Atlantic Records: The House That Ahmet Built (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: Atlantic Records: The House That Ahmet Built Michael Adams Atlantic Records: The House That Ahmet Built. DVD. Directed by Susan Steinberg. Burbank, CA: Rhino Entertainment Company, 2007. R2 128892. $19.98. The history of Atlantic Records is traced and its founder, Ahmet Ertegun, is profiled in this look at one of the most important labels in American popular music. Clips from performances by Atlantic artists are interspersed with chats between Ertegun and surviving musicians. The son of a Turkish diplomat, Ertegun (1923–2006) grew up in embassies in England, France, and Switzerland. Because his greatest passion was American popular culture, especially jazz, he was thrilled when his father was posted to Washington, D.C., allowing the teenager to visit black nightclubs there and in Harlem. Ertegun was expected to follow into a diplomatic career, but after his father died in 1944, he decided to follow his heart, founding Atlantic Records in New York in 1947 with his friend Herb Abramson. Beginning with Ruth Brown, whom Ertegun told to stop trying to sound like Doris Day, Atlantic specialized in rhythm and blues singers, eventually adding Ray [End Page 157] Charles, Big Joe Turner, the Clovers, LaVern Baker, Clyde McPhatter, and Solomon Burke. It became the predominant R&B label by the 1950s, though securing broadcast time for its black artists was a struggle, often requiring payments to disk jockeys. Using the pseudonym Nugetre—his name in reverse—Ertegun wrote many of the songs recorded by his performers, including “Little Mama” by the Clovers and Ray Charles’s “Mess Around.” He and Jerry Wexler, who became an Atlantic producer in 1953, even sang backup on Big Joe Turner’s “Shake Rattle and Roll.” The first half of Atlantic Records: The House That Ahmet Built is the most fascinating, as the company endures highs and lows, seeking new artists and new sounds. More success came in the 1960s as Wexler, a colorful, informative interviewee, molded Aretha Franklin into a soul singer, and Atlantic formed a partnership with Memphis’s Stax Records, releasing the songs of Otis Redding and other black performers. Writer–director Susan Steinberg offers only glimpses of performances but manages to include most of an electrifying London stage rendition of “Try a Little Tenderness” by Redding. Steinberg expertly mixes in footage from the 1950s and 1960s with new interviews with Charles, Burke, Franklin, Ben E. King, and others. Songwriters Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller talk about how the music they created for the Coasters and the Drifters gave the label a needed boost, acknowledged by Ertegun, during a low period. Atlantic shifted its focus to white, mostly British rock acts beginning in the late 1960s, and there are chats with Gregg Allman, Eric Clapton, Phil Collins, Mick Jagger, Jimmy Page, Robert Plant, and Keith Richards. Ertegun talks with Wynton Marsalis about his love for jazz , as well as to Taylor Hackford, director of the film Ray (2004), though he objects to the timid way Curtis Armstrong plays him in that film. There are occasional glimpses of Ertegun’s prickly personality. His wife, Mica, mentions his infidelities, and Steinberg includes his failure to pay royalties to his early artists. Ruth Brown, notable for her absence in interviews, conducted a lengthy court battle to recover her earnings. Atlantic Records: The House That Ahmet Built was made for PBS’s American Masters, and like other entries in that series can be faulted for trying to cover too much in a brief time. Most obviously, little attention is paid to Tom Dowd, the most famous recording engineer ever. The outstanding Tom Dowd & the Language of Music (2003) is an essential companion to Steinberg’s film not only for more about Dowd’s contribution to the success of Atlantic, but for director Mark Moorman’s delineation of the details of recording popular music. [End Page 158] Michael Adams City University of New York Graduate Center Copyright © 2008 Music Library Association, Inc