It has become Charles’ signature song, but Atlantic didn’t release the record, ABC Paramount did. Steve Winwood is seen performing “Georgia on My Mind” using the Ray Charles arrangement at a concert tribute to Ertegun and Atlantic. The music industry has never seen another champion of artists like Ertegun and the doc certainly drives that point home well.īut there’s a disturbing note at the end of the special that suggests the filmmakers were not completely paying attention. Atlantic Records played it cleaner than anyone else, we’re led to believe, and that is due to Ertegun. Proof that the Atlantic execs didn’t always have their eye on the ball, there’s an air of “who knew” surrounding their involvement with the festival.Īs is the case with American Masters, there are no dissenting voices and no honest-to-the-bone discussions of nefarious business practices such as payola or underpaying royalties to musicians. As an example of how low a price they received, within two years of acquiring Atlantic, Warners had made all its money back from a single property - the film and soundtrack rights to Woodstock. One fascinating tidbit does emerge: Clearly Ertegun did not want to sell Atlantic to Warner Seven Arts. His track record made the Rolling Stones want to work for him. This sixth sense would lead him to Ray Charles, Bobby Darin, Joe Turner, Aretha Franklin, the Drifters, the Coasters, the Buffalo Springfield, Cream, Led Zeppelin, Midler, Collins and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. With his brother Nesuhi and partner Herb Abramson, they signed Ruth Brown and LaVern Baker, and quickly had hits.Įrtegun unabashedly says he was the guy who knew what the record-buying public wanted. Following college, he refused to go into a family-approved business, and insteadcreated a label to record black American music. He parlayed his love of jazz into hiring top jazz players of the day to perform at his parents’ home in Washington, D.C. Funniest story in the piece is Ertegun telling how, as a seventh grader visiting Manhattan, he made his way to Harlem, got into a jazz club, grabbed a date and went to a rent party and finally got back to his family after sunrise. He came from a strict, well-to-do background as the son of an ambassador from Turkey his jazz fanaticism was his way of railing against the system. It’s the Ahmet story for the most part, but when it comes to a fork in the road, “Atlantic” loses focus it wants to tell all of Ertegun’s visible and flashy life in the ’70s chronicle the path Atlantic took after it was sold to Warners and let Jerry Wexler tell his side of the Atlantic story.Įrtegun is as important a mogul as the record industry has ever seen. “ Atlantic Records: The House that Ahmet Built” tells the Ertegun story in fawning fashion through a multitude of clips - Mick Jagger, Phil Collins, Chris Blackwell, Bette Midler and others are seen in conversation with the man, and Midler narrates the docu with an air of breathless reverence.
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