POP MUSIC : A Founding Father of Rock ‘n’ Roll

It was a moment of deep irony.

More than two dozen recording acts performed at Atlantic Records’ gala 40th anniversary concert last weekend at Madison Square Garden, and nearly half could stake some reasonable claim to the title “superstar.”

No one on stage, however, commanded more respect among industry insiders than the immaculately groomed man in his mid-60s who headed toward the microphone just before midnight to accept an award.

Imagine the insiders’ surprise when they heard some jeers from the audience.

The capacity crowd had been waiting more than 10 hours--through such best-selling Atlantic acts as the Bee Gees, Iron Butterfly and Phil Collins--for the evening’s biggest lure: Led Zeppelin.

There had been occasional shouts of “Zeppelin, Zeppelin” between numbers of the l-o-n-g show, but no impatient heckling until this man walked on stage--a man whose expensive sport jacket and somewhat stiff, aristocratic manner suggested the worlds of high finance or international diplomacy more than rock ‘n’ roll. The crowd wanted Zeppelin now .

The irony of the scattered jeers wasn’t just that the man on stage had co-founded the record company that released Led Zeppelin’s albums in America, but--as a songwriter and record executive--helped champion in the ‘50s and early ‘60s the “outcast” black music that inspired Zeppelin and countless other British and American pop and rock musicians.

If the audience really knew the history of rock ‘n’ roll, it would have given this man--Ahmet Ertegun--a standing ovation.

Except for Berry Gordy at Motown, few record executives are known by the average pop fan, despite the massive influence these titans exercise over the direction of pop music.

But that’s the way it should be, Ahmet Ertegun has always felt.

Shy by nature, Ertegun, for 40 years as head of Atlantic Records, has maintained that it’s the artist who deserves the attention, not the record company or the executives.

With that in mind, he has done few interviews--most notably a classic, two-part New Yorker profile a decade ago that contrasted his street-level music instincts with his jet-set life style. Ertegun even initially resisted the idea of a flashy Atlantic anniversary concert at the Garden. One reason he finally proceeded with the show was that the event--through various television projects and corporate sponsorships--could net about $10 million for charity.

Born in Istanbul in 1923, Ertegun was raised in an educated, highly cosmopolitan atmosphere. His father was a diplomat, serving in Paris and London before being named Turkish ambassador to the United States in 1934.

The young Ertegun and his older brother, Nesuhi, fell in love with American black music, notably jazz and blues, as youngsters in Europe. They were thrilled when the family moved to Washington, where they built a collection of 15,000 records and sponsored jazz concerts.

Ertegun, who studied philosophy at St. John’s College in Maryland and Georgetown University, moved to New York in the late ‘40s, and, with a $10,000 loan, opened Atlantic Records with partner Herb Abramson, who later left the label. While also specializing in jazz, the company’s key contribution to contemporary pop music was a semi-polished, sing-along brand of rhythm & blues.

Records by such Atlantic artists as Ray Charles, Joe Turner, Clyde McPhatter & the Drifters, Ruth Brown, LaVern Baker and the Coasters helped Atlantic--along with Chess Records in Chicago and Sun Records in Memphis--become a leader in popularizing and defining rock ‘n’ roll in the ‘50s.

Of the three great labels, however, only Atlantic continued as a force in the record industry past the early ‘60s. With help from partner Jerry Wexler and other key aides, Ertegun branched into such other cornerstone areas as soul music (Aretha Franklin, Otis Redding, Wilson Pickett), British blues-rock (Cream, Led Zeppelin) and West Coast rock (Buffalo Springfield; Crosby, Stills & Nash).

The momentum continued in the ‘70s as Atlantic, either through direct signings or through marketing deals with other labels, became the home of such acts as the Allman Brothers Band, Bette Midler, Manhattan Transfer, Roberta Flack, Roxy Music and the Rolling Stones. U2 heads the list of Atlantic-affiliated artists in the ‘80s.

As Atlantic expanded (and was eventually sold to the company that is now known as Warner Communications), its roster lost much of its early vision. Though Atlantic continued to sign acclaimed acts, it also signed the likes of Vanilla Fudge in the ‘60s and Nu Shooz in the ‘80s. Still, Atlantic has played such a distinguished role in shaping pop music over the last 40 years that Ertegun was voted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame--one of the few non-performers to be so honored.

To help promote last weekend’s concert, Ertegun agreed to a few interviews. This question-and-answer session is drawn from Ertegun’s informal meeting with seven European music writers and a subsequent private interview with The Times. The order of the questions has been changed in a few places to better reflect the flow of Ertegun’s story.

When you started Atlantic, wasn’t it hard for a small, independent company to get its records played on the radio--especially black records?

Very much so. . . . When we made a record that was a rhythm & blues hit--for example, “Sh-Boom” by the Chords (in 1954), we got a lot of air play (on stations specializing in black music) and sold a lot of copies to white people (who listened to those stations). But when the Crew Cuts covered the song on Mercury Records, they had immediate access to white radio because they were a white group. . . . And this was repeated many times.

You usually speak of yourself as a New York record company. Were most of your early artists based here?

Yes, because I didn’t have enough money when we started the label to travel. Most of the artists we signed in the beginning were either based in New York . . . or in easy access to New York.

Were there lots of musicians and singers to choose from?

Strangely, no. We wanted to make funky soul music, but there were no funky soul (musicians here). All the funky soul music came out of Mississippi or Louisiana or Texas and they migrated for the most part to Chicago and to Los Angeles. In Los Angeles, you had some really soulful bands around people like Charles Brown, Amos Milburn, T-Bone Walker and so forth. . . . Chess Records found all those great blues players in Chicago, but we didn’t have any blues clubs in New York.

In New York, we had urban, very sophisticated musicians who came out of the big bands and singers who were straight pop singers, imitating Billy Eckstine or singing standards and so forth. . . . Take the Clovers, for instance. They were a good sounding group from Washington, D.C., but they were singing standard pop ballads. . . .

What we did was take the best singers we could find and musicians that we found and try to force them to play soul music, which they really didn’t like in those days. Most of the (New York musicians) didn’t like the blues. . . .

That’s why I started to write songs (for them) that were structured with blues changes or gospel changes in ways that forced the singer to sing in a soulful way. As a result of that, we came out with a sound which was halfway toward funk.

Did that seem like a compromise to you?

Well, we wanted to make music like those people did (at Chess Records), but we didn’t have the right people. Eventually, however, we got the right people. . . . Clyde McPhatter, Ray Charles. He was funky, soulful, inventive, a great songwriter.

How did you discover some of those people?

My favorite group in those days was Billy Ward & the Dominoes and the reason they were great was that Clyde was the lead singer. I went down to see the group one night and I asked why Clyde McPhatter wasn’t with them. Billy Ward said he had fired him.

I thought, “Oh, my God, that’s the greatest news I’ve ever heard.” I went straight to the pay phone and looked in the book and there were two McPhatters. I called the first one . . . and I recognized that high voice right away. The next day he was up at our studio and within two or three weeks, we had formed a group, the Drifters.

Did you learn about the blues through Chess Records?

Oh no, Chess started the same year we did. We had been listening to blues and jazz records for years. The whole reason we are in this business is that we love music. Now we love other kinds of music, but first it was only two kinds. We spent hours and hours every day playing records.

How did you attract a white audience in those days?

Although the country was still segregated, the radio dial was not segregated . . . so the kid could turn one notch over from listening to Perry Como and listen to (Chess Records’) Chuck Berry, and when they heard Chuck Berry, they said they liked that better, so they stayed with the black station. . . . One of the kids listening to those black stations was Elvis Presley.

Elvis started out covering black artists as well.

But he was different from the Crew Cuts or Perry Como. The first time I heard him was when he covered the Drifters’ “Money Honey.” He sounded real . I knew he was going to be big. We offered (Sun Records) $25,000 for his contract, which was huge at that time for any record company, but especially for us. I think we may have had $32,000 or $35,000 in the bank.

If we had signed him and he didn’t make it, we would have gone under. But they wanted $45,000 and we didn’t have it. I thought they would eventually come back to me because I didn’t know if other record companies would pay that much for a singer so (different). But RCA paid it.

How did you expand beyond Atlantic’s early jazz and R&B; emphasis into rock?

It was a matter of just following the music. The new (rock musicians in the ‘60s) were so good and it was so tied into what was happening with young people. I loved the Beatles, like everyone else, and some of the bands we didn’t have--when they came about--like Jefferson Airplane.

How did you find the bands--Cream, for instance.

I gave a party in London for Wilson Pickett (an Atlantic artist) and there was a jam session after the guest band played. I was talking to Wilson with my back to the stage and I heard this blues guitarist, who sounded like B. B. King. So, I said, to Wilson, “Your guitar player can really play the blues.” He looked at me and said, “ My guitar player is over at the bar.”

I turn around and I see this guy playing this great solo and I ask, “Well, who is that ?” It was Eric Clapton. I knew about him from the Yardbirds, and I said, “That’s what we want.” So, Robert Stigwood, who was our new English distributor, signed Cream. . . . We also knew about Jimmy Page from the Yardbirds, so Led Zeppelin was also a logical group to sign.

What about some of the American bands--Buffalo Springfield?

They were managed by the same people who managed Sonny & Cher, whom we also had. Buffalo Springfield was a marvelous band, but they never happened commercially and I could never understand why because the people who were into them just loved them. When they told me that it was all over, I tell you I cried. I loved that band. If they had just stayed together another year, they would have come through. They were just ahead of their time.

As the company grew and others began signing acts, it must be a strange feeling because there are no doubt acts on the label that you don’t personally care for.

I still sign some things, but we have 15 people here now who sign things and I might not always hear (something good) in the acts, but if you are paying someone to look for talent and they find something they believe in, you should give them a shot--unless it is some horrendously expensive act.

Do you have a favorite Atlantic record?

Oh, there are so many, so many. . . . I like “Miss You” by the Rolling Stones, “Mack the Knife” by Bobby Darin, “What’d I Say” by Ray Charles, “Respect” by Aretha Franklin. . . . All the artists mentioned so far eventually left for other labels. That must have been tough emotionally, especially in the early days when you couldn’t really bid against some of the established labels.

It was very tough. I lost in one year Ray Charles, Bobby Darin and Clyde McPhatter. I thought it was the end of the company, but life goes on. The next year turned out to be our biggest ever (to that point).

What’s the prerequisite for being a good record man?

The greatest lesson about making records is that one has to follow one’s own belief and record the kinds of things he believes in. It’s also important to never get cocky because it’s very easy to be wrong. (I’d say) humility is the greatest prerequisite.