Veteran artist manager Bud Prager, probably best known for managing Foreigner, died of esophageal cancer on 22 Dec, he was 79.
Prager co-founded his music company Windfall, which would go on to have recording, publishing, management and production divisions, with Cream producer Felix Pappalardi in the sixties.
He brought together the seventies rock outfit Mountain, and then the supergroup of sorts West, Bruce And Laing, which combined two members of Mountain with Cream's Jack Bruce.
But it was as manager of Foreigner, from 1976 through to the early nineties, that Prager scored the most success. Despite an all round lack of label interest, he managed to secure a deal with Atlantic that would result in millions of record sales.
In the late nineties he managed metallers Megadeth, and continued to be involved in the careers of numerous rock acts as boss of ESP Management up until his death.