Atlantic Records, USA – Part Two
At the end of Part One we briefly mentioned that Ahmet Ertegun has signed The Drifters to Atlantic Records. This was done almost before hearing them perform – this was because the lead singer Clyde McPhatter had recently become available after being fired from Billy Ward and his Dominoes. Ertegun knew of McPhatter’s talent and wasted no time in tracking him down. A couple of The drifters early tracks – Such A Night and Money Honey – were also notable for being banned in various states for suggestive and unwholesome lyrics. The banning had no effect on sales of course, both tracks reached number one on the U.S. Billboard charts.
Rhythm and Blues was a term coined by Atlantic employee Jerry Wexler in the early 1950s and Atlantic Records was the main driver behind the success of this genre at this time. At first it was only popular amongst the black population but by 1953/4 records were crossing over to all sections of the listening audience and becoming million+ sellers. At the time, Atlantic Records had the best R & B artists and the highest quality recording equipment, marking it out as the leader in this field.
Atlantic Records expanded into the U.K. in 1955 to take advantage of that lucrative market and took on extra premises to be able to employ extra staff. In the early 1960s it began to use it’s considerable trading network to distribute releases from smaller regional labels. Notable artists active during this period include Ben E. King, The Coasters and Billy Storm.
Ray Charles had left the label in 1959 along with Bobby Darin and this threatened to be a enormous financial blow for Atlantic; fortunately an association with Stax Records, the small Memphis based independent label, provided both parties with 8 years worth of lucrative partnership. Stax got access to Atlantic’s massive distribution and marketing machine and in return Atlantic got it’s hands on Stax’ list of quality artists including Booker T. and the MGs, Aretha Franklin and Otis Redding.
The 1960s was also the decade when Soul became popular when Solomon Burke and Doris Troy signed for Atlantic. It was also the years of the British invasion. Atlantic took advantage of this by ending their distribution deal with British label, Decca (who had their own U.S. subsidiary, London Records) and arranging a new one with Polydor Records. Cream were one of the licensing success stories and notable for their being the first rock band signed by Atlantic.
In 1967, the constantly shifting sands of the record industry led Jerry Wexler to recommend the sale of Atlantic to a bigger company. The Ahmet brothers (Nesuhi had returned to Atlantic by this time) eventually agreed to the sale and in October of the same year accepted $17.5 million from Warner Bros, something of an undervaluation. Jerry Wexler left shortly afterwards, unhappy with the direction he felt Atlantic was now headed (veering towards ‘white’ rock acts) but Ertegun was allowed to run the label unhindered by Warner. This changed when Warner Bros. became Warner Communications in 1969 and an attempt was made to bring all Warner’s music companies under one umbrella. Ertegun fought this and won, cementing Atlantic’s autonomy and his own power within the new structure.
Part Three follows….