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 home in Sarasota, Florida, at about 3:45am on 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 with another legendary music figure, the late Ahmet Ertegun. Atlantic provided an outlet for the groundbreaking work of African-American performers in the 1950s and 1960s. 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.
Under Ertegun and Wexler, Atlantic provided an outlet for the groundbreaking work of African-American performers in the 1950s and 1960s. Later, it provided a home to rock bands such as Led Zeppelin, Foreigner and Yes.
Wexler helped boost the careers of both the “King of Soul,” Charles, and the “Queen of Soul,” Franklin. Wilson Pickett, Solomon Burke and Percy Sledge were among the other R&B greats who benefited from Wexler’s deft recording touch. He also produced Dusty Springfield’s classic Dusty in Memphis, considered a masterpiece of “blue-eyed” soul.
Among the standards produced by Wexler: Franklin’s Respect a dazzling, feminist reworking of an Otis Redding song; Sledge’s deep ballad When A Man Loves A Woman and Pickett’s In the Midnight Hour, with a horn vamp inspired by Wexler’s admittedly rhythmless dancing.
Wexler was named to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987.
“No one really knew how to make a record when I started,” he said in a profile on the rock hall’s Web site. “You simply went into the studio, turned on the mike and said, ‘Play.’”
In the studio, Wexler was a hands-on producer. Once, during a session with Charles, the tambourine player was off the beat.
Wexler, in his award-winning autobiography, recalled grabbing the instrument and playing it himself.
“Who’s that?” asked Charles.
“Me,” Wexler told the blind singer.
“You got it, baby!” Charles said.
The son of Polish immigrants and a music buff since his teens, Wexler landed a job writing for Billboard magazine in the late 1940s after serving in World War II and studying journalism in college.
There he coined the term “rhythm and blues” for the magazine’s black music charts; previously, they were listed under “race records.”
While working at Billboard, Wexler befriended Ertegun — a life-altering friendship for both. Ertegun and a partner had started Atlantic, then a small R&B label in New York. In 1953, when Ertegun’s partner left for a two-year military hitch, Wexler stepped in as the label’s co-director.
He never left.
“In the early sessions, I just sat there watching him [Ertegun] while I was cowering in fright,” Wexler said in 2001. “But as time went on, we proved to be a very successful team ... We went on the road together, we hung out together.”
At Atlantic, he collaborated with a virtual who’s who of soul: Charles, Pickett, Sledge, Redding, Franklin, Sam and Dave.
Wexler produced 16 albums and numerous hit singles for Franklin, who switched to Atlantic in the mid-1960s and rediscovered her gospel roots after several unhappy years singing show tunes for Columbia.
In 1967, Wexler and Ertegun sold Atlantic to Warner Bros for US$17.5 million, but they stayed on to run the company.
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