Steve Popovich Legendary Music Industry Executive Passes Away at 68

Steve Popovich & Steve Popovich Jr. 

It is with deep sadness, we report the passing of Steve Popovich. The legendary music executive passed away at the young age of 68. Our condolences go to Steve Popovich Jr and his family. Steve Jr. produces Cowboy Jack Clement's SiriusXM show which is now in it's 7th year. Please keep Steve and the Popovich family in your thoughts & prayers.

Steve Popovich, a veteran music-industry executive who ran Cleveland International Records and who was based here for much of his storied career, had numerous claims to fame. The biggest was his key role in one of the best-selling albums of all time, Meat Loaf’s “Bat Out of Hell.”

Popovich died Wednesday morning at his apartment in Murfreesboro, Tenn. He was 68.

The cause of death has not been determined, according to his son, Steve Popovich Jr.

Popovich was a music-industry insider, but also a working-class maverick who worked outside the corporate system. He played a vital role in the careers of the Jacksons, Frankie Yankovic, Boston, Cheap Trick, Ted Nugent and many others.

While other record companies showed no interest in Meat Loaf, Popovich sensed potential and released the singer’s “Bat Out of Hell” through Cleveland International in 1977. The multiplatinum collection of mock-operatic rock ’n’ roll rhapsodies yielded several hit singles, including the Top 20 smash “Two Out of Three Ain’t Bad.”

Others had written off Meat Loaf as an overweight misfit. But “Bat Out of Hell” was doggedly worked by Popovich for more than a year -- radio station by radio station, region by region -- until the misfit become a chart-topper.

The album has sold 14 million copies in the United States alone, according to the Recording Industry Association of America.

“Steve would discover something and want to share it with everyone,” said friend Cindy Barber, owner of Cleveland’s Beachland Ballroom. “And he had this rare enthusiasm that made things happen.”

“Bat Out of Hell” was “magic,” Popovich recalled during a 2002 interview.

“Every major label passed on ‘Bat Out of Hell’ before Cleveland International picked it up," he said. "It was the day and age of the wimpy-looking, Peter Frampton-types. Then here comes Meat Loaf, this huge guy with an amazing voice.”

The album was distributed by the Epic division of CBS Records, which later became part of the Sony empire.

In 1995, Popovich and his former partners sued Sony for unpaid “Bat Out of Hell” royalties. The case was settled out of court for nearly $7 million.

As part of the settlement, Sony was required to place the Cleveland International logo on reissues of “Bat Out of Hell.” When Sony failed to do so, Popovich sued the company again. A jury awarded him an additional $5 million in damages in 2005.

Popovich was a native of Nemacolin, Pa. He moved to Cleveland when he was a teenager, following the death of his father, a coal miner.

By the early 1960s, Popovich was playing bass in a band called the Twilighters and unloading trucks at a local Columbia Records warehouse.

After working his way up the ranks of Columbia’s promotions department, he became vice president of promotions for the label’s parent company, CBS Records, in New York City.

After the Jackson 5 left Motown, Popovich signed them to Epic Records in 1975. “I've always gone with my gut,” he told The Plain Dealer in 2009.

“You're trying to evaluate if the best part of somebody's career is ahead of him or behind him. Sometimes you're right, and sometimes you're wrong. With the Jacksons, we were right.”

Popovich was named the top promotions executive in the business by Billboard, a music-industry trade magazine. He also oversaw promotions for everyone from Bob Dylan to Bruce Springsteen.

He resigned from CBS in 1976 and returned to Cleveland to launch his Cleveland International label.

Besides Meat Loaf, the company put out recordings by a wide variety of other artists, including Ronnie Spector and Ian Hunter.

Along the way, Popovich also championed his adopted hometown.

“Keep your eye on Cleveland,” read a Cleveland International ad. “It’s where the new breakouts are coming from.”

Popovich was the executive producer of Frankie Yankovic’s 1985 album,“70 Years of Hits with Frank Yankovic,” the first album to win a Grammy in the best polka recording category.

Popovich moved to Nashville in 1986 to become a senior vice president at Polygram Records, where he worked with country superstars such as Johnny Cash and Kris Kristofferson.

A decade later, Popovich was back here, running Cleveland International again.
 Brave Combo, a polka band, won a Grammy for its 1999 Cleveland International release, “Polkasonic.”

“Steve was a unique creature,” said Brave Combo frontman Carl Finch.

“I didn’t know anyone who loved music as much as he did. I remember driving around with him, and he’d drive really fast, playing tamburitza music really loud.

“When ‘Polkasonic’ won a Grammy, he sent us a big bouquet of flowers. He was the kind of guy who always had our back. . . . One time, we were playing a show in Denmark and Steve came all the way there to see us.”

“My dad didn’t get into the music business for the money or the fashion, obviously,” said Steve Popovich Jr. “He was in it because he was a fan of music and had an undeniable passion for a lot of genres.”



“Come weekends, the guys from the coal mines would come together and play music, whether it was tamburitza or polkas or folk music,” said the younger Popovich. “It was a melting pot for all types of nationalities, from Polish to Italian to Jews to Croatian to Serbs.”

Popovich’s open mind transcended music. He tried to make sense of all political opinions and religious views. On varying Sundays, you could find him in a Greek Orthodox church or a Catholic church or a Methodist church.

Popovich “was an enormously generous person,” said Alex Machaskee, former publisher and president of The Plain Dealer.

“I met him in 1970s, playing tamburitza music,” Machaskee said. “We would have a Serbian New Year’s party, and he would always show up. He loved music and loved to be around people.”

Popovich was inducted into the National Cleveland-Style Polka Hall of Fame in 1997.

He recently moved to Tennessee to be near his son’s family, including grandchildren Steven and Tanner.

Other survivors include daughter Pamela Popovich and sister Barb Lemmo. Monreal Funeral Home in Eastlake is handling arrangements, which have not been finalized. Popovich will be buried in Western Reserve Memorial Gardens in Chesterland.
Source: BackinMemphis/Cleveland/Nashville