Ahmet Ertegun RIP

Christ, I didn't even know he was alive!

He looks a lot like early 90s Allen Ginsberg.

i read something earlier today to indicate he was taken off life support

it will be sad when he goes...but he leaves a great legacy...just the other day, I dug the first R.B. ("Take A Letter, Maria") Greaves LP from a record store crate, and saw that Ahmet not only produced, but co-wrote many of the tracks...and I had thought he was only a suit!...I hope I will someday be able to dissociate him from the guy who played him (and also "Booger" in those Nerds movies) in the Ray Charles film...

definitely not only a suit! I'll be sad to see him go. Though sustaining his fatal injury at a Stones concert seems oddly apropos.

apparently he has passed today. rip.

RIP

Jeez, him, Ruth Brown and Arif Mardin all in the same year.

:(

aw shit, not another one

there'll be even more next year.

from a slate interview:

I think Taylor Hackford wrote a very true description of the feeling that existed between Ray Charles and myself and made a terrific movie. However, you must realize that I'm not the kind of shy little guy as portrayed in the film. I don't care what the man looks like or anything but it should have been somebody hip.

r.i.p.

Check out his demo of "Mess Around" for Ray Charles. Also, anything (like "Lovey Dovey" by the Clovers) that lists "Nugetre" as a writer is him.

A suit, but with cred!

You don't get many of them, although they all "think" they are!

RIP and big tribs to come

RIP. tho i would have been flattered to be played by curtis armstrong in a movie, personally.

"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."

"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 1991. “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.

from the N.Y. Times article

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/15/arts/music/15ertegun.html?th=&emc=th&pagewanted=print

Not in the NY Times:
I think I remember reading that he wanted to sign Fugazi. Although Ian Mackaye and the band were not interested, Ian supposedly took Ahmet up on having lunch with him because he was very impressed with Ahmet's career.

cue all the old school music people crying about the good old dayz.

:-(

He was a brilliant judge of talent and turned Atlantic Records from an small independent label into a major national music company.

He was involved with it until the very end, slipping into a coma after falling backstage at a Rolling Stones concert.

FIFA RICCOBONO: When I heard that he had, that this had happened at a concert, I thought it was so appropriate.

I thought it could only have happened, and should only have happened, if it was to happen, at a Rolling Stones or an ACDC concert because that would have been the proper out for him because he just lived music the entire time that I was aware of what he did.

And for it to happen at a Rolling Stones concert, as awful as it was, it just seemed appropriate.

One of my favorite Ertegun signings:

http://static.flickr.com/61/165358165_760dbaee78_m.jpg

I think I had that issue of Sports Illustrated...

From an appreciation piece in the Washington Post

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/15/AR2006121502029.html

"In a segregated city [Washington D.C.], the Ertegun brothers haunted local jazz and blues clubs. The Crystal Caverns is where, in 1947, he discovered Ruth Brown, Atlantic's first hitmaker. The pair also collected jazz and blues 78s; they'd go from house to house in black neighborhoods because they craved "race" records "and that was the only place you could find them," Ertegun recalled.

On Sundays, the Erteguns turned the Turkish Embassy into an open-house brunch for visiting jazz musicians, with informal -- and integrated -- jam sessions that begat some enduring friendships. As teenagers, the brothers promoted the city's first integrated concert at the Jewish Community Center, the only venue that would allow both a mixed band and a mixed audience."

Is there a good book about Atlantic Records/the Erteguns? I know there was some stuff about them in Sweet Soul Music but it's been a while since I've looked at that book.

Looks like there's this:

http://www.amazon.com/Whatd-I-Say-Atlantic-Story/dp/1566490480/sr=1-1/qid=1166385735/ref=pd_bbs_1/102-9455043-6810514?ie=UTF8&s=books

and looks like the prices have been jacked up due to the recent attention.

Awaiting the right-wing conspiracy theorists' claims he was bumped off by Bill Clinton and Mick Jagger 'cause he knew too much.

About...you know.