Ahmet Ertegun
By Mitch Berg
Ahmet Ertegun dead at 83.
For all the justifiable reputation Motown garnered for bringing R&B to a mass audience, it was Ertegun’s Atlantic Records that brought R&B to the wider world:
[Ertegun’s Atlantic Records] popularized the gritty R&B of Ray Charles, the classic soul of Aretha Franklin and the British rock of the Rolling Stones…
remained connected to the music scene until his last days – it was at an Oct. 29 concert by the Rolling Stones at the Beacon Theatre in New York where Ertegun fell, suffered a head injury and was hospitalized. He later slipped into a coma.
“He was in a coma and expired today with his family at his bedside,” said Dr. Howard A. Riina, Ertegun’s neurosurgeon at New York Presbyterian Hospital-Weill Cornell Medical Center…Ertegun will be buried in a private ceremony in his native Turkey, said Bob Kaus, a spokesman for Ertegun and Atlantic Records. A memorial service will be conducted in New York after the New Year’s.
Don’t hold James Blunt against him.
