Richard Sargent started his 55-year adventure in the music business in 1961 with a pirate radio station in Buffalo. That experience and publicity led to working with Tom Shannon at WKBW Radio and as a member of the Buffalo Bandstand show on WKBW TV. After 3+ years in broadcasting, Richard changed direction to performing and joined the Buffalo pop group The Avantis as bass player. Using what was learned about promotion and marketing at WKBW, The Avantis became one of the more popular and continuously working groups in the WNY area. In 1967 he changed gears in the music business working in record distribution and promotion. This led to National Promotion duties with the Tower Records division of Capitol Records in Los Angeles. He returned to Buffalo in 1968, and was involved in music production (Twiggs/Weekend/ Caesar & His Romans, Subconscious Minds and FARE TRADE).
He toured with Weekend on the Bobby Sherman Tour. In 1970 he returned to promotion and joined Janus Records (later Chess/Janus) moving to New York City in 1971 as National Promotion Director. He also worked at Paramount for their Neighborhood (Melanie) and Just Sunshine (Fabulous Rhinestones) labels. Richard produced the hit Weekend single "Together" for Goodtime Records which was distributed through Paramount.
In 1973 he returned to Buffalo after co-producing The Bells "Pisces Rising" album which contained 4 Top 20 Canadian hit singles. He was hired to restructure the Best/Gold Distribution promotion department. In 1975 he joined Amherst Records as National Promotion Director where he had Platinum sales success with Johnny "Guitar" Watson. In 1977 he moved back to Los Angles as head of promotion for Chelsea Records and later moved to Sire Records at the Warner Brothers office in Burbank. Richard was promoted to Vice President of Promotion in 1978 where we had success and the 1st #1 Sire single "Pop Music" by M.
He also had sales success with The Pretenders, Talking Heads, The Ramones, Searchers, Climax Blues Band and Madness. In 1981 he was hired by Feedback, an industry magazine and later promoted to Editor and then to Vice President. In 1983 he joined Lone Wolf Productions to set up the release of ZZ Top's "Eliminator" release. He was part of the team that planned the marketing, promotion and tour coordination. The album has sold over 12 million copies to date.
Richard moved back to Buffalo in late 1984, remaining with ZZ Top until 1987. Since then he has been involved with promotion which has resulted in being a part of a team that has had many hit singles and production that resulted in album releases and radio play for Buffalo area artists. Mr. Sargent was Inducted to the Buffalo Music Hall of Fame in 2008 and is currently a member of the Board Of Trustees.