Legendary record producer Jerry Wexler has died.

[Sheets of Easter]

Source: AP

NEW YORK (AP) - Legendary record producer Jerry Wexler, who helped shape R&B music with influential recordings of Aretha Franklin, Ray Charles and other greats, and later made key recordings with the likes of Bob Dylan and Willie Nelson, has died, says his co-author, David Ritz. He was 91.

Ritz, co-author of Wexler's 1993 memoir, "Rhythm and the Blues," said he died at his Sarasota, Fla., home at about 3:45 a.m. Friday. He had been ill for a couple of years with congenital heart disease.

Wexler earned his reputation as a music industry giant while a partner at Atlantic Records. Atlantic provided an outlet for the groundbreaking work of African-American performers in the 1950s and '60s. Later, it was a home to rock icons like Led Zeppelin and The Rolling Stones. He later helped Dylan win his first Grammy by producing his 1979 "Slow Train Coming" album.



Read more: http://apnews.myway.com//article/20080815/D92IR79G2.html

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Wow. What a legendary resume.

[Lost4words]

1. RIP Mr. Wexler....

And Thank You!

8643

[nickyt]

2. Rock on, Mr. Wexler, and thank you for bringing us some of the best music

on the planet.
Say hi to Ray for us!

[Billy Burnett]

3. Our industry has lost a pioneer.

:(

[salguine]

4. Wexler and Ahmet Ertegun—the last of the great Record Men.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

5. Ahmet Ertegun

The WaPo ran a great anecdote about him when he died. The appreciation is the first hit at Google. (Wow, is it coming up on two years?)

It All Began One Night Near U Street

It was 1935. Ertegun, son of the Turkish ambassador, was still new to the United States and to Washington, but he knew he liked Cab Calloway.

As he lay in bed one night, listening to the radio, the deejay announced that Calloway was playing that night at a club nearby.

"I was put to bed by 10 o'clock," Ertegun recalled. "They used to have late-night pickup concerts of orchestras, and they said that Cab Calloway was playing in Washington. So I ran to my father's living room, where he was talking with the first secretary of the embassy. And I said I wanted to go to hear Cab Calloway live."

He breathed that last word with excitement.

His father, the ambassador, reacted as any parent would. "No, you go back to bed!" he told the boy.

But Ahmet persisted and found an ally in the embassy secretary, who wanted to hear the band himself. The two of them reached an outdoor club near U Street NW at about midnight. Cab Calloway's orchestra took the stage, and Ahmet was awed: "He had such an incredibly great band."

That night opened the boy's eyes to the city's social divisions as well, to the reality of segregation. For years, he would return to U Street to hear the authentic jazz that he loved, and that he would later nurture as co-founder of Atlantic Records.
....

The boyhood experiences in the clubs and record shops of Washington, Ertegun said, "molded my understanding of black American music very strongly. That really put a perspective on the direction of music and the importance of black music."

A few minutes after we hung up, he called back. He had one more D.C. memory to offer, involving Griffith Stadium, home of the Washington Senators, where Ellington had sold peanuts as a boy. In 1943 or '44, Ertegun went there with Charlie Parker to watch a ballgame.

"The Washington Senators, unfortunately, could never fill the stadium," he told me. "They weren't doing so well. But Sister Rosetta Tharpe could pack that place to the rafters."

-- David A. Taylor
Alexandria, Virginia

David Taylor is an author, freelance writer and documentary filmmaker. His e-mail address is dataylor at igc dot org

[undergroundrailroad]

6. RIP Mr. Wexler.

O8)