Music Promoter, Producer, Impresario. He was best known as “The Father of the British Invasion.” A musical visionary, he worked passionately to import the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, the Kinks, the Animals, the Dave Clark Five, the Moody Blues, and Herman’s Hermits in the early 1960's. Sidney Bernstein was born in Manhattan and adopted by a Russian immigrant couple. As a youth, he worked in his father’s tailor shop and made deliveries. Early on he had an interest in the arts. At thirteen, he went downtown to see movies, stage, and vaudeville shows. He attended James Monroe High School in the East Bronx, and helped a talented classmate to get on the popular radio show, “The Major Bowes Amateur Hour.” After high school, his first promotion was his first, alumni reunion dance. He studied journalism at Columbia University, while running a ballroom in Brooklyn. He joined the army in 1943, serving in France with the 602nd Anti-Aircraft Artillery Gun Battalion at the Battle of the Bulge. Stationed in Dijon after the war, he published the newspaper “Comeback Diary,” and opened and ran a G.I. nightclub. After the war, he booked shows at Brown’s Hotel in the Catskills, dances at the Tremont Terrace in the Bronx, and managed the Esy Morales orchestra. After Morales died in 1950, he worked for the booking agency, Shaw Artists, and then General Artists Corporation (GAC). His passion for music crossed many genres. He presented Miles Davis at the Apollo in Harlem, and helped arrange rock and roll shows with Alan Freed. He promoted Ray Charles, the Drifters, and Bo Diddley for a show at the Brooklyn Paramount, and arranged a folk festival at Carnegie Hall with Mississippi John Hurt, Doc Watson and Tom Paxton. He arranged a jazz concert with Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, and John Coltrane. In 1961, he took over the organization of the Newport Jazz Festival, and added Bob Hope and Judy Garland to the show. By 1962, Sid Bernstein was a concert impresario. At Carnegie Hall, he presented Judy Garland in 1961, and Tony Bennett in 1962. In 1963, he took a course in politics under Dr. Max Lerner at the New School for Social Research in New York. He was required to read a British newspaper every week, and noticed the European excitement over the Beatles. On a strong hunch and incredible instinct, he contacted their manager, Brian Epstein. A year later, the Beatles played two concerts at Carnegie Hall on February 12, 1964. The same month at Carnegie Hall, he presented Shirley Bassey on February 15th and three days later, Count Basie. He brought the Rolling Stones to Carnegie Hall in June of 1964, and arranged shows for the Kinks, Manfred Mann, the Animals, the Moody Blues, and other British bands at the Paramount Theatre and the Academy of Music. Also in 1964, he brought many Israeli singers to the U.S.for major concerts. On August 15, 1965, he promoted the famous Beatles concert at Shea Stadium. It was the first venue in the history of “sports stadium rock.” In March of 1966, he presented James Brown at Madison Square Garden for his debut appearance. He managed Count Basie, Tony Bennett, Ornette Coleman, the Rascals, and Laura Nyro. In 1970, he co-produced the Winter and Summer Festivals for Peace with Peter Yarrow and Phil Friedman, at Madison Square Garden and Shea Stadium. Among the artists were Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Peter, Paul, and Mary, Miles Davis, Paul Simon, Steppenwolf, CCR, Dionne Warwick, Herbie Hancock, and many others. He was an early backer of ABBA, arranging the group’s first American appearances. In 1975, he promoted the U.K.’s Bay City Rollers in the U.S. In 1976, he made the Beatles a 230 million dollar offer to re-form for a last concert, which they turned down. In 2000, he wrote a memoir with Arthur Aaron called,”Not Just the Beatles...,” republished in 2001 as,”Sid Bernstein Calling.” In the 1990’s, the Liverpool councillors appointed him cultural ambassador. In 2010, a feature-length documentary film about him by Jason Ressler and Evan Strome was called,”Sid Bernstein Presents.” At age 93, he made his singing debut, featuring his favorite songs on a CD called,”Sid Bernstein Presents.” On August 21, 2013, Sid Bernstein died in his sleep at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City. He was 95. Sid Bernstein was laid to rest Friday, August 23, 2013. It was the 48th anniversary of his final presentation of the Beatles at Shea Stadium in 1966.