SJM Concerts has paid tribute to Chris York, who has died aged 55 following a long illness.
In a statement, SJM said its team were “deeply saddened” by the death of the leading UK promoter and director of the company.
Chris York joined Simon Moran at SJM in 1993 and they established the company over the next 30 years.
The pair met at a Levellers gig at Brixton Academy.
“It was a lively exchange, but we both came out of it with a positive view of each other,” York told Music Week in 2020 for our Aftershow feature. “I worked for a different organisation at the time, but we decided to join forces later on down the line and that was the start of a great business and personal friendship that has lasted nearly 30 years.”
York played a major role in the success of SJM, which has won the Music Week Awards Promoter trophy 10 times, holds the record for the biggest-selling UK concert tour in history (Take That) and now employs more than 80 full-time staff and a similar number of freelancers. It currently has over 1,000 shows on sale.
“It is a company shaped and forged by Chris, Simon and Rob [Ballantine] over three decades that has helped define the UK’s live music scene,” said today’s statement from the promoter.
York worked with some of the biggest artists in the world and UK, including Oasis, Foo Fighters, Green Day, Chemical Brothers, Lily Allen, Massive Attack, Robert Plant, Underworld, Lorde, Morrissey, Placebo, Suede and Stereophonics. He promoted many of his acts from club touring to arenas and stadiums.
Speaking to Music Week in 2020, he described one of his best career decisions: “Probably listening to the white label of [Oasis’] Columbia that fell into my hands. It was one of those hairs on the back of your neck moments – a great mixture of snarling rock‘n’roll and a bit of the Sex Pistols. You could see the fervour of the fans at their early shows, but I don’t think anybody in their right mind could have predicted how big it would get and how fast.”
York was also instrumental to the development of the Teenage Cancer Trust fundraising concerts, alongside The Who’s Roger Daltrey, live producer Des Murphy and fellow SJM director Rob Ballantine. He was the lead talent book for the annual residency at the Royal Albert Hall, which has featured performers including Take That, Ed Sheeran, Florence + The Machine, Arctic Monkeys, Pet Shop Boys, The Cure, New Order and Sir Paul McCartney. It has raised more than £30 million for the charity to date.
York also helped to launch the multi-venue Country To Country (C2C) festival, which has been one of the main drivers for the growth of the genre in the UK. In recognition of his work, in 2021 he was awarded the Jo Walker Meador International Award by the Country Music Association.
“The audience has grown and part of that is to do with our partnership with BBC Radio 2, which has been very positive about pushing country music,” he told Music Week in 2019. “It is also to do with the modern way that C2C markets country music to people, which I don’t think had been done quite as effectively before.”
In 2022, he was honoured at the International Live Music Conference, where he was presented with their annual Bottle Award for Lifetime Achievement.
Music Week would like to express our condolences to the family and friends of Chris York. You can read our 2020 Aftershow career retrospective interview here.
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