In thinking about the impact of our AOM Gerald Levert, I wanted to dedicate a little space to something that I don’t think gets a lot of attention when you think of his legacy. We know the hits: The early work with LeVert, the solo work, the side projects, LSG… but today I wanted to focus on Gerald’s overall musical impact and how he was at the center of a very interesting occurrence at a record label that was seminal in the history of Black Music from the Rock Era forward.

Atlantic Records

Founded in 1947 by Ahmet Ertegun, Herb Abramson and Miriam Abramson, Atlantic had its first hit in 1949 with Stick McGhee’s “Drinking Wine, Spo-Dee-O-Dee” which sold 400,000 copies and hit #3 on the newly christened Billboard R&B charts (christened by a writer at Billboard at the time who at first thought he should rename the “Race Record” chart “Cat Music” instead of Rhythm Blues. That writer was none other than Jerry Wexler who would shortly become an important figure in the development of Atlantic into a powerhouse of R&B.) From that first success came other discoveries in the 1950′s Ruth Brown, Ray Charles groups like the Clovers and on and on. (more…)

Produced by Robert Plant and Ahmet Ertegun. The story goes that while the sessions were going on for this recording, Harry Belafonte was in the building working on the soundtrack to “Beat Street”. Ahmet invited Harry down to checkout what was going on and after some impromptu dancing, hugs and tears were shed about this music that was being recorded.

Talk about “Bridging the Gap”! Early Hip Hop and classic Rhythm and Blues all being recorded on the same day at the same place but musicians from various generations , countries, ethnic backgrounds etc., that’s the power of music.

The inspiration for this editorial can be found here. If you are interested in current music industry trends and quite often lively debate I would suggest you subscribe to the Lefsetz Letter.

Whereas the blog post was the inspiration there was a reply to the discussion thread with the following link that really convicted me to say something. (more…)