HOME / recycled: Previously published Slate articles made new.

Ahmet Ertegun's LegacyThe Atlantic Records founder in his own words.

Posted Friday, Dec. 15, 2006, at 1:26 PM ET

(Continued from page 1)

RSS

Related in Slate

Earlier this year, Stanley Crouch revisited John Coltrane's finest work. In 2004, Crouch remembered Ray Charles on the occasion of his death; and David Edelstein reviewed Jamie Foxx's Ray.

Slate: There was no bidding war for him?

AE: When he came to our office I said, "RAY CHARLES, you are the greatest singer. You're the greatest piano player. Man," I said, "you are home now!" And he said, "Man nobody's ever talked to me like that before." In those days, I was living in Harlem and I wasn't like the sheepish fellow in the movie.

Slate: You are also featured in the Bobby Darin-Kevin Spacey movie, Beyond the Sea.

AE: Unfortunately, the Bobby Darin film did not come off as well. Kevin Spacey does a very good job playing (Darin), [but] it's too bad he wanted to sing. A singer's biographical film should have their music and their voice. That's one thing. The other thing is I discovered Bobby Darin.

Slate: Where?

AE: He was in the Atlantic waiting room, which had a piano in it. One of my partners had bought some masters that he had made and we signed him. The masters were terrible but I heard him playing in the waiting room. And I realized that he was a very different singer than the records.

Slate: What were the hit records you made with Darin?

AE: "Splish Splash" and "Queen of the Hop," "Dream Lover," "Mack the Knife." … The making of a hit record depends more than anything on the material of the song. And that's the toughest thing to find. The songwriters whom we think of being the greatest songwriters usually write one hit and six or seven flops. That includes the Irving Berlins and the Hoagy Carmichaels, the Harold Arlens, Cole Porter.

Slate: Everyone writes a clinker from time to time?

AE: They write clinkers most of the time. Once in a while they can write a hit. And whenever a songwriter writes a big hit, then the next 20 songs they write—no matter how bad they are—get recorded.

Slate: How did you know who would be a great singer?

AE: It was different with every artist. For example with Ruth Brown, an old friend called about "a great girl he heard" singing at the Club Kaverns—a basement club in the black ghetto in Washington run by Blanche Calloway, Cab's sister, who was Ruth Brown's manager. So I went down there and Ruth was a fabulous singer and what I liked about her is that she sang a song called "So Long" that Little Miss Cornshucks sang. Now Little Miss Cornshucks was a great singer but she had some personal problems and would tend to disappear and it was very hard to find her. And Ruth Brown sang "So Long" just like her and I knew it would be a hit. We were not a well-known label at that time, but [Ruth Brown] signed with us and "So Long" became a big hit.

Clyde McPhatter was in a group called the Dominoes and he was one of my favorite singers. So I went to Birdland to hear the Dominoes because I liked Clyde so much. … And the group went on and Clyde was not in the group. So I went backstage and asked the leader of the group,"Where's Clyde? Is he sick?" And he said, "No, we fired him last week." So I went immediately to the public phone at Birdland and called information and found there was one Reverend McPhatter listed—Clyde's father. Clyde answered the phone and I said, "Clyde, this is Ahmet Ertregun, have you signed any papers with any label?" He said no. So I said, "Come to my office tomorrow and you will be an Atlantic star." A few days later, we recorded him with a group of his friends around him, and we called that group the Drifters. Clyde later left the group to be a solo singer but the Drifters had a life of their own with Ben E. King and others.