Former Ramones Co-Manager Linda S. Stein Found Murdered In New York

Linda S. Stein, a New York City real estate agent who helped foster the careers of punk pioneers the Ramones as their co-manager, is dead at sixty-two. Stein was found bludgeoned to death in her Fifth Avenue apartment and police have ruled the death a homicide. As the wife of Sire Records head Seymour Stein in the Seventies, Stein helped the Ramones secure a series of landmark concerts in Britain. She was also heavily entrenched in the music scene at the time, as her husband's label had artists like Talking Heads, Madonna and the B-52's on its roster. Elton John considered Stein a dear friend for nearly four decades, saying in a statement yesterday, "I'm absolutely shocked and upset. She's been a friend for over thirty-seven years and will be greatly missed." Though the Steins divorced in late Seventies, Linda enjoyed an incredibly successful second career as a real estate broker, selling properties to some of the biggest names in all industries and serving as the model for the character portrayed by Sylvia Miles in Wall Street. Stein is survived by two daughters and a granddaughter.

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Song Stories

“I'm Yours”

Jason Mraz | 2008

Jason Mraz re-emerged after his disappointing second album with this lead single, a Jack Johnson-esque ditty about giving yourself fully to someone else. The success of the reggae-tinged song (it earned two Grammy nods and a spot on the Billboard singles chart for well over a year) was something the folk-pop singer never predicted when he wrote it in 15 minutes at home. "I played a happy-hippie chord progression that would probably work without 50 different Bob Marley songs," he told Rolling Stone. "I thought, 'It's too novelty. This is a nursery rhyme,'" concluding that "you can never guess what's gonna be a hit."

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