From:   "Dik de Heer" 
Date:  Thu Jan 10, 2002  1:16 am
Subject:  Born To Be With You : Jerry Wexler
 
JERRY WEXLER

Born 10 January, 1917, Washington Heights, New York City

Producer / executive vice president, Atlantic Records.
As a writer for Billboard, Wexler coined the term "rhythm and blues"
for what previously had been called "race records". He joined Atlantic
Records in 1953, when Ahmet Ertegun was looking for a new partner
after Herb Abramson had been called up for military service. The first
session he worked on was LaVern Baker's "Soul on Fire"/"How Can
You Leave a Man Like This". Atlantic became the most important R&B
label in the fifties, with acts like Joe Turner, Ruth Brown, Ray Charles,
Clyde McPhatter and the Drifters, The Clovers, Chuck Willis and many
others. Always a workaholic, Wexler also played an important role in
the promotion of Atlantic's product. When he went to Stax in Memphis
in the early sixties to arrange for Atlantic's distribution of Stax and Volt,
he was "rejuvenated", as he calls it. The rejuvenation came in the form
of Wilson Pickett, a soul shouter from Alabama. The Atlantic group of
labels was at the forefront of soul, the roster including Otis Redding,
Solomon Burke, Sam and Dave, Percy Sledge, Joe Tex, Don Covay,
etc. Wexler sent stars to Stax in Memphis and to Fame Studios at
Muscle Shoals to record there.
In 1967, Atlantic was sold to Warner Bros and Wexler moved to Florida
and semiretirement. He officially left Atlantic in 1975, the year Stax
folded for good. Wexler produced the seminal Atlantic records of Aretha
Franklin, as well as Dusty Springfield's classic 1969 album "Dusty in
Memphis".
Wexler believes that the most important job of a producer is serving the
artist. "Who the f**k do we think we are that we could go in a studio and
dominate? There was hubris. Under what notion could we imagine we
could go into the studio and assemble a record? We couldn't read a music
chart, we couldn't play an instrument, and we couldn't run a board".
But Wexler and Ertegun were fanatic blues and jazz fans, record collectors,
who really understood music and brought this knowledge to their productions.
Wexler's last production was "The Right Time" by Etta James (Elektra, 1992).
Since then he has split his time between his homes in East Hampton, NY,
and Sarasota, Florida.
His autobiography can be warmly recommended : Jerry Wexler and David Ritz,
Rhythm and the Blues : A Life in American Music. New York : Knopf, 1993.