The Last Sultan Read online

  Praise for THE LAST SULTAN

  “Ahmet Ertegun was a man who loved his music and wanted others to hear what may otherwise have gone unheard. . . . We first met when the Stones signed up with Atlantic. The stories began to flow, and a lot of them are in these pages. Robert Greenfield has done a masterful job of relating them. . . . I shall miss Ahmet. He was a great man and a great friend!”

  —Keith Richards

  “Ahmet Ertegun was a man of passion, loyalty, generosity, and fun, both sacred and profane, who could target like a laser what was authentic and worthwhile in the many worlds he bestrode so seamlessly and successfully. Greenfield’s fascinating biography, The Last Sultan, gets it right, and I envy readers their opportunity to experience the life and times of this extraordinary man.”

  —Henry Kissinger

  “In many ways, this book is the Bible of rock ’n’ roll. A sacred tale rooted in the incredible life journey of my friend Ahmet Ertegun who touched not only me, but also so many other people in so many ways.”

  —Kid Rock

  “Robert Greenfield has written a loving, vividly detailed, and utterly compelling history of one of the most fascinating lives of the twentieth century. . . . The Last Sultan is the remarkable odyssey of a truly remarkable man.”

  —Jann Wenner, Editor, Publisher, and Founder of Rolling Stone

  “Ahmet Ertegun is not an easy subject—he was both indelible and opaque—but Greenfield has dug deeper than anyone ever has, to reveal one of the most complex Americans of the last half century.”

  —Taylor Hackford, Director/Producer of Ray

  “Mesmerizing, entertaining, informative. . . . There are a great many delicious stories in this page-turning work. . . . A vivid portrait of Ertegun but also a colorful panorama of the indie record-business during and after its rough-and-tumble years, when bootleggers sold as many singles as the real labels, gangsters were always angling to squeeze in on the action, and payola was just part of the cost of doing business.”

  —Tom Nolan, San Francisco Chronicle

  “Greenfield’s book, the first posthumous biography of Ertegun, is also the first to bring Ertegun’s story up to date and put it in perspective. . . . This is not your run-of-the-mill music-biz hagiography.”

  —Alex Abramovich, The New York Times Book Review

  “Greenfield’s portrait of Ertegun is an incisive and compelling account of the sometimes convoluted story of how Atlantic Records became possibly the most respected label in the business.”

  —Steven Daly, Businessweek

  “An excellent biography of a titan in the music industry.”

  —Booklist (starred review)

  “More than anything, The Last Sultan invites yet another round of applause for a man with golden ears, a wicked sense of humor, and a taste for living second to none.”

  —Jim Farber, New York Daily News

  “Thoroughly researched and revealing, The Last Sultan likely will stand as the definitive work on one of the music industry’s most memorable characters.”

  —Rege Behe, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review

  “Ertegun was more than just management: He was music executive as rock star, a man who lived as large as the musicians, and presided over what could be called rock’s greatest era.”

  —Men’s Journal

  “Robert Greenfield conjures an era in which music was a progressive cultural and economic force, twining the extraordinary story of Ahmet Ertegun’s life with the evolution of pop. . . . The book bubbles with fashion, fame, money, name dropping—and insight into a man above all loyal to himself.”

  —Carlo Wolff, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

  “A compulsively readable, evenhanded biography of Atlantic Records’ founder. . . . A flavorful, balanced piece of music-biz history.”

  —Kirkus Reviews

  “This enchanting book captures the life and work of a seminal figure without whom the business of making records would not have had its lasting impact.”

  —Library Journal

  Ahmet at Atlantic Records in the 1970s.

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  Contents

  Epigraph

  Prologue: A Day of Tribute in New York

  1. Coming to America

  2. The Nation’s Capital

  3. Making Records

  4. The House That Ruth Built

  5. Mess Around

  6. Shake, Rattle and Roll

  7. Brothers in Arms

  8. Splish Splash

  9. Love and Marriage

  10. The Oak Room

  11. I Got You Babe

  12. Hey, What’s That Sound

  13. Selling Out

  14. Helplessly Hoping

  15. Romancing the Stones

  16. The Boy Wonder

  17. The Years with Ross

  18. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

  19. Clash of the Titans

  20. Bawitdaba in Bodrum

  21. “The Encore Was Heaven”

  Acknowledgments

  Photographs

  About Robert Greenfield

  Notes

  Bibliography

  Index

  for mica ertegun and selma goksel, ahmet’s better angels

  “He was hip. He was hip to the tip, as we say. He was not a square. He was someone who understood the idiom.”

  —Herb Abramson, founding partner of Atlantic Records, on Ahmet Ertegun

  “Ahmet had eyes to make records. He also had ears and tremendous taste.”

  —Jerry Wexler, who succeeded Abramson as Ahmet Ertegun’s partner at Atlantic Records

  “Ahmet was sui generis. And then he made himself up as he went along.”

  —Henry Kissinger, Ahmet Ertegun’s friend

  PROLOGUE

  A Day of Tribute in New York

  April 17, 2007. In the tiny village New York can sometimes become when it honors one of its own who has fulfilled the dream of hope on which the city was built, the all-star tribute to Ahmet Ertegun scheduled to begin at six P.M. in the Rose Theater at the Time Warner Center on Columbus Circle was the talk of the town. Those who had labored long and hard to bring about what promised to be the event of the season as well as one of those once-in-a-lifetime evenings that could never happen anywhere else, literally could not think about anything else.

  In his office at Rolling Stone magazine, Jann Wenner, who along with film director Taylor Hackford was producing the event, nervously wondered whether his old friend Mick Jagger was going to perform this evening. Ensconced in a suite at the Carlyle Hotel, Jagger, who had lost his ninety-three-year-old father only a few months earlier, was incommunicado. Making matters worse, Wenner had just learned that Keith Richards, who had been scheduled to do “Sixty Minute Man” by Billy Ward and the Dominoes at the tribute, had gone to England to be with his ailing mother and so would not be able to perform.

  The invitation-only tribute was still the hottest ticket in town. Entry to the private party following the event at The Boat House in Central Park was so tightly controlled that those who feared they would not be allowed to attend either function were frantically doing all they could to wangle their way on to the guest list even at the very last minute.

  Faced with the daunting task of doling out twelve hundred free tickets to an event that could have easily filled a much larger venue, Ahmet’s assistant Frances Chantly had unwittingly turned up the pressure by insisting there be no reserved sea
ting. To her way of thinking, those who truly loved Ahmet would be there early.

  Showing no respect for the dead, a reporter from the New York Post’s always scurrilous “Page Six” gossip column, which had previously run a blind item about an aging record executive with a cane engaging in scandalous behavior with two women, called Ahmet’s grieving widow at home that afternoon to ask if it was true that other women who were involved with her late husband would be at the tribute. As always, Mica Ertegun patiently explained that Americans did not understand how European women viewed such matters.

  While she had not yet been able to bring herself to watch PBS’s American Masters documentary about Ahmet, the film had been shown the night before at the Anthology Film Archives in the East Village. On the afternoon of the tribute, the documentary was shown again in a plush screening room at the Time Warner Center where cellophane-wrapped cookies bearing Ahmet’s likeness from Eleni’s Bakery were given to invited guests along with a 60th Anniversary Atlantic Records commemorative CD distributed by Starbucks featuring seventeen songs Ahmet had selected before his death.

  Many of those who attended the screening decided the wisest course of action was to just wait there until the tribute began. Patiently, they then stood in line before a brace of secretaries who checked their names off lists before allowing them to board elevators to the fifth-floor theater. Leaving no doubt the stars had come out tonight for Ahmet and it was only in New York that such an event could have taken place, Tom Wolfe strolled through the lobby as Helen Mirren stepped from the elevator to join the crowd waiting to enter the theater. Standing in a long line of well-coiffed women in elegant dresses carrying little handbags suspended from gold chains and silver-haired captains of industry in expensive suits and dark blue blazers, the punk singer and poet Patti Smith looked incongruous yet somehow also at home.

  Wearing black, Mica Ertegun sat in the front row of the theater with Ahmet’s family and many of the artists who were scheduled to perform. As people filled the seats, there was a good deal of air-kissing, embracing, and handshaking across the rows. A large photograph of Ahmet stood on a bare stage framed by small trees. Befitting the course of his career, the program began with jazz.

  Followed by horn players and two drummers, Wynton Marsalis, the artistic director of Jazz at Lincoln Center and a member of the selection committee of the Jazz Hall of Fame Ahmet had founded in his brother Nesuhi’s name in 2004, walked through a side door playing trumpet like the second coming of Louis Armstrong on “Oh, Didn’t He Ramble,” a number often performed by New Orleans brass bands on their way back from a funeral.

  Larger than life and sitting on a gilded throne in a three-piece suit, the great soul singer Solomon Burke spoke of “the little Turkish prince, our beloved brother Ahmet.” Eric Clapton, whom Ahmet had first heard play forty years earlier at the Scotch of St. James in London, then took the stage. Wearing glasses with his hair closely cropped, Clapton said, “I loved Ahmet. He was like a father to me. In the old days, we’d have a drink and do some other things and any time that happened, he would start singing songs to me . . . We’re going to do two of the songs he always sang—‘Send Me Someone to Love’ and the other by Sticks McGhee called ‘Drinkin’ Wine Spo-dee-O-Dee.’ ”

  Backed by Dr. John on piano, a drummer, and a bass player, Clapton performed masterful versions of both songs. He then gave way to New York City’s billionaire mayor Michael Bloomberg, who concluded his remarks by declaring, “And let us say, Ah-met!” The mayor was followed by Henry Kissinger, Bette Midler, Ben E. King, Kid Rock, and Sam Moore of Sam and Dave. After describing Ahmet as “a ducker and diver” who gave up his student visa to remain in America so he could make his life in music, Taylor Hackford introduced a videotaped statement by an ailing Jerry Wexler in Florida.

  Looking old and gaunt in a soft brown sailor’s cap, glasses, and a green shirt without a collar, Wexler talked about Ahmet’s sense of “irony and tomfoolery” and how he could be speaking in French to the French ambassador only to hang up the phone to greet a black musician by saying, “Hey, homes, what you know good?” Saying he did not know if he had ever specifically thanked Ahmet for giving him a life by making him a partner at Atlantic when he “had no qualifications whatsoever and no experience,” Wexler stared directly into the camera and, with the New York street accent he had never lost, said, “Ahmet, thank you for opening the door for me. Thank you.”

  On a completely black stage, Phil Collins sat down at the piano to perform a stunning version of “In the Air Tonight,” the song Ahmet had helped make a hit. After David Geffen told his classic and oft-repeated “bumping-into-geniuses” story about Ahmet, Stevie Nicks sang “Stand Back” and her version of Led Zeppelin’s “Rock ’n’ Roll.”

  Jann Wenner read a letter from Keith Richards in which the Stones’ guitarist said he had looked up to Ahmet as he did to Muddy Waters. Then Wenner talked about Ahmet’s formative role in the creation of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. He also recalled that when he asked Mica why Ahmet had looked so well while he was lying in a coma in the hospital, she told him, “Well, he hasn’t been drinking.” Bette Midler then returned to do her version of Bobby Darin’s “Beyond the Sea.”

  More than two hours into the proceedings, Mick Jagger stepped to the podium. In a suit, a white shirt, and no tie, with his long hair trailing over his ears, a relaxed Jagger delivered what most people agreed was the best speech of the evening. Obviously enjoying himself, he began his remarks by saying, “Ahmet was a father figure, this is true. But to me, he was more like the wicked uncle with the wicked chuckle.”

  Addressing what he called “a diverse and fascinating group of people like ourselves,” Jagger noted how only Ahmet could talk about geopolitics and medieval Islamic history and then pick the next Vanilla Fudge single. Jagger ended his remarks by reminiscing about a party during the 1970s when Ahmet had volunteered to hire strippers to entertain the Rolling Stones and then contacted an agency called the Widows Club who provided “rotund women of a certain age who stripped for free on the weekends.”

  Crosby, Stills, and Nash then took the stage. With Graham Nash on mouth harp and Stephen Stills on guitar, they did their version of the Beatles’ “In My Life.” Nash then said, “Here’s our friend Neil.” Hulking and stoop-shouldered with long hair and gray sideburns, Neil Young played acoustic guitar on “Helplessly Hoping.” After the song ended, Nash said, “Here’s something you don’t see every day. I’m looking forward to this myself. This is Neil and Stephen doing a Buffalo Springfield song.” He and Crosby then left the stage.

  Leaning into the microphone, Young said, “Ahmet was our man. I just hope that today’s musicians have someone like Ahmet taking care of them. Mica, thank you so much for taking care of him.” Without having rehearsed it, Stills and Young then began playing “Mr. Soul,” the classic Buffalo Springfield song Young had written in 1966 but the two men had not performed together in forty years.

  Playing rhythm with so much intensity that he became a one-man band, Young sang in a haunting voice as Stills picked out the leads on his white Washburn electric guitar. Together, they created the kind of musical magic for which Ahmet had lived. When they were done, Young put his hands together and looked up at the heavens as though to give thanks the performance had all come out right in the end.

  Ending the tribute nearly three hours after it began, Wynton Marsalis walked down the aisle playing “Down by the Riverside.” As though they were now in a church, the crowd got to their feet and began clapping their hands in time. At the party that followed, Kid Rock and Dave Mason of Traffic, backed by Paul Shaffer’s band, performed “Feelin’ Alright” and Solomon Burke sang “Cry to Me.”

  While the evening was, as Eric Clapton wrote in his autobiography, both “entertaining and emotionally stirring,” the guitarist also noted, “I still felt that had Ahmet been there in the flesh, he would have said something like, ‘Let’s get out of here and find the real shit.’ ”

  Once he
had found it, Ahmet would have drained every glass set before him and tapped his foot in time to the beat while telling the stories he loved best. Staying until the last note of music had been played, he would not have made his way home until the sun was rising. And then, just as he had always done while running Atlantic Records for seven decades, Ahmet would have checked in to see how his business was doing.

  Like the subject of the song Wynton Marsalis had played to begin the tribute, Ahmet Ertegun had rambled in and out of town. He had rambled through the city and the street. Throughout the course of his long and astonishing life, Ahmet had rambled all around.

  ONE

  Coming to America

  “The older I get, the more I realize how Turkish I am. I display the prime characteristics of Turkish vices: indolence and excess.”

  —Ahmet Ertegun

  1

  As much as any man who ever lived, Ahmet Ertegun loved to tell stories. That many of them happened to be about himself was never the point. In his unmistakable nasal hipster’s voice tinged with the black inflections of the street and the syncopated rhythms of the jazz music he had loved since childhood, Ahmet always knew how to find the groove when he talked. With the smoke from a cigarette curling into his eyes and a drink in his hand, he was a born raconteur who could command an audience of any size. Taking just as much time as he needed to build to the punch line, Ahmet would tell his favorite stories over and over again, carefully polishing each one like a jeweler.

  In a business where everyone loved to gossip and those who ran the world’s leading record companies were constantly on the phone talking about one another in the most vulgar way imaginable, no one ever refused to take a call from the man whom they always referred to by only his first name. But then long before most of his colleagues had made their bones in an industry where the ordinary rules of conduct did not apply and the only way to stay on top was to continue putting out one hit after another, Ahmet was already a legend. On any given day during even a casual conversation, there was no knowing what might come out of his mouth. It was just one of the reasons people liked being around him.