Atlantic Records (Atlantic Recording Corporation) is an American record label best known for its many recordings of rhythm and blues, rock and roll, and jazz. Over its first 20 years of operation Atlantic earned a reputation as one of the most important American independent recording labels, specializing in jazz, R&B and soul recordings by African-American artists, a position greatly enhanced by its distribution deal with Stax Records.
In 1967 Atlantic became a wholly owned subsidiary of Warner Bros.-Seven Arts, now the Warner Music Group, and expanded into rock and pop music, signing Cream, Led Zeppelin, Yes and Foreigner. In 2004 Atlantic Records and its sister label Elektra Records merged into Atlantic Records Group. Craig Kallman is currently Chairman of Atlantic Records. Label co-founder Ahmet Ertegün served as Founding Chairman until his death on December 14, 2006 at age 83. The label also has a number of deals with previously independent labels such as Must Destroy (which brought Goldie Lookin Chain and The Darkness into the label) and VP Records in Jamaica, home to reggae artists such as Sean Paul.
Read more about Atlantic Records: Early Years, The Hits Begin, Tom Dowd, Jerry Wexler, Nesuhi Ertegun, Herb Abramson Departs, Expansion, Leiber, Stoller and Spector, Stax, The Soul Years, 1962–1967, Acquisition By Warner Bros., The Rock Era, "You're Pitiful" Dispute, Recent Developments, Notable Sublabels
Famous quotes containing the words atlantic and/or records:
“We recognize caste in dogs because we rank ourselves by the familiar dog system, a ladderlike social arrangement wherein one individual outranks all others, the next outranks all but the first, and so on down the hierarchy. But the cat system is more like a wheel, with a high-ranking cat at the hub and the others arranged around the rim, all reluctantly acknowledging the superiority of the despot but not necessarily measuring themselves against one another.”
—Elizabeth Marshall Thomas. “Strong and Sensitive Cats,” Atlantic Monthly (July 1994)
“The camera relieves us of the burden of memory. It surveys us like God, and it surveys for us. Yet no other god has been so cynical, for the camera records in order to forget.”
—John Berger (b. 1926)