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Northern Soul
The Atlantic label is not exactly one of the most sought after on the Northern Soul scene, and so it is sometimes easy to forget that this label recorded more great black musicians than any other, yet with just a few exceptions records on the Atlantic label are not expensive or rare and most can be bought for under $20. I doubt however if there is a soul fan, record collector, DJ or general music lover who would not own several or at least be very familiar with Atlantic records. For me, the Atlantic label rates alongside Okeh, Stax, Chess, Mirwood and Motown for its contribution to Soul and importantly Northern Soul music. Few labels can claim to have influenced the Northern Soul scene and indeed the overall development of black music to the extent as has Atlantic. Take a look in anyone’s record box and you are likely to see familiar records on the many different styles of Atlantic labels that have spanned the generations and almost sixty-years, including those from Ray Charles, Joe Tex, Aretha Franklin, Otis Redding, Solomon Burke, The Bar Kays, Ben E King, Otis Leavill, Booker T and the MG’s, Percy Wiggins, Walter Jackson, Ruth Brown, The Drifters, The Temptations, The Isley Brothers, Hoagy Lands, Rex Garvin, Wilson Pickett, Clarence Carter, Travis Wammack, Irma Thomas, Willie Tee, Johnny Adams, Percy Sledge, The Capitols, The Coasters, William Bell, Tyrone Davis, Roberta Flack, Arthur Conley, Major Lance, Major Harris, Johnny Nash, Sam & Dave, Carla Thomas, Jackie Moore, Darrow Fletcher, The Delcardos, Leslie Uggams, Roscoe Robinson, Archie Bell & the Drells, Johnny Cameron, Don Covay, The TSU Tornadoes, The Vibrations, The Soul Brothers Six, Cliff Nobles, Bobby Womack, Johnny Bristol, Dee Dee Sharp, Esther Phillips, Barbara Lynn, Tami Lynn, Sam Dees, Eula Cooper, The Capitols, The Fantastic Four, Eddie Harris, Margie Joseph, Patti Labelle, Bettye Swann, Betty, Lavette, Gwen McCrae, P.P. Arnold, Barbara Lewis, Sister Sledge, Doris Troy, Dusty Springfield, The Detroit Emeralds, The Detroit Spinners, The Innocent Bystanders, Tommy Hunt, Prince Philip Mitchell etc etc. Considering the above, there is unlikely to be a Northern Soul fan who hasn’t at sometime danced to an Atlantic record or clapped along to Ace Spectrum’s “Don’t send nobody else” or been enchanted by the haunting rhythm of Bettye Swann's "Kiss My Love Goodbye". Last, but certainly not least, what about Fred Wesley & the Horny Horns? (They just don’t have names like that nowadays) with Fred on the Trombone, Bootsy Collins on the Guitar and the production by George Clinton, that has to be something special. Atlantic were also responsible for the subsidiary labels of Atco (Darrell Banks), Spark, Lava, Alston, Cotillion, Clarion, and even became responsible for the distribution of Stax, Volt and Dial records. What a label! Can any other boast such a prolific list of stars?
Unlike today's Northern Soul scene where "crossover" denotes so-called "modern soul" records crossing over to be played alongside Northern Soul, in the early late 1950s' and 1960s' the term “crossover” was used as a terminology for records that might “cross over” from the “Billboard Race Chart” prepared for the black population, to the mainstream “Popular Music Chart”. It was however this “crossover” aspect that would lead to Atlantic becoming the biggest soul music label in the USA. This was assisted by a lucky break when Ahmet was at a nightclub watching one of his favourite Groups, Billy Ward and the Dominoes whose lead singer was usually Clyde McPhatter. Ertegun couldn’t help but notice that McPhatter was missing from the line-up and so he went back stage to find out why. He was told by the Dominoes Manager, Billy Ward that McPhatter had been fired a week earlier. Ertegun went straight to the telephone searching for McPhatter, he found the number for a Reverend McPhatter who turned out to be Clyde’s Father, it was Clyde who answered the phone. McPahatter and Ertegun met the next day, McPhatter promptly signed with Atlantic and rehearsals promptly commenced almost immediately with some of McPhatters friends. Ertegun had the good nouse to sign them up too and in doing so had just given Atlantic the Group that would become known as the Drifters. Another break for Atlantic came in 1952 when they signed Ray Charles, a singer who performed in a similar manner to the crooner Nat King Cole. In 1954 Jerry Wexler looked for something else in Charles and had him cut a track radically different from anything he had done previously, it was “I got a woman”, this rawer gospel style track became Ray’s first big hit and possibly the first ever “Soul” music record, “Soul” being a term actually coined by Ray Charles, who though blind said:
“Soul is like electricity, we don’t really know what it is,
Atlantic was always a progressive label and In the 1960s’ worked with the “Wall of Sound” producer Phil Spector, who initially worked as a session guitarist for Atlantic on records with the Coasters, Ben E King and the Drifters, one of Spector’s classic guitar solos can be heard on the Drifter’s “On Broadway”. Spector became a producer delivering the first ever version of Bert Bern’s “Twist and Shout”. Bern did not like Spector’s version and so produced it himself and recorded it with the Isley Brothers, as they say in the classic, the rest is history. Atlantic then intentionally broadened its soul music base, making it accessible to the larger white mainstream audience. Producer Jerry Wexler moved recording sessions over to Muscle Shoals, Alabama producing many hits for singers Aretha Franklin and Wilson Pickett. It always looked to be a logical progression for Atlantic to forge links with Stax / Volt records and they also recorded with the Stax session musicians Booker T and the MG’s. Atlantic had another major break when signing a young woman who was not having much success with the giant record label Columbia and who after signing with Atlantic would became known as perhaps the greatest female soul singer of all time, how fortunate it would turn out for Atlantic that Jerry Wexler had secured the one and only “Queen of Soul”, Aretha Franklin. As can be expected of the music industry it was not always plain sailing and late 1959-60 saw Atlantic lose several mainstay artists, including Ray Charles to ABC Paramount and Bobby Darin to Capitol, which was almost disastrous as the two had been generating about 30% of Atlantic’s total revenues. The Drifters however helped steady the boat remaining loyal and staying with Atlantic. In 1961 a valuable new performer was added when a large black singer walked uninvited off the Street straight into the Atlantic offices. The singer was a Preacher and was already working on the Apollo label but his contract about to expire, he was signed to Atlantic on the spot, Jerry Wexler has just signed Solomon Burke.
1964 saw the savvy alliance with STAX working well, with success for Carla Thomas, Eddie Floyd and Booker T and the MG’s. It was Wexler who was constantly on the lookout for new artists who then signed Sam and Dave to Atlantic, their songs being released on both the Atlantic and Stax labels. In the same year Wexler signed another great male singer in Wilson Pickett and introducing him to the Stax producer Steve Cropper. Pickett and Cropper together came up with the classic “In the midnight hour” and Atlantic was to enjoy almost ten-years of popular recording with the two musical legends. In the same year the fabulous “Original Rapper” Mr Joe Tex would also record for Atlantic and become another key player in the Atlantic “Soul Clan”.
It was 1967 when Atlantic’s Producer Jerry Wexler was named Record Executive of the year, in part due to his work with Aretha Franklin. This was also they year Otis Redding and four members of his band the Bar Kays were killed in a plane crash and the same year the big player Warner-Seven Arts took over Atlantic paying the owners Ahmet and Nesuhi Artegun and Jerry Wexler $17,000,000 in Warner stock, not bad for a label that started just twenty-years earlier with a loan of $10,000. The three former Atlantic label owners were also kept on board and given well paid executive positions. In 1968 and due to the renegotiation of contracts during the sale of Atlantic to Warner, the relationship between Atlantic and Stax became strained when Stax owner Jim Stewart discovered that unknowingly he had entered into a contract in which he had signed over the whole Stax record catalogue to Atlantic for a mere $1. It is said that being unaware of this clause in the contract between Atlantic and Stax, Jerry Wexler tried to persuade the new Atlantic owners to hand back to Stewart the rights for the records he had produced for Stax. It was big business now though and the Stax rights were a valuable asset to the new owners, who had paid Atlantic dearly and so who could blame them for being determined not to relinquish them. Jerry Wexler left Atlantic in 1975, it was the end of a long and successful era.
Many believe the success achieved by Atlantic was due to the passion by which the founders and backers were driven, they were not only businessman, but lovers of the music, and so Atlantic not only prospered, but endured for the long haul in one of the most competitive of all environments, whilst many other labels would lose their way. The Atlantic founders were dedicated and more interested in producing the best music rather than the most money and fortunately were all along supported by the initial backer, who did not demand a quick return on his initial $10,000 investment. This belief in the music by the owners and founders encouraged many of the labels artists to sign long term contracts and Atlantic earned a reputation for integrity, decency and of never cheating on its artists, as some other labels have been known to do. Looking back and it’s always easy in retrospect, Atlantic employed what appears a simple, but a sometimes rarely followed recipe in running a decent organisation with concern for artists and employees at all levels, in having the integrity to do this, the label became not only a legend but a company that was to typify the very word "Soul".
It should be said that like any company in the competitive music industry, it was not always easy for Atlantic, and not all records were hits in the USA, a country which at the time seemed obsessed with having white artists record covers of the original performed by black artists. In this way many of Atlantics recordings were no-hitters and some so became what we know today as Northern Soul. Such artists include the Vibrations, Barnaby Bye, Leslie Uggams, Barbara Lynn, Barbara Lewis, the Soul Brothers Six, Tony and Tyrone, to name just a few. Even later artists such as Archie Bell and the Drells recorded great tracks that were never originally chart hits in the USA, but which ironically would later become hits on the UK charts due to the Northern scene. The now well recognised "red" Atlantic labels were first seen on the UK scene in the mid 1960s' when distributed by Polydor, which later changed to the blue, white and orange labels when distributed by Kinney and which saw releases bearing the "K" prefix. Whatever the label colours, and no matter who were the distributors the Atlantic label was always able to attract and retain the vast majority of its best artists and musicians and so ensured the very best music was made and produced on the Atlantic label, even if not always appreciated in its home country of the USA. History shows Atlantic was perhaps the most successful independent label of all time releasing records from the cream of the crop of soul artists over many decades. In doing so Atlantic set a shining example of how a record label and indeed any business should be operated.
Whilst no longer an independent label and now part of the Time Warner Group, Atlantic and many of those earlier soul records keep on keepin’ on, and whilst Atlantic label records may not be the most valuable, they are and always will be highly collectable because they are some of the best soul records around. Buy them now, for if the last sixty-years are anything to go by, the only way is up.........
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RAY CHARLES
WILSON
PICKETT
