Michael Stanley, Cleveland rock legend and noted local radio and TV personality, dead at 72

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Nearly 50 years ago, on his self-titled first solo album, Michael Stanley offered a plaintive view about mortality:

Here’s a song for a friend soon gone

A friend whose life and mine became entwined

Leaving soon for a lifetime/Leaving part of you behind

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

To say Stanley was part of Cleveland’s fabric is anything but a cliché; It was the home he never left, and a place the man dubbed “the Cuyahoga Messiah” by Last Call Cleveland, carried with him whenever he’d tour the country to play heartland rock hits such as “He Can’t Love You,” “Lover,” “Falling in Love Again and “My Town.”

“I had three pretty good, separate careers with music, the television, the radio,” Stanley told The Plain Dealer in 2019, before receiving the Cleveland Arts Prize Lifetime Achievement Award. “Did we accomplish everything we wanted to? No. But we accomplished things we never thought of. I’ve been making a living doing something I love. This is what I dreamed about as a teenager, and I ended up doing it.”

Stanley’s family issued a statement Saturday via his social media pages. “Michael battled lung cancer for seven months with the same strength and dignity he carried 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.”

Fellow Ohio 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 Midwest powerhouse. Michael has always been a master at the craft of songwriting. His songs have a way of getting in your head and became songs you end up singing to yourself over and over from then on...His music will always be part of me”

Holly Gleason, a noted music critic and author, grew up in Cleveland and later became Stanley’s friend. “If you were a kid coming of age in Cleveland in the 70s or the 80s, he was our hand on the brass ring,” she said. “He was the promise of rock ‘n’ roll delivered. He believed in rock ‘n’ roll. He believed in sports. He believed in Cleveland.

“He was so emblematic of that raging heart that doesn’t care that it’s gonna lose -- it’s still gonna leave everything on the field. And when he wrote those songs, those kids in a city where the river caught on fire and the lake died, they felt like their lives mattered.”

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

“In my entire career, I have never seen another artist as patient and polite as Michael was with fans,” Belkin said. “Backstage, pre- and post-show meet & greets, dinners and benefits, I saw him interact with thousands of supporters over the years, and he was consistently pleasant and gracious. 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 gave way to the Establishments and the Tree Stumps at Hiram College, which Stanley attended on a baseball scholarship. He earned degree in Sociology and Comparative Religion, but music was where his heart was. Producer-engineer Bill Szymczyk signed the Tree Stumps to ABC Records, albeit suggesting a name change that became Silk for the 1969 release “Smooth As Raw Silk.

“Basically I signed the band because of him,” said Szymczyk, who continued a relationship with Stanley that includes his final album, “Tough Room,” which he brought to Cleveland to play for Stanley at the end of February. “I liked his songs and I liked his vocal quality. To me he’s always been a really, really good writer, and he’s just gotten better over the years.”

After Silk’s demise Szymczyk brought Stanley to the Colorado-based Tumbleweed Records label, producing his self-title solo album and “Friends and Legends,” both in 1973 and the latter featuring Walsh and a corps of “Colorado all-stars” that added polish and bite . A year later, Stanley formed the Michael Stanley Band, a muscular, blue-collar outfit whose dynamic performances were mentioned in the same breath as populist rock peers such as Bruce Springsteen, Bob Seger and John Mellencamp.

“To people in our area, the music meant a lot -- that’s part of the Midwest,” said original drummer Tommy Dobeck, who had Stanley as best man at his wedding and made him godfather of his son. “It was always baseball caps and tennis shoes more than glitter. I came from another band (Circus) that was big into satin; I said to Michael, ‘Am I gonna have to wear anything?’ He said, ‘I don’t give a s*** what you wear. Just play!”

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

Stanley, of course, never broke through to the same kind of multi-platinum success as those artists; His top charting album, 1983′s “You Can’t Fight Fashion,” peaked at No. 64 on the Billboard 200 -- though there was some national notoriety via TV appearances with Dick Cavett, Merv Griffin and on “Don Kirshner’s Rock Concert.”

“All the way through the entire career, I could never get him a monster hit record -- that always pissed me off,” said Szymczyk, noting that other notable producers -- including Mutt Lange, Don Gehman and Eddie Kramer -- couldn’t get Stanley over the hump, either. “I was like, ‘Damn, Bob (Seger) sure busted out. How come we can’t get Michael, too.’ He was huge in the Midwest -- Cleveland, Detroit, Pittsburgh. We just couldn’t bust him out of there.”

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

Stanley and company seldom let anything get in the way of a good show, either. Drummer Dobeck remembered a wrench, inadvertently left by a crew member falling from the lighting truss during a Richfield Coliseum show and hitting Stanley in the head. “Michael thought someone threw something at him and was like, ‘Who the hell did that?!’ -- which was so unlike Michael. But that only lasted for about 10 seconds and we went back into the song.”

When a stage light above exploded outside of Detroit and shards cut Stanley’s face, meanwhile, Dobeck remembers “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 bands the Resonators and the Midlife Chrysler. His musical reach broadened, and his lyrics became richer, more seasoned and even more cinematic, infusing his songs with experience and the perspective of his years. And he never shied away from an intelligent phrase or upperclassman word; Szymczyk laughed as he recalled that Stanley’s songs had him pulling out the dictionary on more than one occasion.

“If you look back at any writer’s body of work, you usually find a common theme or two that they’ve been trying to hone,” Stanley -- who suffered a heart attack in 1991 and also battled subsequent prostate cancer and a quadruple bypass -- told The Plain Dealer 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’d almost always thought of it in a very positive way: ‘Hey! Tomorrow! Tomorrow’s the day something good happens!”

Stanley, as it turned out, embarked on a bonus career few might have expected -- despite his father’s legacy. He won 11 local Emmy Awards as co-host of WJW Channel 8′s “PM Magazine” from 1987 to 1990, and then spent another year on the station’s “Cleveland Tonight.” He played himself on an episode of “The Drew Carey Show.”

On the radio, Stanley spent more than 30 years on WNCX, weekday afternoons and Saturday mornings, ending just last month. He once quipped that “I have told each story 107 times already,” but being part of the city’s daily life only knitted him more tightly into that fabric.

“There’s no one that will take his place,” said WNCX’s Bill Louis, who worked with Stanley since 1995. “Hundreds of thousands of Clevelanders loved him on concert stages, then on PM Magazine and for the last 30 years they drove home with him in their cars every weekday on WNCX. That body of work will prove to 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 one point or another. He was the one guy, who, if there was ever a fundraiser, I knew I could always call him and say, ‘Could you just come by’ and he would never say no.’ When you sell out Blossom (four) nights in a row, you don’t have to be that accessible, but he was.

“So, it’s a huge loss. I really have not come to terms with a life without Michael.”

There will be reminders, of course -- the section of Huron Avenue renamed Michael Stanley Way in 2019, for one. And there’s the forthcoming “Tough Room,” which Szymczyk said is decidedly uptempo despite Stanley’s failing health. “It’s pretty rocked out. He always has...rousers and weepies. I was always drawn to the rousers...and this one has more rousers than weepies.”

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame issued a statement Saturday, remembering 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 took on mythic proportions. Even more importantly, Michael’s songs spoke to our hearts. As fans we adored and revered him, and in return he loved us right back. The energy of his music and its ability to bring people together helped to make Cleveland the Rock and Roll Capital of the World, and it galvanized the community to rally together and make our city the home of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. We will miss Michael dearly.”

Stanley is survived by his daughters Anna Sary (Christian) and Sarah Sharp (Aaron); his sister, Nancy Oosterhoudt and niece 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 is predeceased by his mother, Martha Fitzpatrick; his father, Stanley Gee; and his late wife, Denise Skinner.

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