TURKEY: Music industry legend Ahmet Ertegun buried in his native Turkey

Music industry legend Ahmet Ertegun, who founded Atlantic Records and launched the careers of Ray Charles and Led Zeppelin, was laid to rest in his native Turkey on Monday (December 18), four days after he died in New York aged 83. Among the celebrities attending the Muslim ceremony near the Bosphorus on the Asian side of Istanbul were American rock star Kid Rock, Time Warner CEO Lyor Kohen, Turkish singer Tarkan, members of Ertegun's family and many of Turkey's business elite. "He performed a great service for the Turkish people... His death leaves a great emptiness," said Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul, who represented the Turkish government at the ceremony. Tarkan said: "He was both father and elder brother for me. He did a lot for me. He was a great man." Atlantic Records, founded in 1947 in New York, has become one of the world's biggest record companies and is now owned by Warner Music Group Corp. A lover of jazz and blues when they were still unknown to many Americans, Ertegun is credited with helping to pioneer rock'n' roll by being one of the first music executives to sell music by black artists to white youth in the straitlaced 1950s. In his long career, Ertegun worked with the likes of the Rolling Stones and John Coltrane and was also closely associated with the Three Tenors, the superstar combo of Luciano Pavarotti, Placido Domingo and Jose Carreras. The bald, goateed bon vivant was designated a "living legend" by the Library of Congress in 2000. He fell into a coma after hitting his head at a Rolling Stones concert in October. Ertegun was born in Istanbul on July 31, 1923, and was educated in Europe and the United States where his father served as Turkish ambassador.

ITN Source | December 21, 2006

Tags:. .both. .blues. .artists. .unknown. .brother