The Day Music Dies The Drifters, Roberta Flack, Aretha Franklin, Ray Charles, Clyde McPhatter, Ben E. King and Wilson Pickett are all names that most Baltimoreans are familiar with. They are probably less familiar with the man who created the record label that made those artists household names in America.

I am writing from Istanbul, Turkey this week where I attended the funeral of one of Turkey’s favorite sons, who was also the man who changed American music forever. Though he grew up in Washington DC, the Turkish born Ahmet Ertegun, was probably unknown to most Baltimoreans. Ertegun, who died last week at the age of 83 after sustaining a head injury when he fell backstage at a Rolling Stones concert, was a towering figure in the world of soul and rock and roll. A founder of Atlantic Records, and enshrined in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, Ertegun will be familiar to those Baltimoreans who saw the movie “Ray” as the music mogul who identified and brought Ray Charles into the mainstream of American music.

Ertegun also had a Baltimore connection. It could be that the entrepreneurial spirit that led him to found the Atlantic Record label was first evidenced in Baltimore. Ertegun once told me that as a teenager growing up in Washington, he had a passion for horse racing and used to make his way to Baltimore for races at Pimlico and Timonium where he created and sold his own racing forms at the Timonium track.

Ironically, as a Turk, Ertegun had a profound impact on racial equality in America. When Ertegun created the Atlantic label in the late 1940’s, not only was America segregated and so was its music. Black musicians played in black clubs, mostly out of sight of white Americans. Ertegun, who came to segregated Washington as a teenager as the son of the Turkish Ambassador to the US, frequented DC’s jazz clubs where he befriended black musicians. Since many of these musicians had no place to practice or jam, Ertegun often invited them to the Turkish Embassy to play.

Apparently, the sight of blacks in segregated Washington entering the front door of the Turkish Embassy on Massachusetts Avenue was too much for one southern senator who wrote the Turkish Ambassador saying the it had come to his attention that “Negroes” were entering through the front door of the Turkish Embassy. Ertegun’s father wrote the senator and, according to what Ertegun told me last summer, replied “ Dear Senator: It is my custom to invite my friends through the front door of my residence. But if you prefer, you are welcome to enter through the back door.”

Ertegun’s passion for the music that he heard black artists play in out of the way night clubs in Washington and across the south led him to create a record company that helped bring black musicians to the forefront of American culture and music. That’s why, in the words of Aretha Franklin, Ahmet Ertegun deserves the R-E-S-P-E-C-T of all Americans.

Labels: Ahmet Ertegun, Aretha Franklin, Atlantic Record label, Istanbul, Turkey

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