Clive was a lawyer.\u00c2\u00a0 Mo was an accountant.\u00c2\u00a0 But Ahmet was always a music lover.<\/p>\n
Ahmet didn’t get into the business by accident.\u00c2\u00a0 He NEEDED to be in it, he needed to get CLOSER!\u00c2\u00a0 Because he was infected, and the only way he could be cured was to sign acts, write songs, produce records, be involved, IMMERSED in music.<\/p>\n
Ahmet was no different from you and me.\u00c2\u00a0 It wasn’t about the money, he needed to own the disc and go to the club, he needed to revel in the notes.\u00c2\u00a0 Yes, he was a man of taste, and eventually wealth, but money was never his prime motivation, rather it was the SOUND!<\/p>\n
I believe I first came across Ahmet when I started to wonder what that credit was, you know, the songwriter who was named "Nugetre".\u00c2\u00a0 What kind of name was Nugetre?\u00c2\u00a0 Where did they find such a person?\u00c2\u00a0 Certainly no one with such a strange name could write a hit song, he should be off in a foreign land, smoking unfiltered cigarettes.\u00c2\u00a0 But then I found out that Nugetre was a pseudonym, that those songs were really written by one Ahmet ERTEGUN!<\/p>\n
How did you pronounce Ertegun?\u00c2\u00a0 Was it just like it was spelled, or did I need some kind of decoding box.\u00c2\u00a0 Kind of like reggae.\u00c2\u00a0 I remember reading about the island sound in "Time" in a library carrel at Middlebury.\u00c2\u00a0 Was it gae like in "gay", as in the euphemism for homosexual?\u00c2\u00a0 Or was it gae like in "gie", you know, like Reggie in the Archie comic books.\u00c2\u00a0 I needed to get it right.\u00c2\u00a0 Especially if I wanted to be an insider.\u00c2\u00a0 I couldn’t commit a faux pas.\u00c2\u00a0 I needed to be COOL!<\/p>\n
But no one I knew had any contact with this impresario.\u00c2\u00a0 And there was no Internet.\u00c2\u00a0 It was just a name on the records.<\/p>\n
And what records they were!<\/p>\n
I was too young to be around at the time of Atlantic’s inception.\u00c2\u00a0 When I came across those Atlantic LPs, the company name was already established in my mental lexicon.\u00c2\u00a0 No different from Columbia or Capitol, a MAJOR BRAND!<\/p>\n
This was when logos still appeared on the front cover, before the acts took control and they were banished to the back side.\u00c2\u00a0 I’d sit and look at that Young Rascals album, with the modern logo, as "I Ain’t Gonna Eat Out My Heart Any More" poured out of the one speaker "stereo" in my bedroom.<\/p>\n
But then there was the day my sister Wendy wanted to buy a single at Barker’s, on the Post Road in Westport.\u00c2\u00a0 She couldn’t exactly pronounce the name, it came out something like ‘Arathea".\u00c2\u00a0 But this hit disc, it too was on Atlantic, the 45 featuring a red and black logo, which the company ultimately embraced for all their product, but not until years later.<\/p>\n
And what was Atco?\u00c2\u00a0 Was this a whole different company?\u00c2\u00a0 Why did they need two companies?\u00c2\u00a0 Was Atco the discount version?\u00c2\u00a0 And, if so, why did this stepchild feature Cream?<\/p>\n
I’d study the covers, the liner notes.\u00c2\u00a0 I wasn’t surprised that Led Zeppelin came out on Atlantic, with the red, white and green label, since the company had ALL the hip English bands.\u00c2\u00a0 But I finally realized who Ahmet Ertegun was when he wooed the Rolling Stones.<\/p>\n
The Beatles had broken up.\u00c2\u00a0 The Stones had always lived in their shadow.\u00c2\u00a0 But, with "Beggars Banquet" and "Let It Bleed", which featured not only "You Can’t Always Get What You Want", but the ETHEREAL "Gimmie Shelter", the Stones had truly staked their own claim, they were no longer single makers, they MATTERED, and they were OUT OF THEIR CONTRACT!\u00c2\u00a0 And the negotiations for a new label were all over my bible, my newfound addiction, the folded magazine "Rolling Stone".\u00c2\u00a0 Yes, this debonair TURK, who wore suits, who looked OUT OF PLACE, rumor had it he was going to sign the Stones.\u00c2\u00a0 And he did.\u00c2\u00a0 Even though supposedly he offered less money.\u00c2\u00a0 You see, Mick needed to be on Atlantic.<\/p>\n
And once the band switched to Atlantic, via their own vanity label, they had their true breakthrough record, "Sticky Fingers", with the anthem "Brown Sugar".\u00c2\u00a0 Yes, the weekend didn’t really begin until you’d had a few beers and the needle dropped into the groove and you threw your hands up at the appropriate moment and went WHEW!\u00c2\u00a0 God, how did we all know to do this?\u00c2\u00a0 I guess it was INSTINCT!<\/p>\n
And then Ahmet Ertegun\u00c2\u00a0 was a fixture.\u00c2\u00a0 Always on the scene.<\/p>\n
But I didn’t have personal contact until 1989, when the phone rang, and his assistant said he wanted to talk to me.<\/p>\n
This was the one guy who mattered.\u00c2\u00a0 This was the one guy my MOTHER knew about, having read the profile in "The New Yorker", coming away impressed with the details of Ahmet and Mica’s life.<\/p>\n
And not like a sophisticate, not like an urbanite, but a true record man, Ahmet got on the phone and told me that Alannah Myles record I’d written about, the one I said had stalled, it was going to NUMBER ONE!<\/p>\n
And "Black Velvet" did.<\/p>\n
It was like I’d been visited by a God.\u00c2\u00a0 An all powerful seer.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s not a moment I’ll ever forget.\u00c2\u00a0 But it was trumped by an interaction at a LifeBeat event at the old Marineland, on the Palos Verdes Peninsula, in the late nineties.\u00c2\u00a0 Daniel Glass had invited me.\u00c2\u00a0 But I found myself hanging with the Atlantic folk, Val Azzoli, Ron Shapiro…\u00c2\u00a0 And seated at the round table, in the open air, was the legend and a lady friend.\u00c2\u00a0 The newbies were ignoring him, like he was their grandfather and they’d felt obligated to bring him along, but didn’t want anything to do with him.<\/p>\n
With such an opening, I plunked my ass right down next to him.\u00c2\u00a0 And started to speak.<\/p>\n
I’ve learned to temper it a bit recently.\u00c2\u00a0 Because royalty can’t handle irreverence, can’t handle someone playing on their level.\u00c2\u00a0 But this was almost a decade back, when I had to be me all the time, and within moments of sitting down, I was hassling Ahmet.<\/p>\n
Oh, I was giving him good-natured shit.\u00c2\u00a0 Ribbing him.\u00c2\u00a0 But Ahmet rose to the occasion.<\/p>\n
After I accused him of ripping off his dentist to start the label, of weaseling his way into the business, Ahmet said that that wasn’t true, that if only I were interested, he’d tell me the REAL story.\u00c2\u00a0 And upon declaring that OF COURSE I was interested in the true history of Atlantic Records, Ahmet set out to detail it, incident by incident, year by year.\u00c2\u00a0 It was like listening to a living encyclopedia.\u00c2\u00a0 But I could interact, I could ask questions.<\/p>\n
And Ahmet wasn’t talking down to me.\u00c2\u00a0 It was like we were in it together.<\/p>\n
And after about half an hour or so, some of the newbies left their conversations about the evanescent crap they were releasing and gathered ’round and started to listen in.<\/p>\n
The label was working Duncan Sheik.\u00c2\u00a0 Which Ahmet pronounced "SHAKE".\u00c2\u00a0 Ahmet said the new music was crap.\u00c2\u00a0 That Mr. Sheik had been booked at this venue in Paris, owned by his old friend, and that he was almost embarrassed to have him playing there.<\/p>\n
You see this guy would book whomever Ahmet told him to.\u00c2\u00a0 This guy TRUSTED Ahmet.\u00c2\u00a0 So when Ahmet told him to book Sonny & Cher, this guy did.\u00c2\u00a0 But, then there was a frantic phone call from overseas.\u00c2\u00a0 You see they were WHITE!\u00c2\u00a0 Everybody Ahmet had recommended previously had been BLACK!\u00c2\u00a0 He couldn’t have a white act at his club!<\/p>\n
But Ahmet convinced him.\u00c2\u00a0 And the act delivered.<\/p>\n
And suddenly it was me and Ahmet against the newbies.\u00c2\u00a0 We were in it together, with the kind of camaraderie you’ve got with your best friend, your drinking buddy, the guy you grew up with.<\/p>\n
But finally, after about an hour, Ahmet’s lady friend implored him to leave.<\/p>\n
Ahmet stood up.\u00c2\u00a0 Said goodbye.\u00c2\u00a0 And started to walk off.<\/p>\n
But after going five or six steps, Ahmet turned around.\u00c2\u00a0 And walked back to where I was sitting.\u00c2\u00a0 And took his cane and rapped it on my chair, and looked me in the eye and smiled.\u00c2\u00a0 And then took off again.<\/p>\n
I never talked to Ahmet thereafter.\u00c2\u00a0 I might have seen him at an event, but I was afraid to go up and say hi, for fear he wouldn’t recall me.\u00c2\u00a0 I wanted to remember that magic moment.\u00c2\u00a0 When we were brothers.<\/p>\n
And I always thought it was so sad that Nesuhi predeceased him.\u00c2\u00a0 How Ahmet must be lonely.\u00c2\u00a0 How he’d outlived so many of the buddies he used to run with.<\/p>\n
But now Ahmet’s joined them at the table.\u00c2\u00a0 No doubt wearing a dapper suit.\u00c2\u00a0 He might not be playing in the band, but you KNOW he put it together.<\/p>\n
And it’s hard to stop.\u00c2\u00a0 I can take solace in the fact that due to modern recording equipment, his legacy, those RECORDS, will live on.\u00c2\u00a0 But I want to leave you with one of his famous quotes.\u00c2\u00a0 Something you should never forget.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s not about beats, or genres, but boils it down to the sheer essence.<\/p>\n
Yes, Ahmet used to say that a hit record was something you heard on the radio at midnight, while lying in bed in your pajamas, that made you jump up, put on your clothes and run to the all night record shop to buy.<\/p>\n
That’s the passion.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s what makes us all like Ahmet.\u00c2\u00a0 We’ve heard those records.\u00c2\u00a0 We’ve needed to own them.\u00c2\u00a0 We’ve needed to listen to them again and again.<\/p>\n
Our fearless leader is gone.<\/p>\n
But his memory, his ethic, it lives on.<\/p>\n
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Clive was a lawyer.\u00c2\u00a0 Mo was an accountant.\u00c2\u00a0 But Ahmet was always a music lover. Ahmet didn’t get into the business by accident.\u00c2\u00a0 He NEEDED to be in it, he needed to get CLOSER!\u00c2\u00a0 Because he was infected, and the only way he could be cured was to sign acts, write songs, produce records, be […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-632","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life","category-music-business"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s96vPs-ahmet","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/632","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=632"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/632\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=632"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=632"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=632"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}