owned and operated commercial bank in California, in 1998.
Funeral arrangements have not been announced. (Source)
