| 14th December 2006 06:27 PM |
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| Poplar |
NEW YORK (AP) - Ahmet Ertegun, who helped define American music
as the founder of Atlantic Records, a label that popularized the
gritty R&B of Ray Charles, the classic soul of Aretha Franklin and
the British rock of the Rolling Stones, has died, his spokesman
said. He was 83.
Ertegun remained connected to the music scene until his last
days - it was at an Oct. 29 concert by the Rolling Stones at the
Beacon Theatre in New York where Ertegun fell and suffered a head
injury. He later slipped into a coma and spent weeks in the
hospital.
---------------------
This tour ... there will be books writen, and the writers will drop dead.
[Edited by Poplar] |
| 14th December 2006 06:32 PM |
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| Gazza |
Too bad, but somewhat inevitable
RIP Ahmet |
| 14th December 2006 06:33 PM |
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| lotsajizz |
RIP |
| 14th December 2006 06:34 PM |
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| pdog |
a bit better than the typical Record Industry people...
God bless him and his family... |
| 14th December 2006 06:34 PM |
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| Saint Sway |
very sad
too many head injuries connected with the Stones this year |
| 14th December 2006 06:39 PM |
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| Poplar |
quote:
Saint Sway wrote:
very sad
too many head injuries connected with the Stones this year
It's insane. This guy, Keith, Ronnie's bro, Mick's dad. |
| 14th December 2006 06:42 PM |
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| doo doo doo Dude |
Ahmet Ertegun, Thank You Kindly
R.I.P. |
| 14th December 2006 06:51 PM |
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| Gazza |
quote:
Poplar wrote:
It's insane. This guy, Keith, Ronnie's bro, Mick's dad.
I thought Ronnie's brother died of cancer? |
| 14th December 2006 06:55 PM |
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| Poplar |
just saying - death in general.
anyone else in the stones camp die during this tour? |
| 14th December 2006 07:04 PM |
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| glencar |
Ahmet should have gone up to the balcony level. We all survived! Indeed, we've thrived!!
RIP AE. You did good... |
| 14th December 2006 07:09 PM |
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| Gazza |
quote:
Poplar wrote:
just saying - death in general.
anyone else in the stones camp die during this tour?
Dunno, but there were quite a few people who used to be associated with them who died during the course of the tour
Off the top of my head :
Carlo Little (died when they were rehearsing before the tour started)
Billy Preston
Jeff Sarli (bassist on BTB)
Ian McLagan's wife Kim
Chrissy Wood (or was that earlier in 2005)
Anyway, its been a pretty dark year or two for the Stones
[Edited by Gazza] |
| 14th December 2006 07:59 PM |
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| mac_daddy |
Ahmet Ertegun, Founder of Atlantic Records, Dies
By TIM WEINER
The New York Times
Published: December 14, 2006
Ahmet Ertegun, the record-company magnate who founded Atlantic Records and shaped the careers of many of the top musicians of his day, including John Coltrane, Ray Charles, the Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin, died today in Manhattan. He was 83.
A spokesman for Atlantic Records said the death was a result of a brain injury suffered when Mr. Ertegun fell backstage at the Beacon Theater in Manhattan on Oct. 29 as the Rolling Stones prepared to play a private party celebrating former President Bill Clinton’s 60th birthday.Mr. Ertegun was the dapper son of a Turkish diplomatic family. He was equally at home at a high-society soirée or a rhythm-and-blues club, the kind of place where, in the 1950s, he found the performers who went on to make hits for Atlantic Records, one of the most successful American independent music labels.
He was an astute judge of both musical talent and business potential, surrounding himself with skillful producers and remaking rhythm-and-blues for the pop mainstream. As Atlantic Records grew from a small independent label into a major national recording company, it became a stronghold both of soul, with Aretha Franklin and Otis Redding, and of rock, with Led Zeppelin, Yes and the Rolling Stones.
Ever conscious of the music’s roots, Mr. Ertegun was also a prime mover in starting the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum in Cleveland.
Mr. Ertegun fell in love with music when he was 9 years old, he recalled. In 1932, his older brother, Nesuhi, took him to see the Duke Elllington and Cab Calloway orchestras at the Palladium Theater in London. The beauty of the jazz, the power of the beat and the elegance of the musicians made a lasting impression.
His instincts were not impeccable. He lost out on chances to sign the Beatles and Elvis Presley. But in an industry in which backstabbing is commonplace, Mr. Ertegun was admired as a shrewd businessman with a passion for the creative artists and the music he nurtured.
Along with a partner, Herb Abramson, Mr. Ertegun founded Atlantic Records in 1947 in an office in a condemned hotel on West 56th Street in Manhattan. His initial investment of $10,000 was borrowed from his family dentist.
By the 1950s, Atlantic’s records had developed a unique sound, best described as the mixed and polygamous marriage of Mr. Ertegun’s musical loves. He and his producers mingled blues and jazz with the mambo of New Orleans, the urban blues of Chicago, the swing of Kansas City and the sophisticated rhythms and arrangements of New York.
Mr. Ertegun often signed performers who had been seasoned on the rhythm-and-blues circuit. He pushed them toward dynamic performances and recorded them with careful studio technique while clarifying their music just enough to make it palatable to the white teenagers who would become the primary audience for rock ’n’ roll. Every so often, with his name spelled in reverse as Nugetre, Mr. Ertegun appeared as the songwriter on R&B hits like “Chains of Love” and “Sweet Sixteen.”
In 1954, Atlantic released both “I Got a Woman” by Ray Charles and “Shake, Rattle, and Roll” by Joe Turner. (Mr. Ertegun was one of the backup singers on “Shake, Rattle and Roll”). The songs had a good beat, and people danced to them. They were among the strongest roots of rock and roll.
After his brother Nesuhi joined Atlantic in 1956, the label attracted many of the most inventive jazz musicians of the era, including Coltrane, Charles Mingus, the Modern Jazz Quartet and Ornette Coleman. In 1957, Atlantic was among the first labels to record in stereo.
By the 1960s, often in partnerships with local labels like Stax in Memphis, Mr. Ertegun was selling millions of recordings by the leading soul musicians of the day, among them Aretha Franklin and Otis Redding. Ms. Franklin had recorded previously for Columbia Records, but her hits for Atlantic — which merged her gospel roots with an earthy strength and sensuality — were the ones that made her the Queen of Soul.
Mr. Ertegun’s music partnerships, he sometimes pointed out, were often culturally triangular. He was Turkish and a Muslim by birth. Many of his fellow executives, like the producer Jerry Wexler, were Jews. The artists they produced, particularly when the label began, were African-Americans. Together they helped move rhythm-and-blues to the center of popular music.
Mr. Ertegun and Ioana Maria Banu were married on April 6, 1961. Known as Mica, she became a prominent interior designer. She survives him.
The Ertegun brothers and their partner Mr. Wexler sold the Atlantic label to Warner-Seven Arts in 1967 for $17 million in stock. Four years later, the brothers took some of the money and founded the New York Cosmos soccer team.
But Mr. Ertegun kept making records. When the Kinney Corporation, a conglomerate of parking lots, funeral parlors, rental cars and other unmusical enterprises, bought out Warner-Seven Arts in 1969, he and his label kept going.
Mr. Ertegun was now a rock mogul. Atlantic Records signed the Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, and Crosby, Stills and Nash, who became Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young after Mr. Ertegun persuaded Neil Young to join the group. The corporations changed — Kinney turned into Warner Communications, which became Time Warner — but Atlantic and its founder still flourished.
It remained one of the only record labels of the 1940s to survive the multibillion-dollar mergers and acquisitions of the 1990s in more than name only, with its founder still in charge. Mr. Ertegun reduced his daily corporate duties in 1996 but remained an inveterate night-clubber, avid concertgoer and insatiable music maven well into his 80s.
Ahmet Ertegun was born in Istanbul on July 31, 1923. His father, Mehmet Munir, was the legal counselor to Kemal Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkey.
In 1925, Ataturk sent the elder Ertegun to serve as the Turkish representative to the League of Nations. Over the next 20 years, he was Turkish Ambassador to Switzerland, to France, to the Court of St. James under King George V and finally to the United States under President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The young Ahmet Ertegun grew up in that worldly realm. His father, the dean of the diplomatic corps in Washington, died in 1944.
That year, at 21, having earned a bachelor’s degree at St. John’s College in Annapolis, Md., Mr. Ertegun was taking graduate courses in medieval philosophy at Georgetown University.
“In between, I spent hours in a rhythm-and-blues record shop in the black ghetto in Washington,” he told the graduates of Berklee College of Music in Boston on receiving an honorary degree in May 1991. “And almost every night, I went to the Howard Theater and to various jazz and blues clubs.”
“I had to decide whether I would go into a scholastic life or go back to Turkey in the diplomatic service, or do something else,” he said. “What I really loved was music, jazz, blues, and hanging out.” And so, he told the students, he did what he loved. |
| 14th December 2006 08:04 PM |
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| mojoman |
RIP mr ertegun |
| 14th December 2006 11:25 PM |
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| GotToRollMe |
Aw, shit. *sigh*
RIP Ahmet.
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| 14th December 2006 11:51 PM |
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| texile |
RIP
he was such a big part of the stones story for me.
gazza is right - so many people associated with the stones are passing....
it's like mortality hitting us all in the face as we all get older.
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| 15th December 2006 12:06 AM |
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| texile |
wow, i just realized he was at the stones concert when he fell....
weird. |
| 15th December 2006 12:26 AM |
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| erikjjf |
Sad news.
Rest in peace, Ahmet. |
| 15th December 2006 12:40 AM |
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| Brainbell Jangler |
As-Salaamu Alaikum, Achmet.
Ertegun's contribution to our culture is substantial. The 12-CD box set, "Atlantic Rhythm and Blues 1947-1974" will give you an idea how important his label was.
It seems sad that he passed from an accident, as we will never know how long or how well he may have lived otherwise. Yet the scene of his last act was not unworthy of the cinematic quality of his whole life: hanging out backstage with the Stones. His was a life well and fully lived.
[Edited by Brainbell Jangler] |
| 15th December 2006 02:52 AM |
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| FotiniD |
Such sad news  RIP Ahmet Ertegun.
It's been a lousy year for the Stones, and I don't think it only has to do with them getting older - hence, people around are dying. Heck, what are the chances you attend a gig, fall over and knock your head and then die? That's an awfully long spell of bad luck. |
| 15th December 2006 05:51 AM |
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| Jumping Jack |
The entire Beacon week was bad news all the way around. Talk about bad karma. |
| 15th December 2006 08:59 AM |
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| Bitch |
It was on the local news that he died in a NY hospital, and his body will be shipped and burried in his native country of Turkey. There will be a memorial service in NYC early January.
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| 15th December 2006 09:39 AM |
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| Navin |
He once said "I can't imagine of a world without the Rolling Stones"
Maybe that wish is now fulfilled (for him)
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| 15th December 2006 09:54 AM |
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| Honky Tonk Man |
I hadn't heard of this guy before, but it is always sad when someone dies.
As far as their personal lives go, I just think the boys have had a really bad couple of years. It’s just being bad luck. Here to 2007 and the future being far better for them 
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| 15th December 2006 11:07 AM |
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| Gimme Shelter |
RIP Ahmet |
| 15th December 2006 11:09 AM |
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| Joey |
quote:
Poplar wrote:
NEW YORK (AP) - Ahmet Ertegun, who helped define American music
as the founder of Atlantic Records, a label that popularized the
gritty R&B of Ray Charles, the classic soul of Aretha Franklin and
the British rock of the Rolling Stones, has died, his spokesman
said. He was 83.
Ertegun remained connected to the music scene until his last
days - it was at an Oct. 29 concert by the Rolling Stones at the
Beacon Theatre in New York where Ertegun fell and suffered a head
injury. He later slipped into a coma and spent weeks in the
hospital.
---------------------
This tour ... there will be books writen, and the writers will drop dead.
[Edited by Poplar]
R.I.P. Old Friend !!!!!! |
| 15th December 2006 01:19 PM |
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| Ten Thousand Motels |
JAGGER LEADS TRIBUTES FOR ERTEGUN
LATEST: SIR MICK JAGGER has led tributes to music mogul AHMET ERTEGUN, who died at the age of 83 yesterday (14DEC06). The founding chairman of Atlantic Records never recovered after sustaining a head injury in a fall backstage at a ROLLING STONES concert at the Beacon Theatre in New York City on 29 October (06). The band's frontman Jagger says, "He was a marvelous man, very witty, a great raconteur who lived a full social and business life spanning 50 years of popular music. "He will be fondly remembered by all who knew him and I will personally miss our warm and long friendship." JANN WENNER, founder of Rolling Stone magazine, also paid tribute to Ertegun, saying, "Ahmet was perhaps the most revered, respected figure in American popular music of the modern era." Ertegun will be buried at a private ceremony in his native Turkey. A memorial service will be conducted in New York in the New Year (07). 15/12/2006 17:42
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| 15th December 2006 06:22 PM |
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| danielharris627 |
damn...rip... |
| 15th December 2006 08:52 PM |
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| glencar |
quote:
Jumping Jack wrote:
The entire Beacon week was bad news all the way around. Talk about bad karma.
Those were great shows. Karma bullshit.
The news shows had some nic etributes to him today. John Gibson on FOX used to work for Ahmet & said what a nice man he was. Ahmet's Dad was the Turkish ambassador to the US at one point. That's how he fell in love with American pop music. |
| 15th December 2006 11:11 PM |
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| gotdablouse |
RIP and one of his later achievements was getting Mick to dig deep to come up with "Wandering Spirit" in 1992/93. Story goes that he turned down two first attempts and that he sent him to work with Rubin for the third one. That led to the best Stones related project this side of...hum, Exile ? |
| 16th December 2006 01:51 AM |
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| Brainbell Jangler |
quote:
glencar wrote:
Ahmet's Dad was the Turkish ambassador to the US at one point. That's how he fell in love with American pop music.
Not exactly. According to the article in this thread, he says he first fell in love with the music at the age of nine when his brother took him to see Duke Ellington and Cab Calloway at the Palladium in London. Their dad was still ambassador to England at the time, before they came to U.S. Before that, he had been ambassador to France, Switzerland and the League of Nations, and before that legal advisor to Kemal Ataturk. Achmet lived in embassies from the time he was two. But you are correct that his love for and knowledge of American R&B and jazz developed mostly since he moved here.
[Edited by Brainbell Jangler] |
