Atlantic Records

One of THE DISCO labels...

Atlantic Records was formed in 1947 and have made a journey from Jazz and Rhythm'n'Blues, over Pop and Rock to Disco, Boogie and Soul, and anything between. Lots have happened over these 60 years the label has been in business and it's still going strong... This is Atlantic Records...

Atlantic Records was formed in 1947 by Ahmet Ertegun and Herb Abramson. Ahmet was the son of the Turkish Ambassador in the United States and the Ertegun family moved to the US in 1934 when his father got his US assignment. Ahmet had just turned 11 and he and his older brother, Nesuhi, both fell in love with the emerging jazz and blues music scene. A love that made them avid 78s collectors, but also led to the brothers arranging concerts in Washington with various Jazz legends. The love for music would eventually lead to Ahmet's creation of Atlantic Records together with Herb some years later. Herb was born and raised in the Brooklyn and just as the Ertegun brothers he was a records collector and a jazz concert promoter. He had also worked as a record producer for National Records and had produced a few hits for the label before deciding to start his own Jubilee label in 1946. I was about this time he also became friends with Ahmet. Herb had a partner in Jubilee, Jerry Blaine, and when Ahmet and Herb had decided to form their mutual label, he had Jerry buy him out of Jubilee and used the money to start the new company... So, in October of 1947 they formed Atlantic Records with some financial backing from the Ertegun family's Turkish dentist, Dr. Vahdi Sabit. Herb Abramson became the President and Ahmet Ertegun the Vice President of their new company.
Atlantic started out as an independent Rhythm & Blues and Jazz label. They quickly became one of America's most influential labels and actually shook up major labels like Columbia, Decca and RCA a bit. They were also early adapters of new techniques and formats, they were among the first labels to see the advantages of the 33 1/3 rpm long play record (the LP) and issued their first LP in 1949. These first LP's were actually pressed on 10" discs and it wasn't until 1951 their first 12" LP was released. The label became specially popular with the performers as they didn't cheat the artists, like many other independent labels did at the time. Instead Atlantic paid royalties of up to 3 to 5 percent, while others paid less than 2 percent to nothing. This made many of the best musicians sign up with the label with long term contracts, which in return paved the way for the label's success. The label even got a special sound named after it - the "Atlantic Sound". It was a blend of traditional Jazz mixed with their own boogie-based, saxophone led version of New Orleans blues. During the 50's the label also comprised genres like Country & Western, Gospel and Rock'n'Roll. So far Herb and Ahmet had been running the label with the help of Herb's wife Miriam, who handled the accounts and bills. But in 1953 Herb was drafted into the Army and with a steadily growing business, Ahmet and Herb knew the needed to get someone else involved in the business. So, in 1953 the label got a new partner in Jerry Wexler, who was an excellent producer and in the mid 50's Ahmet's brother Nesuhi joined the label as both share holder and to head the company's jazz division. Atlantic also made a $30,000 offer to Colonel Tom Parker for the young Rock'n'Roll star Elvis Presley's contract, but lost it to their rival RCA Records. Jerry has later said that he had no idea of how Atlantic should have been able to come up with that kind of money IF they had won the bidding... In the mid 50's Atlantic slowly started to widen their production into new genres like Pop and Rock'n'Roll, something that soon would show itself to be very lucrative. During this time the business was blooming for the guys and new labels were started like Cat and Atlas Records, the later which would become Atco [from ATlantic COmpany] as there already was a registered Atlas label. Herb was just back from 2 years in the Army and with Jerry's success within Atlantic and Herb's crashing marriage to Miriam, it was decided he would run the new ATCO label. But the lost position at Atlantic had led to differences between the former friends, Herb and Ahmet, and it made the partners decide to buy Herb out for $300,000 in December of '58. Dr. Sabit and Miriam Bienstock's (Herb's ex-wife) were also bought out by Ahmet, Ertegun & Jerry about this time. Atlantic was also among the first independent labels to release stereo albums in the end of that decade. In the 60's the label moved from being a smaller independent, but yet very successful, label - to become one of the major players. They also moved with the trends of the time, away from jazz and R'n'B, towards mainstream Pop and Rock, but they would actually become known as one of the greatest Soul labels of the 60's. In 1964 the owners sold off their publishing company, Progressive Music, and instead they started Cotillion as their new publishing company, a name they would later use for one of their most successful sub-labels. Atlantic signed contracts with many of the greatest acts of the sixties, artists like; Wilson Pickett, Cream, Yes, the Bee Gees, Led Zeppelin, Sonny & Cher and the "Queen of Soul" - Aretha Franklin. All yielding hits for the company. Wilson Picket had hits like; "In the Midnight Hour" and "Mustang Sally", while Sonny & Cher screamed "I Got You Babe" and Aretha cried for "Respect" and wanted you to "Think". In 1967 Warner Brothers - Seven Arts bought Atlantic for $17,000,000 in Warner stocks and besides they offered Ahmet, Nesuhi and Jerry high paid jobs at Warner. The new owner let Atlantic and its sub-labels to continue to run as separate companies with continued success. But in 1969 Warner Seven Arts was bought by the Kinney National Company and they combined the resources of Warner Brothers Records and Atlantic Records, they also made Ahmet part of a committee handling the Kinney Company's record labels. First thing the committee advised in the new decade, was to buy Elektra Records. Now the group of Warner-Elektra-Atlantic, usually called just WEA, had its own distribution all over the US and had now grown to be a major like Columbia Records or RCA. The WEA name was also used as a label outside North America. The labels all kept competing and were still released material under each of their brands. In 1971 Ahmet closed a deal with the Rolling Stones which gave them their own Rolling Stones Records, the label was distributed by Atlantic in the US and by WEA in the UK. The 'Stones' would release their own material through their label, but they also released famous Reggae/Rasta legend - Peter Tosh. A signing that might seem a bit off for a Rock band, but Mick Jagger also sung with Peter in the track "(You Got To Walk And) Don't Look Back". In 1972, David Geffen's Asylum Records merged with Elektra Records to become Elektra/Asylum Records. Asylum had been started in 1971 when Geffen, who was an artist agent at the time, had failed to get a recording contract for Jackson Browne and that's when he decided to create his own label. Still in 1972 Kinney National had a financial scandal within its parking operations and decided to change its name to Warner Communications. Atlantic continued to release successful acts in the seventies. You find bands like Average White Band, the Manhattan Transfer, the Jimmy Castor Bunch and AC/DC, along with artists like Roberta Flack and Ray Charles in its roaster. In the mid 70's things started to happened to the music scene, both the Vietnam War and the Oil crisis was over and people were optimistic and started to get out dancing more. Discotheques started to emerge everywhere and in these clubs 'the Hustle' became the popular dance, with it came the four-to-the-floor beat. This steadily bass beat driven music would become known as Disco... Like most of the majors, Atlantic did not see the power and potential of this new music genre. Instead it was small independent labels like Scepter/Wand, Philadelphia International, SalSoul, Red Greg and several others, supporting and nursing the Disco scene. But Atlantic slowly started opening up its eyes for Disco acts and some of their early signings were Penny McLean (singer of Silver Convention) with her hit "Lady Bump", Boney M with "Daddy Cool", the Trammps who sung "That's Where The Happy People Go", the Patrick Adams act Ace Spectrum, the Spinners and Swedish super group ABBA. Famous remixer and inventor of the 12" Disco mix, Tom Moulton told me the following regarding ABBA in my interview with him; "See... You know what kills me? It's that I had the chance to mix 'Dancing queen'. And you know what I told them - Atlantic? I said; 'That record doesn't need me!' And I'm so sorry I ever said that, because I would have loved to made a long version of 'Dancing queen'. I mean, I just love that song. But really, I thought it was flawless. I wish I could have been able to work on some of their stuff 'cause I'm just a big fan of them. Their music is beautiful." So the Atlantic label had their, if even small, share of early Disco hits. But in 1977 the friends Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards formed their group - Chic and they recorded a demo of their song "Dance, Dance, Dance (Yowsah, Yowsah, Yowsah)". They were unable to get any label interested in it. Finally they got Buddah Records to release the 12" single and the success made Atlantic sign them later that year. Atlantic re-released the single, which sold a million copies in its first month. This was the first song with so called sub-bass. Before "Dance, dance, dance" all bass below 60 Hz had been removed in the mastering process, but in this song Nile and Bernard decided to keep all of it. So this was the first song in which you could hear and feel the speakers in a club rumble with every bass-beat. This was really something completely new and avant-garde at the time... Later the same year Atlantic also released Chic's follow up hit - "Everybody Dance". Still in 1977 the Trammps also had a huge hit with the song "Disco Inferno". The song was also included in the movie and on the soundtrack that would sky-rocket the Disco music production worldwide - Saturday Night Fever. It was not until after the movie's premier in December of 1977, Atlantic (and many other labels), really realized what was going on and started to pump out Disco releases. So from 1978 and onwards you can see an extreme increase of the number of Disco releases Atlantic and its sub-label Cotillion put out. In 1978 the Atlantic labels scored hits with; Phreek's "Weekend", "He's the Greatest Dancer" & "We Are Family" by Sister Sledge along with Chic's "I Want Your Love" and their mega-hit "Le Freak", which was originally a hate song of Studio 54. In 1979 ABBA was back with "Voulez-Vous" and the Manhattan Transfer had their only Disco hit with "Twilight Zone", while Chic released the album 'Risque' which included the hit singles "My Forbidden Lover" and the classic "Good Times", with the famous bass-line that have been copied and sampled numerous of times and which was also the base for Sugarhill Gang's "Rappers Delight". On Cotillion Sister Sledge "Got To Love Somebody" and Slave had "Just A Touch of Love". In 1978-79 the small Atlantic sub-label Hilltak also released a few 12"s, mainly by the act Broadway. Probably most famous for their cover of the Exile's 1978 hit "Kiss You All Over". There were also several Atlantic distributed labels releasing Disco tracks under the Atlantic matrix, among them Scotti Brothers who had released John Paul Young's "Love Is In the Air" and Leif Garrett's "I Was Made For Dancin'" in 1978 and had Addrisi Brothers sing about a "Ghost dancer" in 1979. The Detroit-based Westbound Records had moved their distribution to Atlantic in 1977 and was very active in releasing more Funky tracks by acts like Fantastic Four, C.J. & Co, King Errisson, Detroit Emeralds, the Mike Theodore Orchestra and others. But the Atlantic distribution of Westbound stopped in 1979. The early Atlantic 12" single releases, including their sub- and distributed labels, were Promos only. The DSKO xx matrix was used for all the labels promo's, while the public 12" single releases had a DK 4xxx matrix number. For some reason the promo matrix series was changed in 1980 and the 'DSKO' matrix was replaced by the DMD xxx matrix for the promo releases and at the same time the 'DK' matrix was changed to DM 4xxx for the public 12"s. But the numbering seems to have just continued and for example DSKO 227 was released in 1979, while DMD 228 was a 1979 produced track but most likely released in 1980. Since then the DMD promo matrix seems to have been kept over the years, even though it took a leap from DMD 399 up to DMD 600 in between 1982 and 1983. But the 'DMD' was kept and you can find releases from the year 2000 in the DMD-series. For example the DMD 2574 is by former Disco diva Donna Summer and her track "The Power Of One" and DMD 2575 is DJ Spiller's "Groovejet". The first public 12-inch single were released in late 1977 or early 1978, it was Chic's "Dance, Dance, Dance (Yowsah, Yowsah, Yowsah)" on DK 4600. In 1979 the 'DK' matrix serie all of a sudden took a jump, from DK 4624, it continued at DK 4700 and, still in 1979, it took another jump from DK 4731 to continue at DK 4800. Then something strange happens... the 'DK' matrix continues up to DK 4809 in 1979, then the 'DM' matrix starts with DM 4810, which is also a 1979 produced release. Next up is Sheila B. Devotion with her Nile Rodgers & Bernard Edwards written and produced hit "Spacer" on DM 4811. That track was produced in 1979, but was a US hit right before summer in 1980. The next release comes in running order on DM 4812, BUT... and this is the strange thing... this release is from 1981! So it seems there was a gap for about one year when either no public 12-inch singles were released, or they were released on some unknown matrix number?! See the Matrix listing of Atlantic 12" releases up to 1983. The new decade had started and Atlantic kept releasing Disco tracks like the young Stacy Lattisaw's "Dynamite!" which was the US 12", while Stacy's bigger hit "Jump To The Beat" was released on 12" single in the UK and surprisingly never in the US... Stacy's writer and producer Narada Michael Walden sung "I Want You", while Sister Sledge told everyone they were "All American Girls" and ABBA scored their biggest US Club hit when they required "Lay All Your Love On Me". The Backlash of Disco which was said to have started in Caminski Park in Chicago the year before didn't seem to decrease the number of Disco releases, the only difference it seems to have done was to give the Disco music other names - like Dance music or High Energy. But still it was the same uplifting danceable beats as in the late 1970's. Under Atlantic distribution, new labels like the Jerry & Bob Greenberg owned Mirage was started. A label that would score hits with acts like Kano, Chic, Carly Simon, the System, Shannon and Break Machine over the next couple of years. Atlantic themselves released two great Gwen McCrae 12"s in 1981 - "Funky Sensation" and "Poyson", both all-time favorites of mine and written and produced by Kenton Nix, who had used to write hits for Taana Gardner before. They also released stuff from Gino Soccio, Suzy Q, Kleeer and ABBA. 1982 gave us more from Gino Soccio, Chic and Kleeer, but also "the Very Best In You" by Change along with Laura Branigan's "Gloria", Lace's Larry Levan remixed "Can't Play Around" and Gwen's "Keep The Fire Burning".		Download the FREE basic RealPlayer... CLICK to hear some Atlantic (and related) songs... Dancing Queen ABBA Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! ABBA Lay all you love on me ABBA Voulez-vous ABBA Ghost dancer Addrisi Brothers Daddy Cool Boney M Ma Baker Boney M Why Carly Simon Dance, dance, dance Chic Everybody dance Chic Good times Chic Le Freak Chic My feet keep dancing Chic My forbidden lover Chic Real people Chic Devil's gun C.J. & Co. Disco extravaganza G.B. Experience Funky sensation Gwen McCrae Keep the fire burning Gwen McCrae Poyson Gwen McCrae Superman Herbie Mann Tonight's the night (Feel good) Kleeer Can't play around Lace Blame it on the boogie Mick Jackson Weekend Mick Jackson Tonight I'm alright Narada Michael Walden Lady bump Penny McLean Weekend Phreek He's the greatest dancer Sister Sledge We are family Sister Sledge Just a touch of love Slave Working my way back to you Spinners Jump to the beat Stacy Lattisaw Shoot me (with your love) Tasha Thomas Disco Inferno Trammps Click to buy from Dynamite! - Stacy Lattisaw Love injection - Trussel I shoulda loved ya - Narada Michael Walden Just a touch of love - Slave Keep the fire burning (UK club remix) - Gwen McCrae Do it Roger - Roger You can do it - Five Special If you really want me - Sister Sledge On my own - Debra Laws Baby I'm scared of you - Womack & Womack Lover undercover (UK club remix) - Fatback Band Let me show you - Larry Wu Dancin' in the key of life - Steve Arrington Click to buy from Try It Out - Gino Soccio Bad Habits (12” mix) - Jenny Burton Toda Menina Baiana - Gilberto Gil Eye To Eye - Chaka Khan Watching You - Slave I’m Sick And Tired (UK 12”Remix) - Larry Graham Intimate Connection - Kleeer Feels So Real - Patrice Rushen Mt. Airy Groove - Pieces Of A Dream Didn’t Know About Love (‘Til I Found You) - Lenny White The Way You Love Me (12” Hype Remix) - Karyn White My Magic Man (12” Magic Mix) - Rochelle For more Atlantic CD's... Click here!
From 1983 more Electro and Break dance music were started to be released along with the Dance music, but I will not cover all of that within these pages since most of these are kind of post-Disco. It's still interesting to see that Atlantic managed to keep up with the trends of time and have remained so 'till this day. In the mid 80's, Jerry Wexler sold his shares in the company and "retired" to Florida, even though he kept producing some records for various artists throughout the 80's and 90's. Ahmet Ertegun was also influential in founding the Rock'n'Roll Hall Of Fame, which had its first inductees in 1986, and in 1987 both Ahmet and Jerry Wexler were inducted in the Non-Performer category for their achievements in the music business. Four years later, in 1991, two years after his death [July 15, 1989], Nesuhi Ertegun was inducted into the Hall of Fame in the Lifetime Achievement category for all his work for the Jazz genre over the years. At the Rock'n'Roll Hall of Fame induction dinner in 1995, it was announced that the main exhibition hall of the Rock'n'Roll museum would be named after Ahmet Ertegun. In 1987, at the age of 70, Nesuhi retired from the record business were his last job had been as the head of Warner Records international Division. On May 14, 1988 - Atlantic held a 12-hours 40th Anniversary concert which was broadcasted on HBO and artists from the 50's up to that day performed on the stage at Madison Square Garden, New York. Some acts which just reunited for this occasion; Led Zeppelin, Crosby, Stills & Nash, the Rascals and Vanilla Fudge. Others that performed live were Bee Gees (this was their first live performance since 1979), the Spinners, Yes, Peabo Bryson, Genesis, Foreigner, Wilson Pickett, Ben E. King, Roberta Flack, the Coasters, Dan Aykroyd, Debbie Gibson and others... In 1987, Warner Communications and Time Inc. announced they would merge and the merger was closed in 1989, after that the company name was changed to Time Warner. Then in 2000 America On-Line [AOL] bought Time Warner for over $150 billion and the new company was called AOL Time Warner. But in 2002 AOL had a huge financial loss and the company decided to drop the "AOL" from the name. Early in the new millennium the Atlantic Records logo was changed to a new and 'up-to-date' round logo. Ahmet Ertegun remained as 'Founding Chairman' of Atlantic Records until his death on December 14, 2006 at the age of 83. Atlantic Records is still part of the Warner Music Group and continues to be successful...

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