This out-of-print compilation of Atlantic Records hits has the dubious title of The Golden Age of Black Music (1970-1975). In addition to this elegant, gospel-based Southern soul smash, it's loaded with hits by Aretha Franklin, Wilson Pickett, The Spinners and King Floyd. The executive producer for all these songs is Ahmet Ertegun. He played a significant role in "the golden age" of popular music. The consummate music industry executive died yesterday. He was 83.
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I wrote about last night's visitation service for Jay McShann here.
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Speaking of the death of American music traditions, the local public radio station ran this great feature yesterday about an unfortunate change at the Mutual Musicians Foundation. The story airs the dirty little secret that guys like me always knew but dared not speak aloud lest we spoil the party.
7 comments:
Yeah, a good story, indeed -- that we wrote over a week ago!
http://www.pitch.com/Issues/2006-12-07/news/stline.html
Good song!
Sure enough, my friend!
The Pitch's crusading piece is excellent, and I agree with it wholeheartedly.
Yet KCUR's feature has priceless audio of drunken horror.
You ever use last.fm? It seems to have been created for people like you.
"People like me?" That's just rude, NPH. But yes, I have a Last.fm account even though the concept kind of gives me the creeps.
People like you = people who know a ton about music
Ahmet could regale an audience with fantastic stories. One, which I heard him tell more than a few times, concerned his failed attempt to sign The Who to Atlantic Records following their stint at the dreaded MCA. The details were not all that fascinating but the vitriol remained in his voice even twenty years later when he would invariably pound the table with his fist and exclaim (of Bill Curbishly), "ASSURANCES HAD BEEN MADE!!". Being as competitive as he was, he never got over losing the deal.
"Assurances Had Been Made" would be an excellent title for a book, album or blog. Thanks for sharing, most honored guest!
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