Beatles Promoter Sid Bernstein Dies at 95
Music promoter Sid Bernstein, who worked with legends from Judy Garland to Jimi Hendrix and orchestrated the Beatles’ historic concert in New York’s Shea Stadium in 1965, died on Wednesday aged 95.
Bernstein, an agent and manager who according to his friend, publicist Merle Frimark, died in New York, worked with some of the biggest names in show business, including Frank Sinatra, the Rolling Stones and Ray Charles.
But it was through his concept of staging concerts at stadiums, and his help launching the so-called British invasion by first bringing the Beatles to the United States, that he made his biggest mark.
Bernstein once said of managing the Beatles that he had to convince Carnegie Hall and his financial backers to take a chance on “this then-unknown group” after he became “fascinated with the hysteria that surrounded them.”
Other top acts Bernstein worked with over the years included Tito Puente, Fats Domino and Tony Bennett.
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.
If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.
Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO