"Someday you'll go to a concert and by the time you leave you'll be able to buy the recording of that night's show."
-Russ Regan, at a 1983 music industry conference

Who is Russ Regan?
The man behind that prescient 1983 quote is a music-industry legend who discovered Barry White and supervised the soundtracks for "Flashdance," "Chariots of Fire," "The Karate Kid" and "Spinal Tap."

Regan began his career as a promoter with Motown Records, where his first project was a little tune called "Please Mr. Postman" by the Marvelettes. He would go on to promote songs by The Supremes, Smokey Robinson & The Miracles and Marvin Gaye. He helped Frank Sinatra record "That's Life." And in 1961, when a friend asked him to suggest a new name for a band called the Pendeltons that had just recorded a song called "Surfin," Regan came up with one: The Beach Boys.

He signed Neil Diamond. And Elton John. And in 1983 he saw the future of concert recordings, and for that, Mr. Regan, we salute you.