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Seven players added to Tribe’s 40-man roster
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Kent State defeats Rochester College, 63-44
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Gameblog: Cavs vs. Philadelphia 76ers
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OSU – Michigan college football rivals meet in Baghdad
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Four area football teams play tonight
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Will Health Care Reform Pass?
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Health Care Financing Reform: (70) Savings in Medicare Advantage
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TIME TO GET YOUR COLLECTOR CARS WINTERIZED
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Faye Dunaway to be Evicted?
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Monique asks how to get tickets for the Polar Express.
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Steely Dan Plays "The Royal Scam" at E.J. Thomas Hall
HRLite House:
Personal Rant – You are All Wrong About Jobs, or the Lack of Jobs, Being the Reason People Do Not Live in NEO
Akron Gamer:
Nintendo's Mario endures even as games come and go
Respected pop figure Jerry Wexler one of last who did things old way
By Malcolm X Abram
By Malcolm X Abram Beacon Journal music writer
Published on Thursday, Aug 21, 2008
The music industry is dying, and though it surely will be reborn like some digital phoenix, the folks who made it what it was seem to be dying along with it.
Last week the music world lost Jerry Wexler, 91, a giant in the industry and one of the most respected figures in pop music.
Wexler, a New Yorker who loved Deep South soul and blues, was a writer for Billboard magazine in the late 1940s and '50s and is credited with inventing the term ''rhythm and blues'' to replace ''race records'' in the Billboard charts.
But it was his work as a top man at Atlantic Records that cemented his legacy, as he turned the small independent label into a powerhouse of R&B and soul, and later rock 'n' roll. Wexler's ear for good music and good musical ideas, coupled with his sales acumen (with the help of the then-standard payola system), brought much-deserved attention to many artists, including Ray Charles, Ruth Brown and Wilson Pickett.
He also revitalized Aretha Franklin. The singer was languishing on Columbia Records because the label was convinced that the future Queen of Soul should be a jazz chanteuse. Wexler knew that making Franklin sing Autumn Leaves with a piano trio wasn't the best use of her talents, and he had the foresight to take her down to Muscle Shoals, Ala., team her up with the small cadre of funky white musicians (pretty daring back then) colloquially known as the Swampers, and let her do her thing, producing numerous classic soul sides.
Wexler was rewarded with the 1967 Record Executive of the Year award, and 20 years later, he and Atlantic bigwig Ahmet Ertegun would be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Wexler did the same for Pickett, and oversaw Dusty Springfield's famed Dusty in Memphis album. He hooked Otis Redding up with the Stax band, and formed a distribution relationship with the Southern soul label that would help get Memphis soul to the world.
Oh, and in 1968, he and Ertegun signed an unknown upstart British blues-rock band called Led Zeppelin, which they had never actually heard, based primarily on the suggestion of Springfield (who knew bassist John Paul Jones) and their familiarity with the previous work of guitarist Jimmy Page.
Wexler left Atlantic in the '70s to join Warner Brothers, where he produced Bob Dylan's Grammy-winning Christian-conversion album, Slow Train Coming. Wexler retired in the '90s.
There are no more Jerry Wexlers or Ahmet Erteguns in the music business. Clive Davis (who might want to visit his physician soon, just in case) is one of the last living links to the old way of doing things, when good instincts and belief in an artist's development took precedence over niche marketing and carefully constructed and maintained artist images.
Everything old is new-ish
Tonight at Eddie's Pizza and Pub in Akron, local music fans can get a taste —or a flashback, depending on your age — of what it was like to rock out at legendary and defunct clubs such as J.B.'s Down Under and the Crypt, as the Rubber City Rebels, Teacher's Pet and the Bizarros team up for a triple bill.
The Rebels, like a few of the area's late '70s bands who left Akron to seek fame and fortune in L.A. (umm, they didn't find it), are still gigging periodically and are hopefully still getting some checks for having their song Pierce My Brain, from their 2003 album of the same name, used in the popular video game Tony Hawk's Underground.
Smog Veil records recently released Teacher's Pet's previously unreleased album, featuring the raw recording of the power-pop band's local hits that I'll wager will be available at Eddie's tonight. The disc features a couple of videos of the band lip-syncing its way through a few tunes at Kent State in 1979 that are quite hilarious.
Akron's Bizarros also get back together occasionally for special events, such as this rock 'n' roll past blast. It should be a fun evening and, once you stop wondering ''wow, where did everyone's hair go?'' you can close your eyes and pretend it's 1977 again (minus the various kinds of smoke that wafted through the aforementioned clubs) or just enjoy them in the here and now.
Malcolm X Abram can be reached at mabram@thebeaconjournal.com or 330-996-3758.
The music industry is dying, and though it surely will be reborn like some digital phoenix, the folks who made it what it was seem to be dying along with it.
Get the full article here.
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