Who was the founder of Atlantic Records, Ahmet Ertegun?
The last time Led Zeppelin played together (substituting on drums John Bonhamhis son Jason) was on 10 December 2007 at the 02 Arena in London. That was the highlight of an evening of music dedicated to the memory of Ahmet Ertegunfounder of Atlantic Recordswith the aim of raising funds for a charity that bears his name (the Ahmet Ertegun Education Fund, which provides grants to deserving and needy college students in the United States, the United Kingdom and Turkey). But who was he? Ahmet Ertegun died on December 14, 2006 at the age of 83?
Cultured, refined and bon vivant Ertegun was one of the most legendary, respected and charismatic figures in the history of the music industry.
He was born on 31 July 1923 in Istanbul to an aristocratic and wealthy family (his father, Mehmen Munir, was legal advisor to Kemal Ataturk, the father of modern Turkey, and held the role of ambassador for his country in Switzerland, France , in England and the United States at the time of Roosevelt), but when, in 1947, he decided to launch Atlantic Records in New York together with his partner Herb Abramson he borrowed the money needed to start the business, 10 thousand dollars, from the family dentist. From its offices located in a dilapidated hotel located on West 56th Street in Manhattan, Atlantic quickly became one of the cradles of rhythm & blues and black music, until then confined almost exclusively to black audiences: among its first great successes include “I got a woman” by Ray Charles and “Shake, rattle and roll” by Big Joe Turner (in which Ertegun, who also wrote numerous songs under the pseudonym of Nugetre, also appears at the choirs).
The label’s “roster” included other great talents of the period such as Ruth Brown, LaVern Baker, Drifters, Coasters and Clovers while the passion for jazz of Ahmet’s older brother, Nesuhi, who joined the company in 1956, led to hiring giants of that scene like John Coltrane, Charles Mingus, Ornette Coleman and the Modern Jazz Quartet. In 1967, along with business partner and producer Jerry Wexler, the Ertegun brothers sold the label to Warner Brothers-Seven Arts for $17 million (which they used in part to found the New York Cosmos soccer team, where Pelè, Giorgio Chinaglia and Franz Beckenbauer played), while maintaining the artistic direction. During that same decade they broadened their scope to include soul, launching into orbit the careers of Aretha Franklin and Otis Redding (the spearhead of the Stax label from Memphis, of which Ertegun’s record company had become distributor) and to rock, publishing records by the Rolling Stones (in North America), Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, Yes and Led Zeppelin.
At the time, the contract signed in 1968 with Jimmy Page’s quartet caused a lot of talk both for its innovative clauses (the band and its manager Peter Grant were guaranteed full control of the artistic production) and for the record size of the ‘advance, 200 thousand dollars.
Zeppelin remained tied to Atlantic as a distributor even when they launched their own Swan Song label in 1974. Nesuhi passed away in 1989, while Ahmet remained in office as president of Atlantic until his death at the age of 83 on December 14, 2006. His death was caused by a cerebral hematoma following a fall that occurred the previous October 29 at the Beacon Theater in New York , backstage at a concert that the Rolling Stones had organized to celebrate Bill Clinton’s sixtieth birthday. From the coma into which he fell, Ertegun never recovered.
“Ahmet was a man of great tales and great adventures, an interesting guy to hang around with, a real one
party animal
” Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page recalled to Mojo magazine in 2007. “You could relate to someone like him in a different way than, say, someone who worked in the legal department. He came to see Led Zeppelin many times and lived a rock’n’roll life.” Amen.
