Marty Thau

Who was Marty Thau?

Marty Thau was an American rock 'n' roll entrepreneur and music producer. He was best known as the founder of Red Star Records in 1977, arguably America's first full—fledged post '60s indie punk—new wave label and for being the manager of the New York Dolls and co-producer of Suicide's classic self-titled debut album.

Thau was raised in New York City and attended New York University, 1956–1960. After spending the latter half of the '60s as an award winning record industry executive at Cameo-Parkway and Buddah Records, he joined an independent production/publishing/management company, Inherit Productions, as one of three partners. In Thau's 12 months at Inherit the company released two classic albums by Van Morrison, Astral Weeks and Moondance, Vintage Violence by ex-Velvet Underground member John Cale, the debut album by rock power-trio Glass Harp, an album by Cass Elliot—when she switched over to RCA Records from ABC Records—and a project by bittersweet story-teller, Biff Rose. All of the above mentioned albums were produced for Inherit by Lewis Merenstein, one of Thau's partners.