Ahmet Ertegun, a Turkish immigrant with a love for African-American music, co-founded one of America’s premier record companies, Atlantic Records, in 1948. Atlantic’s earliest success was with Blues and R&B artists such as Ruth Brown, Big Joe Turner, the Clovers, and Ray Charles; in later years the label expanded its scope and distribution to include Aretha Franklin, Led Zeppelin, John Coltrane, and many others, most recently acts such as Kid Rock, Gnarls Barkley, and Missy Elliott. Ertegun, who was born in Istanbul on July 31, 1923, and his brother Nesuhi moved to Washington, D.C., in 1935 with their father, who had been appointed the Turkish ambassador to the United States. The brothers built a collection of 25,000 records and soon got into the record business for themselves. Ahmet joined forces with Herb Abramson to form Atlantic and was later joined by Nesuhi and Jerry Wexler. Under the name Nugetre (Ertegun spelled backwards), he wrote songs for Big Joe Turner (‘Chains of Love’), Ray Charles (‘Mess Around’), and others. Ertegun remained an active executive in the business even after Atlantic ended up under the corporate wings of the WEA conglomerate. He was attending a Rolling Stones concert in New York when he suffered a head injury from a backstage fall on October 29, 2006. He died on December 14 and was buried in Turkey alongside his brother and father.
