Jerry Wexler
He didn't sing, play or write songs, but Jerry Wexler (born in
1917) changed music significantly more than most people who could do
all three. His roles - reporter, A&R man, producer - conceal an
input into the course of popular culture that was nothing short of
visionary.
For small starters, Jerry Wexler was the man who coined the term
'Rhythm & Blues' in 1948, at a stroke replacing 'race music'
as a catch-all tag for the music of black America. He was a
30-year-old reporter on Billboard at the time, and the
magazine promptly lost its 'Harlem Hit Parade' in favour of the
R&B charts.
Over the next three decades, Wexler - a Jewish New Yorker - would
help tear down the divide between black and white America. Offered a
job at Atlantic Records by the label's founder, Ahmet Ertegun, in
1953 he fattened Atlantic's roster, bullying radio DJ's into
playing the label's music, and as producer oversaw Ray Charles'
meteoric impact.
Astonishingly, Wexler had more in store, nurturing the careers of
crossover stars like The Drifters and Solomon Burke and acquiring
release rights to lesser labels like Stax of Memphis. Impressed with
Stax's output - Rufus Thomas, Booker T & The MGs, Otis Redding
- in 1965 Wexler decided to record Wilson Pickett at the Stax
studios - a session that changed pop history.
Pickett's In The Midnight Hour became a monster hit and
realigned Stax's trademark sound after Wexler insisted the house
band change its beat, emerging from the control booth to dance 'The
Jerk' by way of a metronome.
Wexler was changed, too, discovering in the South a more organic
way of making records than the Big Apple's conveyor belt. He took
others to Memphis, notably Dusty Springfield, and when Atlantic
signed Aretha Franklin he turned to Fame Studios in Muscle Shoals,
Alabama. With the industry's eyes on him, Wexler helped Franklin -
a failed Columbia act - become Queen Of Soul, allying her
spirituality with smouldering sexuality.
Though Wexler signed Led Zeppelin to Atlantic and expanded the
label's empire via imprints like the Allman Brothers' Capricorn,
his heart was not in the burgeoning rock scene (perhaps surprisingly
he much preferred "country chicks like Loretta Lyn").
The decision to sell Atlantic to Warners in 1970 was, he rued
later, "the worst mistake of my life", and he left the
company in 1975. He became a gun for hire, leaving his imprint on
Dylan's Slow Train Coming and George Michael's Careless
Whisper before returning to Florida. His autobiography, Rhythm
& The Blues (ghost-written by David Ritz) arrived in 1993,
complete with candid admissions about his excesses.
Wexler never lost the abrasiveness of his New York upbringing -
he had a legendary short fuse - but he was loved for his generosity
and sensitivity. And his hits.
A convinced atheist, it was ironic that he spent much of his life
around gospel singers. Asked what he wanted on his tombstone, he
flashed back "Two words - More Bass".
Wexler died in 2008.
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