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Saturday, Nov 28, 2009
By the time Wexler came aboard in 1953, Atlantic had already scored hits with artists such as Ruth Brown, Stick McGhee and Joe Turner. It had also signed a blind singer named Ray Charles, who still sang in the polished style of Nat "King" Cole. The well-tailored and suave Ertegun, the son of a wartime Turkish ambassador, showed a predilection for the more bohemian aspects of making records, and the daily operations of the company fell to his new partner.
The job involved nearly every aspect of the process, and Wexler hired musicians, produced sessions, promoted records with distributors and disk jockeys, balanced the books and occasionally even composed ad hoc songs, since suitable material was usually at a deficit. At the time, paying off influential jockeys such as Alan Freed and Dewey Phillips was another chore that came with the territory. Wexler recalls that fear fueled his early years at Atlantic, but when the hits started coming, as they did soon and fast, the fear was partially supplanted with euphoria. As Wexler told author Peter Guralnick, "We didn't know shit about making records, but we were having fun."
Ostensibly motivated by wartime shellac rationing, the major labels of the time had systematically shut out black R&B musicians. The real reason had to do with simple arithmetic -- in a racially segregated market, a hit record by Charles Brown or T-Bone Walker might sell 50,000 copies, while a hit by Perry Como could sell more than a million.
Atlantic was among the many independent labels that came to dominate the so-called race market, one of the small regional operations that marketed music by black musicians to black listeners -- a significant crossover audience was still years away. Herman Lubinsky at Savoy, Syd Nathan at King, Art Rupe at Specialty, Lew Chudd at Imperial, the Bihari Brothers at Modern, Don Robey at Duke, Bess Berman at Apollo and Chicago's famous Chess brothers were among the leading purveyors of rhythm and blues records.
Many of the companies were run by immigrants, often Jews, who came to the business as a result of prevalent discrimination and a willingness to cross racial boundaries in search of an opportunity. And while many were gifted talent scouts and harbored a deep appreciation for the music they recorded, for most the motivation remained primarily financial, and tales of mercenary business practices, rushed sessions and primitive facilities were not uncommon.
From the beginning, Atlantic stood in stark contrast to its competitors. Ertegun and Wexler brought to the business of R&B a professionalism and sophistication that more often characterized the recording and marketing of jazz. Extensive rehearsals, meticulous arrangements and scrupulous attention to detail distinguished the Atlantic session work. And with the arrival of Tom Dowd, the young engineer who would later double as a producer and arranger, the records with the black and red labels quickly became known for their clean, well-balanced sound.
Ertegun and Wexler also proved to be enlightened businessmen, and tirelessly cultivated a national network of disc jockeys, distributors and salesmen. The main factors that distinguished Atlantic, however, were a seriousness of purpose that everyone brought to the enterprise, and in Wexler's admittedly self-congratulatory formulation, the qualities of "taste, intelligence and probity. If a guy came into Chess [Records] with a great tune, Leonard Chess would record him. If that guy came to Atlantic, we would buy the tune and give it to Solomon Burke."
The approach quickly bore dividends, and during Wexler's first two years at the label, 30 Atlantic sides landed in the R&B Top 10. Meanwhile, the creativity of the Atlantic approach increased in tandem with sales: In 1957, Mike Leiber and Jerry Stoller came to Atlantic. Already the authors of several R&B hits -- they wrote "Hound Dog" for Big Mama Thornton and were collaborating on some of Elvis' most ambitious songs -- the songwriters teamed up with the Coasters to create what Stoller dubbed "playlets": songs imbued with the density of musical theater, combining whimsical characters, narrative lyrics and bizarre sounds. "Little Egypt," "Along Came Jones" and "Down in Mexico" injected a new strain of novelty and sophistication into R&B, and would be reprised in the '60s with Lieber and Stoller's work with the Drifters and Phil Spector.
Just as important as Atlantic's commercial breakthroughs was a series of patently uncommercial attempts to unite contemporary musicians with older musical styles, a strategy Wexler would return to frequently throughout his career. For a 1956 Joe Turner session, he assembled a small ensemble of veteran jazz musicians that included legendary boogie-woogie pianist Pete Johnson. The result, "Boss of the Blues," with Turner singing lazy Kansas City shuffles with a 1930s-style jazz combo, must have reminded Wexler of seeing Turner as a singing bartender while an undergraduate in Kansas 20 years earlier. Likewise, on an album astonishingly titled "Blues From the Gutter," Champion Jack Dupree performed his drug-themed compositions along with interpretations of the earliest blues standards, backed by a superbly sensitive band. Both albums are paragons of authenticity and chemistry, and became career-defining sessions for the prolifically recorded bluesmen.
