Michael Stanley, a rock legend from Cleveland and a well-known radio and TV personality, died at 72

CLEVELAND, Ohio – Nearly 50 years ago, Michael Stanley presented a lamentable view on mortality on his self-titled first solo album:

Here’s a song for a friend who’s soon to be gone

A friend whose life and mine became entangled

Leaving a lifetime soon / leaving a part of you behind

Stanley, who died of lung cancer at the age of 72 on Friday, leaves more than a small part of himself behind in his native Cleveland – and a gaping hole in a city where he is a rock ‘n’ roll king and ‘ a much-loved, award-winning radio and television personality.

To say Stanley was part of Cleveland’s material is anything but a cliché; It was the house he never left, and a place the man called ‘the Cuyahoga Messiah’ by Last Call Cleveland carried him along every time he would tour the country for heart-rock hits like ‘ He Can’t Love You ‘to play. ‘Lover’, ‘falling in love again and’ my city. ‘

“I had three good, separate careers with music, television, radio,” Stanley told The Plain Dealer in 2019 before receiving the Cleveland Arts Prize Lifetime Achievement Award. “Did we achieve everything we wanted? No. But we achieved things we never thought possible. I made a living with something I love. This is what I dreamed about as a teenager, and finally I did. ‘

The Stanley family released a statement on Saturday via its social media pages. ‘Michael fought lung cancer for seven months with the same strength and dignity he had throughout his life. He will always be remembered as a loving father, brother, husband, a loyal friend and the leader of one of Cleveland’s most successful rock bands. ‘

Ohio co-rocker and longtime friend Joe Walsh, who played on Stanley’s second solo album and covered his song ‘Rosewood Bitters’, said:’ Michael was the king of Cleveland, and of course the Michael Stanley Band became a power station in the Midwest. Michael has always been a master at producing songwriting. His songs have a way of getting into your head and have been songs for yourself over and over since … His music will always be part of me ”

Holly Gleason, a well-known music critic and writer, grew up in Cleveland and later became Stanley’s friend. “If you were a kid who grew up in Cleveland in the ’70s or’ 80s, he was our hand on the copper ring,” she said. “He was the promise of rock‘ n roll. He believed in rock ‘n’ roll. He believed in sports. He believed in Cleveland.

“He was so drawn to the angry heart that does not care that it will lose – it will still leave everything on the field. And when he wrote those songs, those kids in a city where the river caught fire and the lake died, they felt their lives mattered. ‘

Live Nation’s Michael Belkin, whose father Stanley ran for more than 40 years, recalled that love was part of a unique two-way relationship between the artist and his fans.

“In my career, I’ve never seen an artist as patient and polite as Michael with fans,” Belkin said. ‘I met him behind the scenes, before and after the show, saying hello, dinners and benefits. He has interacted with thousands of fans over the years, and he has been pleasant and gracious throughout. Always. Every time.”

Born Michael Stanley Gee (his father, Francis Stanley Gee, was a local radio personality), Stanley began playing in bands at Rocky River High School – where he also played baseball and basketball. The Sceptors made way for the establishments and tree stumps at Hiram College, which Stanley attended at a baseball scholarship. He earned a degree in Sociology and Comparative Religion, but music was his heart. Producer-engineer Bill Szymczyk signed the Tree Stumps to ABC Records, though he proposed a name change that Silk became for the 1969 release “Smooth As Raw Silk”.

“I signed the band basically because of him,” said Szymczyk, who continued a relationship with Stanley that included his latest album, “Tough Room,” which he brought to Cleveland in late February to play for Stanley. “I liked his songs and his quality. To me, he has always been a very, very good writer, and he has only gotten better over the years. “

After Silk’s death, Szymczyk brought Stanley to the Tumbleweed Records label in Colorado, with his self-titled solo album and “Friends and Legends”, both in 1973, and the last with Walsh and a corps “Colorado all- stars “who added politically. and bite. A year later, Stanley formed the Michael Stanley Band, a muscular blue-collar outfit whose dynamic performances are mentioned in the same breath as populist rock comrades such as Bruce Springsteen, Bob Seger and John Mellencamp.

“For people around us, music meant a lot – it’s part of the Midwest,” said original drummer Tommy Dobeck, who had Stanley as his best man at his wedding and made him his son’s godfather. ‘It was always baseball caps and tennis shoes more than glitter. I came from another group (Circus) that was big in satin; I said to Michael, “Should I wear something?” He said: ‘I do not give so well what you wear. Just play! “

David Spero, introduced to Stanley via Joe Walsh, managed Stanley throughout the ’70s, including a major label contract with Epic Records. “I think he’s probably one of our country’s most underrated writers in the kind of Bob Seger, the Bruce Springsteen story school,” said Spero, who ate lunch with Stanley almost every other Friday.

Stanley, of course, never broke into the same kind of multi-platinum success as those artists; His best album on the chart, ‘You Can’t Fight Fashion’ from 1983, peaked at 64 on the Billboard 200 – although there was some national fame via TV appearances with Dick Cavett, Merv Griffin and during ‘Don Kirshner’s Rock Concert’. ”

“All my career I could never get a monster record for him – it always made me angry,” Szymczyk said, adding that other notable producers – including Mutt Lange, Don Gehman and Eddie Kramer – did not ‘around Stanley either. over the hill. ‘I was like’ Damn, Bob (Seger) definitely erupted. Why can we not get Michael either. ‘He was big in the Midwest – Cleveland, Detroit, Pittsburgh. We just could not knock him out there. ”

In Cleveland, of course, it was a different story. He has played multiple night stands at the Richfield Coliseum and Blossom Music Center. Mellencamp, Billy Joel, Foreigner and others opened up to him early in their careers. The orchestra played in the Municipal Series in the World Series of Rock. “They’ve sold out more Ohio shows than ever before,” Walsh noted.

Stanley and the company also rarely let anything stand in the way of a good show. Drummer Dobeck recalled a wrench accidentally left by a crew member who fell off the lighting system during a Richfield Coliseum show and hit Stanley in the head. Michael thought someone was throwing something at him and was like, ‘Who the hell did that ?! ‘- which was so different from Michael. But it only took about ten seconds and we went to the song again. ‘

When a stage light exploded outside Detroit and cut Stanley’s face to shreds, Dobeck recalled “he just kept playing, blood running down his cheek. I was just like, ‘Wow, what a showman.’ ‘

The Michael Stanley Band ended in 1986, but Stanley continued to record and play live with his band The Resonators and the Midlife Chrysler. His musical range has been broadened, and his lyrics are getting richer, more wintery and even more cinematic, adding his songs with experience and the perspective of his years. And he never shyed away from an intelligent phrase or a capital letter; Szymczyk laughed when he remembered that Stanley’s songs had forced him to take out the dictionary more than once.

“If you look back at the work of any writer, you usually find a common theme or two that they try to hone,” said Stanley, who had a heart attack in 1991 and also had subsequent prostate cancer and a quadruple diversion. – The Plain Dealer said in 2012.

“I realized that mine is: you just never know. This whole idea of ​​never knowing what tomorrow is going to bring and being open to it. I almost always thought of it in a very positive way: ‘Hey! Tomorrow! Tomorrow is the day that something good happens! ”

Stanley, it seems, embarked on a bonus career that few would have expected – despite the legacy of his father. He won 11 local Emmy Awards as co-presenter of PMJ Magazine on WJW Channel 8, from 1987 to 1990, and then spent another year at the station’s Cleveland Tonight. He played himself in an episode of ‘The Drew Carey Show’.

Over the radio, Stanley spent more than thirty years on WNCX, weekday afternoons and Saturday mornings, ending just last month. He once said that ‘I’ve told every story 107 times already’, but that he was part of the city’s daily life only made him knit tighter in the dust.

“There’s no one who will take his place,” said Bill Louis of WNCX, who has worked with Stanley since 1995. ‘Hundreds of thousands of Clevelanders loved him on concert stages, then on PM Magazine and for the past thirty years they have driven home with him. every weekday on WNCX in their cars. That work will be without equal.

“Michael was a very bright light locally that we could call ours.”

Former manager Spero added that “(Stanley) was so accessible. He was involved with all the (sports) teams at some point. He was the one man who, if there was ever a fundraiser, knew I could always call him and say, ‘Can you just pass by’ and he would never say no? ‘If you sell out Blossom (four) nights in a row, you do not have to be so approachable, but he was.

“So it’s a big loss. I really could not have achieved a life without Michael. ”

There will of course be reminders – the section of Huron Avenue renamed Michael Stanley Way in 2019, for one. And there’s the upcoming ‘Tough Room’ which, according to Szymczyk, is definitely uptempo despite Stanley’s poor health. “It simply came to our notice then. He always … smoked and cried. I was always attracted to the anglers … and these have more witches than weeping leaves. ‘

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame issued a statement on Saturday recalling Stanley as’ our city’s most beloved musician, songwriter and rocker.

‘His heartland music resonated with legions of listeners, and his concerts set attendance records and assumed mythical proportions. More importantly, Michael’s songs spoke to our hearts. As fans, we worshiped and honored him, and in return he loved us. The energy of his music and the ability to bring people together made Cleveland the Rock and Roll Capital of the World, and it encouraged the community to come together and make our city home to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame make. We will miss Michael very much. ”

Stanley is survived by his daughters Anna Sary (Christian) and Sarah Sharp (Aaron); his sister, Nancy Oosterhoudt and cousin Claire Kloss; his wife, Ilsa Glanzberg and stepson Cole Sweeney; and his five grandchildren – Mallory Sidoti (Mike), Aidan Kraus, Brody Kraus, Wren Sary and Phoebe Sary. He was preceded in death by his mother, Martha Fitzpatrick; his father, Stanley Gee; and his late wife, Denise Skinner.

Stanley is buried in a private ceremony at Lake View Cemetery. The family requests contributions in memory of the Cleveland Food Bank (www.greaterclevelandfoodbank.org) and / or the Cleveland Animal Protective League (www.clevelandapl.org).