2016 . jump to navigation search atlantic records parent company warner music group founded october 1947 ; 69 years ago 1947 10 founder ahmet erteg n 1 herb abramson distributor s atlantic records group 2 united states warner music group international genre various country of origin united states official website www.atlanticrecords.com atlantic recording corporation simply known as atlantic records is an american record label founded in october 1947 by ahmet erteg n and herb abramson . over its first 20 years of operation atlantic records earned a reputation as one of the most important american recording labels specializing in jazz r & b and soul recordings by african american musicians including aretha franklin ray charles wilson pickett sam and dave ruth brown and otis redding a position greatly enhanced by its distribution deal with stax records . in 1967 atlantic records became a wholly owned subsidiary of warner bros. seven arts now the warner music group and expanded into rock and pop music with releases by bands such as led zeppelin and yes . in 2004 atlantic records and its sister label elektra records merged into atlantic records group . 2 craig kallman is currently the chairman of atlantic records . ahmet erteg n served as founding chairman until his death on december 14 2006 at age 83 . 3 contents 1 history 1.1 founding and early history 1.2 the hits begin 1.3 tom dowd 1.4 jerry wexler 1.5 nesuhi ertegun 1.6 herb abramson departs 1.7 expansion 1.8 leiber stoller and spector 1.9 stax 1.10 the soul years 1962 1967 1.11 acquisition by warner bros. seven arts 1.12 the rock era 1.13 you re pitiful dispute 1.14 recent developments 2 notable sublabels 3 see also 4 references 5 external links history edit founding and early history edit in 1944 brothers nesuhi and ahmet ertegun elected to remain in the united states when their mother and sister returned to turkey following the death of their father munir ertegun who had been the first turkish ambassador to the united states . the brothers had become ardent fans of jazz and rhythm & blues music amassing a collection of over 15 000 78 rpm records . 4 ahmet ostensibly stayed on in washington to undertake post graduate music studies at georgetown university but immersed himself in the washington music scene and decided to enter the record business then enjoying a resurgence after wartime restrictions on the shellac used in manufacture . 5 he convinced the family dentist dr vahdi sabit to invest 10 000 and recruited herb abramson a dentistry student . abramson had worked as a part time a & r manager producer for the jazz label national records signing big joe turner and billy eckstine . he founded jubilee records in 1946 but had no interest in its most successful artists . so in september 1947 he sold his share in jubilee to his partner jerry blaine and invested 2500 in the new atlantic label . atlantic records was incorporated in october 1947 and was run by abramson the company president and ertegun vice president in charge of a & r production and promotion while abramson s wife miriam ran the label s publishing company progressive music and did most office duties until 1949 when atlantic hired its first employee book keeper francine wakschal who remained with the label for the next 49 years . 6 miriam quickly gained a reputation for toughness staff engineer tom dowd later recalled ; tokyo rose was the kindest name some people had for her 7 and doc pomus described her as an extraordinarily vitriolic woman . 8 when interviewed in 2009 she attributed her reputation to the company s chronic cash flow shortage ... most of the problems we had with artists were that they wanted advances and that was very difficult for us ... we were undercapitalized for a long time . 9 the label s original office in the ritz hotel manhattan proved too expensive so they relocated to an 85 per month room in the hotel jefferson . 10 11 12 in the early fifties atlantic moved from the hotel jefferson to offices at 301 west 54th st and then to its best known home at 356 west 56th st. atlantic s first batch of recordings were issued in late january 1948 and included tiny grimes that old black magic and the spider by joe morris . 13 in its early years atlantic focused principally on modern jazz 11 14 15 although it released some country and western and spoken word recordings . abramson also produced magic records which were children s records with four different sets of grooves so each side had four different stories of which the story which got played was determined by where the stylus landed on the groove . 16 soon after its formation atlantic faced a serious challenge in late 1947 james petrillo head of the american federation of musicians announced an indefinite ban on all recording activities by union musicians and this came into force on january 1 1948 . the union action forced atlantic to use almost all its capital to cut and stockpile enough recordings to last through the ban which was initially expected to continue for at least a year . 14 ertegun and abramson spent much of the late 1940s and early 1950s scouring nightclubs in search of talent . ertegun composed many songs under the alias a. nugetre including big joe turner s hit chains of love working them out in his head and then recording them in 25c recording booths in times square and giving the recording to an arranger or straight to the session musicians . 17 early releases featured joe morris frank culley art pepper shelly manne pete rugolo tiny grimes the delta rhythm boys the clovers the cardinals big joe turner erroll garner mal waldron howard mcghee james moody dizzy gillespie jackie & roy sarah vaughan lead belly sonny terry professor longhair mabel mercer sylvia syms billy taylor mary lou williams sidney bechet django reinhardt earl hines barney bigard pee wee russell al hibbler meade lux lewis jimmy yancey johnny hodges and bobby short . 4 the hits begin edit in early 1949 a new orleans distributor phoned ertegun trying to obtain stick mcghee s drinking wine spo dee o dee which was unavailable due to the closure of mcghee s previous label . ertegun knew stick s younger brother brownie mcghee with whom stick happened to be staying so he contacted the mcghee brothers and cut a re recording . when released in february 1949 4 it became atlantic s first hit selling 400 000 copies and ultimately reached 2 after spending almost half a year in the billboard r & b charts although mcghee himself earned just 10 for the session . 18 from this point atlantic s fortunes rose rapidly they recorded 187 songs in 1949 more than three times the output of the previous two years and received overtures of a manufacturing and distribution deal with columbia records who would pay atlantic a 3 % royalty on every copy sold . ertegun asked about artists royalties which he paid which surprised columbia executives who did not which scuttled the deal . 19 on the recommendation of broadcaster willis conover ertegun and abramson went to see ruth brown at the crystal caverns club in washington and invited her to audition for atlantic . she was badly injured in a car accident en route to new york but atlantic supported her for nine months and then signed her . her first release for the label so long cut at her second atlantic session on may 25 1949 with the eddie condon band was 20 a major hit reaching 6 on the r & b chart . brown went on to record more than eighty songs for the label becoming the most prolific and best selling atlantic artist of the period . so significant was brown s success to atlantic s fortunes that the label became known colloquially as the house that ruth built . 21 joe morris one of the label s earliest signings scored a major hit with his october 1950 release anytime anyplace anywhere the first atlantic record issued in 45rpm format which the company began pressing in january 1951 . the clovers don t you know i love you composed by ertegun became the label s first r & b 1 in september 1951 and a few weeks later ruth brown s teardrops from my eyes became its first million selling record . 22 she hit 1 again in march april 1952 with 5 10 15 hours . 4 20 daddy daddy reached 3 in september 1952 and mama he treats your daughter mean which featured the mjq s connie kay on drums reached 1 in february march 1953 becoming a solid seller for years afterwards 20 as did the late 1954 oh what a dream her last hit with atlantic . after she left the label in 1961 brown s fortunes declined rapidly within a few years was reduced to working as a cleaner and bus driver to support her children . in the 1980s she sued her former label for unpaid royalties ; although atlantic which had prided itself on treating artists fairly had stopped paying royalties to some artists ahmet ertegun denied this was intentional . brown eventually received a voluntary payment of 20 000 and founded a charity the rhythm and blues foundation in 1988 established with a donation of 1.5 million from ertegun . 22 in 1952 atlantic signed ray charles who scored a string of hugely influential hits including i got a woman what d i say and hallelujah i love her so . later that year the clovers one mint julep reached 2 . in 1953 after learning that singer clyde mcphatter had been fired from billy ward and his dominoes and was forming his own group the drifters ahmet ertegun tracked mcphatter down and signed the new group immediately . their single money honey became the biggest r & b hit of the year . 23 their subsequent records created some controversy the suggestive such a night was banned by radio station wxyz in detroit and the follow up honey love was banned in memphis 24 though both records reached 1 on the billboard r & b chart . 20 although not a major success in chart terms female vocal trio the cookies became an important part of the atlantic family . the original group put together by atlantic producer jesse stone in 1954 comprised darlene ethel mccrea dorothy jones and dorothy s cousin beulah robertson who was replaced in 1956 by marjorie margie hendricks . they recorded in paradise a minor r & b hit in early 1956 but after another unsuccessful release the trio became the regular backing singers for atlantic recording sessions . they performed on many hits in this period including joe turner s corinna corinna and lipstick powder and paint chuck willis it s too late she s gone and ray charles lonely avenue drown in my own tears and night time is the right time which features margie hendricks prominently before being taken on by ray charles and renamed the raelettes . tom dowd edit recording engineer and producer tom dowd played a crucial role in atlantic s success . he initially worked for atlantic on a freelance basis but within a few years he had been hired as the label s full time staff engineer . his recordings for atlantic and stax exerted a major influence on the history of popular music and he scored more hits than george martin and phil spector combined . 25 26 as atlantic s studio engineer tom dowd oversaw many advances in production . atlantic was one of the first independent labels to make recordings in stereo dowd used a portable stereo recorder which ran simultaneously with the studio