Atlantic Records - Jerry Wexler

Jerry Wexler

Herb Abramson was drafted into the US Army in February 1953 and left for Germany where he served in the US Army Dental Corps, although he retained his post as President of Atlantic on full pay. Ertegun recruited Billboard reporter Jerry Wexler in June 1953: who is credited with coining the term "rhythm & blues" to replace the earlier "race music". He was appointed vice-president and purchased 13% of the company's stock for $2,063.25. Wexler and Ertegun soon formed a close partnership which, in collaboration with Tom Dowd, produced thirty R&B hits.

Ertegun and Wexler realized many R&B recordings by black artists were being covered by white performers, often with greater chart success: Atlantic's LaVern Baker had a #4 R&B hit with "Tweedlee Dee" but a rival version by Georgia Gibbs went to #2 on the pop charts, Big Joe Turner's April 1954 release "Shake, Rattle and Roll" was a #1 R&B hit but only made #22 on the pop chart while Bill Haley & His Comets's version reached #7, sold over 1 million copies and was Decca Records' biggest-selling song of the year. In July 1954, as rock'n'roll gathered momentum, Wexler and Ertegun wrote a prescient article for Cash Box, headlined "The Latest Trend: R&B Disks Are Going Pop", devoted to what they called "cat music"; the same month, Atlantic scored its first major "crossover" hit on the Billboard pop chart when the "Sh-Boom" by The Clovers reached #5 (although The Crew-Cuts' version went to #1). Atlantic missed an important signing in 1955 when Sun Records' owner Sam Phillips sold Elvis Presley's recording contract in a bidding war between labels. Atlantic offered $25,000 which, Ertegun later noted, "was all the money we had then." but they were outbid by RCA Records's offer of $45,000. In 1990 Ertegun remarked:

"The president of RCA at the time had been extensively quoted in Variety damning R&B music as immoral. He soon stopped when RCA signed Elvis Presley."