Seymour Stein record exec who signed up Madonna dead at 80

NEW YORK – Seymour Stein, the brash, prescient and highly successful founder of Sire Records who helped launched the careers of Madonna, Talking Heads and many others, died Sunday at age 80. Stein, who helped found the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Foundation and was himself inducted into the Rock Hall in 2005, died of cancer in Los Angeles, according to a statement by his family. Born in 1942, Stein was a New York City native who as a teenager worked summers at Cincinnati-based King Records, James Brown’s label, and by his mid-20s had co-founded Sire Productions, soon to…