Jeff Cheen, the longtime music executive who worked with John Lennon, Deep Purple, Rick James and Pink Floyd, promoted concerts around the world and helped bring reggae, American pop and jazz to China, has died. He was 80.
Cheen died Thursday after a long battle with cancer, his wife, Chunhong, announced.
After serving as an executive for such labels as Tetragrammaton, Mercury, Capitol and Far Out Music, Cheen expanded into the Asian market after producing the first Pacific Rim Festival in Los Angeles.
That led him to consulting for the Ministry of Culture for the People’s Republic of China and for Ausmusic in Australia, and his InterStar Music was the first Western company to enter into a joint venture with the Chinese to distribute pop and rock across Asia.
Cheen brought American blues, jazz and reggae to China, toured Jimmy Witherspoon and Helen Reddy through Asia and produced albums for the Chinese heavy metal band Tang Dynasty and LPs of Chinese country music.
A native of New York who attended White Plains Senior High School and Ithaca College, Cheen got his start in music as a teenager working for Leonard Chess, his uncle, at Chess Records in Chicago.
In Los Angeles, he became national promotion director for Tetragrammaton, where his clients included Lennon, Deep Purple, Joan Rivers and Tiny Tim.
He moved to Mercury in Hollywood, overseeing record production and artist signings; oversaw rock A&R at Capitol, working with Lennon, George Harrison, Pink Floyd, Steve Miller and Bang; and headed the management division at Far Out Music, home of James and War.
After living in Beijing and Hong Kong for 13 years, Cheen returned to the U.S. and landed a gig as vp business development for B.B. King’s blues clubs, overseeing worldwide corporate licensing.
In Charlotte, North Carolina, he taught a course on the business of music at Catawba College and founded the Charlotte Music Awards in 2006.
He also was a founding board member of the Hollywood Music in Media Awards and joined the Pacific Coast Group to assist artists in recouping royalties owed them from streaming, songwriting and publishing in the Far East.
In addition to his wife, whom he married in 2015, survivors include his sons, Justin and Garrett, and his grandchildren, Henry and Eva. Donations in his memory can be made to Autism Speaks.
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