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.
AHMET ERTEGUNI consider Laura to be one of my best signings, and I am proud to have had such a great singer in my career in the record business. We miss her dearly.
More Ahmet Ertegun Quotes
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There are still many great surviving talents: Stevie Winwood. Another great talent is Stevie Wonder.
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I became a jazz fan quite early and never went off the path thereafter.
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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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I did a little bit to raise the dignity and recognition of the greatness of African-American music.
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I used to drink a bottle of vodka a day, every day, for about 40 years and it never occurred to me it’d kill me.
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A singer’s biographical film should have their music and their voice.
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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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At a time when it was very brave to do because Ataturk was cutting off the heads of the imams. And people thought that that was foolhardy of my father.
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Everybody at Atlantic knew that we had a winner in this young lady, and she came through with great hits that will be remembered for many years to come.
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My father believed very strongly in Ataturk. Ataturk was a very powerful man and a man of great vision.
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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.
AHMET ERTEGUN -
I consider Laura to be one of my best signings, and I am proud to have had such a great singer in my career in the record business. We miss her dearly.
AHMET ERTEGUN -
Theres two kinds of music: black soul music, and the white imitation thereof.
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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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My first wife was a theater person.
AHMET ERTEGUN