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Friday, 15 August 2008 22:50 |
 Ed Christman from Billboard.com is reporting:
Music industry legend Jerry Wexler, who kick-started his career as
a Billboard journalist in the late 1940s and went on to cultivate the
careers of RAY CHARLES, ARETHA FRANKLIN and LED ZEPPELIN while a
partner at Atlantic Records, has died at the age of 91 at his home in
Siesta Key, Fla.
Wexler was born on Jan. 10, 1917, into a Jewish family in the Bronx.
After graduating from the school now known as Kansas State University
and spending a stint in the Army, he was hired in 1947 at BMI, writing
continuity copy for radio stations and plugging the organization's
songs.
Later that year a friend recommended him to Billboard, where he was
hired with a starting pay of $75 a week. At Billboard, Wexler invented
the term "rhythm & blues" to replace the name "race records," which
was then the name of the chart tracking such music.
He stayed at Billboard until 1951, when he went to work for Big
Three, the music publishing arm of MGM Records. The following year,
Atlantic Records tried to recruit him, but Wexler said he would only
join if he was made a partner, and nothing happened. A year later, when
co-founder Herb Abramson joined the Army, Atlantic came back with
another offer and this time agreed to take him in as a partner.
Read more here.
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