Ahmet Ertegun was raised all over the world as his father was at different times Turkey’s ambassador to France, the UK and the U.S. His older brother Nesuhi taught him about jazz and took him to see Cab Calloway and Duke Ellington. When their father was based in Washington, D.C., the Ertegun boys were in heaven. Ahmet was enrolled in a private school but was disappointed as there were no gangsters, cowboys, or jazzers. In seventh grade, he visited New York City and took off on his own to find some live music. The taxi took him to The Plantation Club in Harlem, where he saw Hot Lips Page. He stayed for both shows and then a showgirl took him to a rent party where James P. Johnson was playing the piano. He returned the next morning to his parent’s disapproval. From then on, he was driven by music. Let’s look at five fascinating facts about Ahmet Ertegun.
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He Put On the First Integrated Concert in Washington, D.C.
In 1940, Ahmet and Nesuhi organized a jazz concert featuring Ella Fitzgerald and Duke Ellington. The performers onstage and the audience both consisted of black and white people. Shortly after, Ahmet was arrested when he left a club in Annapolis, Maryland. He was brought before the judge and asked what law he had broken. The judge informed him it was the “Jim Crow law.” Ahmet asked if it was a written law, only to find out it wasn’t. The judge told him it was an unwritten law that Americans just understood. Ahmet could not accept it. How could loving this music be wrong?
He Founded Atlantic Records
Ertegun’s father died in 1944. He started an independent record label shortly after. He shared the story in the 2007 American Masters documentary “The House that Ahmet Built”: “I was intent on starting a label, so I talked my dentist at the time. I talked him into mortgaging his house and investing $10,000, and then Herb Abramson and I started a company, Atlantic Records. And we started recording in the year 1947.”
Starting in a double hotel room in New York City, Ertegun and Abramson began finding talent. Ruth Brown was the first successful artist to consistently reach the Top 10 of the R&B charts. Ertegun and Abramson did all of the recording, A&R work, promoting, and publicity, while Abramson’s wife Marion did all of the office work. Ertegun began writing songs for The Clovers even though he didn’t play any instrument. He would hum the rhythm to the musicians and then sing the lyrics. “Nugetre” was his pen name. Ertegun figured he would eventually be involved in politics, so he avoided future trouble related to writing a song called “I Wanna Rock You All Night” by spelling his name backward.
In 1952, Ray Charles signed to Atlantic. Ertegun wrote “Mess Around” with elements of the old blues songs “Cow Cow Blues” by Cow Cow Davenport and “Pinetop’s Boogie Woogie” by Clarence “Pinetop” Smith. Charles then had an even bigger hit with “What’d I Say.”
In 1953, Billboard magazine reviewer Jerry Wexler joined Atlantic Records after Herb Abramson was drafted into the U.S. Army.
Ertegun remembered how everyone had to pitch in when needed. “Big Joe Turner was a great, wonderful man. If he had musical training, he probably would have been a great opera star because he had such a big voice,” he said. “The [Count] Basie band used to play, and Joe Turner sang without a microphone, and it just boomed. His voice sort of boomed over it. But, he could sing, my god, could he sing the blues. We had a series of hits with Joe. Jesse Stone wrote ‘Shake, Rattle and Roll,’ which became like an anthem at the beginning of rock ‘n’ roll.”
“We used to do everything when making a record,” Wexler said. “If we thought there should be three people singing backup there [and] we didn’t have three singers standing there to fortify the chorus, every time it came to the hook line of shake, rattle and roll, Ahmet, Jesse Stone, and I got out there behind Joe Turner, and we sang shake, rattle and roll.’ And, somehow, we managed to do it in tune, so it’s not egregious when you listen to it. We used to have so much fun I thought we were going to laugh our way out of the music business.”
Ahmet’s brother Nesuhi joined the team in 1955. He produced the Charles hit “Let the Good Times Roll.” The Coasters were the next big act to join the roster. The songwriting team of Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller were signed to an independent production deal. They would go on to write and record over 150 chart hits. The Drifters and Bobby Darin were signed next. Phil Spector was one of Ahmet’s assistants.
An agreement with Jim Stewart of Stax Records in Memphis led to Atlantic releasing records by Rufus and Carla Thomas, Otis Redding, and Booker T & The MGs. Atlantic signed Aretha Franklin, Buffalo Springfield, Cream, and Crosby, Stills & Nash.
He Secured the Recording and Movie Rights to Woodstock
In 1969, record executive David Geffen was bringing Crosby, Stills & Nash, and Joni Mitchell to New York. When Geffen saw the news reports about the Woodstock Music and Art Fair, he was not interested in going out into the mud. He and Mitchell went to the city and watched the news reports on television. Mitchell wrote the song “Woodstock” from a hotel room. Ertegun later brokered a deal to secure the recording rights for the festival to release an album of recordings. The offer was bumped up to include the film rights. Ertegun was not expecting much from the latter as he didn’t foresee a film of a rock festival bringing in any profit. He was wrong. The movie Woodstock was a big hit.
He Fell Asleep While Mick Jagger Was Asking to Be on Atlantic
Atlantic signed Led Zeppelin, Blind Faith, Derek and The Dominos, Iron Butterfly, Emerson Lake & Palmer, King Crimson, Allman Brothers, The J Geils Band, Mott the Hoople, ABBA, Chic, Velvet Underground, and The Bee Gees. When Mick Jagger approached Ertegun about joining the Atlantic roster, he fell asleep.
He Founded the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame
In 1983, The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Foundation was established. It consisted of Rolling Stone editor Jann Wenner, record executives Seymour Stein, Bob Krasnow, and Noreen Woods, and attorneys Allen Grubman and Suzan Evans.
In 1988, Atlantic Records made reparations of $2 million to help with back royalties owed and formed the Rhythm & Blues Foundation to support veteran R&B artists. In 2004, Ertegun founded the Jazz Hall of Fame at Lincoln Center in New York and dedicated it to his brother Nesui.
Ahmet Ertegun died in 2006 following a fall he suffered backstage at a Rolling Stones concert. He was 83.
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Photo by Steve Grayson/WireImage for The Recording Academy
