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If I were to be inappropriately facetious, I could say my first words were "Ahmet Ertegun" (although Spanish was my first language, it really is a version of the truth). Somehow, as a babe in my crib in Chocolate City, listening to the strains of Atlantic (and affiliate) recordings drifting down the hall from the trusty KLH stereo of my parents (who loved Ray Charles, who hailed from Père's hometown of Albany, Ga. aka Thronateeska; they attended grad school at Howard while Donny Hathaway studied music there), I knew that this distinct, important person existed -- "Ahmet Ertegun" -- and that somehow his odd, exotic name represented a titan of taste. Later, as a diplomatic corps brat and music fanatic myself, I thrilled that Mr. Ertegun, as the Turkish Ambassador's son in mid-century, had consummated his love for R&B on the very same D.C. streets I inhabited, that he knew the owner of our 'hood-celebrated record chain Waxie Maxie's (Max Silverman) and had gone to church at the local, (shuttered) Chitlin' Circuit stop, the Howard Theater. I identified with the suave, urbane, cultured record executive in his bespoke suits and yearned to meet and have him serve as my rabbi in the rockbiz.
It may be hard for younger readers to ken the visceral, emotional attachment music heads of my generation and older have to albums as objects -- especially since 2006 was the year when user-generated content (particularly via MySpace and YouTube) overtook physical recordings themselves. Yet my earliest memories other than pure sound are of toddling past my parents' system and nanny's console stereo, watching platters with the iconic red-and-green Atlantic label drop down the stack, emitting such strange, wonderful sounds never to be duplicated again -- above all, those from Hathaway (produced to raw perfection by Mardin and Wexler on the crate-digger classic, Donny Hathaway Live). If I was ready for revolution in my Afro and red-black-and-green diapers, it's because classic Atlantic soul sides made it sound infinitely stirring and possible.
I was a melancholy, fanciful child; one of twins and yet a loner within that duality. My father had no sons and my male cousins lived far enough away in southwest Georgia so that I had the full benefit of his sonic sermonizing. More to the point, I had no boys to compete with for stereo time nor to mock and dismiss my fascination with music and its related biniss. So, then as now, the albums in the flat were my friends, their liner notes my gospel. And early on I knew the great significance of the powerful, erudite, sound-obsessed men who orbited Atlantic Records and its satellites Atco, Cotillion, Stax/Volt/Ardent, Capricorn: Ertegun, Mardin, Wexler, Tom Dowd, Nesuhi Ertegun, Phil Walden, Joel Dorn and Jim Stewart. These legends' very names were akin to music, and they (plus their concert-related associates, promoter/manager Bill Graham and live sound guru Wally Heider) were my personal superheroes in the manner that Huey and Superman were to the youngbloods on the playground.
As ancient Kemetic civilization is to the world, Atlantic Records is to my private universe. Although Brer Booth has been the most important influence on me as a southern raconteur, I never aspired to rockcrit; I always secretly nursed the romance of becoming an A&R executive because of the class and example of the Erteguns, Mardin and Wexler (I hadn't even heard of colored Columbia producer Tom Wilson yet and most of the great black independent labels had gone the way of race records by the early '70s, yet Ertegun definitely didn't seem white, making the impossible seem possible -- now, gender issues are another story). Simultaneously, my abiding passion for Southern rock and soul was triggered largely by Wexler's association with Stax and Dowd's miracle working at famed studios in Memphis, Miami and northwest Alabama. Out of the Atlantic fount came my love for the Allman Brothers Band, the Buffalo Springfield, peerless Hathaway and Roberta Flack duets, CSNY, Eugene McDaniels (whose 1971 hip-folk masterpiece that raised Nixon's ire, Headless Heroes of the Apocalypse, was reissued in March), Manassas, John Coltrane, David Crosby's solo masterpiece If I Could Only Remember My Name ... (re-released by Rhino this fall), Big Star and Jim Dickinson, the Mule (for whom I wrote liner notes) and so much more; the label's existence reflected and nurtured my love for soul, country-rock, bluegrass, jazz and, very belatedly, metal (via Led Zeppelin). And dontcha know that Capricorn Grail Eric Quincy Tate was delivered from the misty vaults of time this season by Rhino Handmade?
The very marrow of my biracial, hybrid dream of Southern transcendence rests with Walden's symbiotic management of Redding, as well as his label Capricorn and its flagship act, the Allmans (Jaimoe saved my life twice -- once metafizzik-ly, once literally). I would not have devoted my career to supporting the 1990's rebirth of Southern rock nor new South culture without the shining beacon of Atlantic; I'd have never come to Charlotte. What would the world look like without Atlantic's revolutionary North-South quid pro quo or the East-West aesthetic it engendered?
