I became a jazz fan quite early and never went off the path thereafter.
AHMET ERTEGUNPeople like Clyde McPhatter who came out of the black churches – like Sam Cooke and Aretha Franklin – were all church singers who became great pop singers because gospel singing is very close to the blues.
More Ahmet Ertegun Quotes
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Ataturk saw where history was going. He really did in Turkey what we are all hoping somebody will do in [Islamic] countries where fundamentalists thrive, that they get somebody today that has the vision that Ataturk had in 1915.
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The first time I heard Clyde McPhatter singing with the Dominoes at the Apollo I just fell off my chair
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I first heard Laura Branigan sing live in my brother Nesuhi’s apartment, where we had gone because he had a very good piano. I immediately realized that she had a great pop voice, in the classical sense.
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A singer’s biographical film should have their music and their voice.
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The main thing is that Ataturk saw the desperate condition of the countries that had not had an industrial revolution.
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The Ertegun Jazz Hall of Fame will provide a center where the lives and the artistry of the greatest jazz musicians will be celebrated, and where people will come to learn about jazz, something to which my brother devoted his lifes work.
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It is a great life, this life of music.
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The all-time greatest Atlantic group – The Drifters
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I came close to signing Elvis Presley. I offered $25,000 for his contract and they asked for $45,000 and I just didn’t have the other $20,000.
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Laura had an instinctive feel for music and melody, and her delivery was sensational.
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I’ve been in the studio when you go through a track and you run down a track and you know even before the singer starts singing, you know the track is swinging.
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Another one is Eric Clapton. Another one is Phil Collins. Eminem, Kanye West I like all those people.
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I should have gotten the Beatles. But one of my lawyers kind of messed up.
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Whenever a songwriter writes a big hit, then the next 20 songs they write – no matter how bad they are – get recorded.
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Theres two kinds of music: black soul music, and the white imitation thereof.
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