Atlantic Records - Expansion

Expansion

Atlantic played a major role in popularizing the new genre that Jerry Wexler dubbed rhythm & blues and it profited handsomely from this. The market for these records exploded during late 1953 and early 1954, as more and more R&B hits crossed over to the mainstream (i.e. white) audience. In its tenth anniversary feature on Atlantic, Billboard noted that previously, "... a very big r&b record might achieve 250,000 sales, but from this point on (1953-54), the industry began to see million sellers, one after the other, in the r&b field". It observed that the label's "fresh sound" and the quality of its recordings, arrangements and musicians was a great advance on what was the standard for R&B records at the time, and that for the past five years Atlantic had "dominated the rhythm and blues chart with its roster of powerhouse artists".

From 1954 onwards Atlantic created or acquired several important subsidiary labels, the first being the short-lived but significant Cat Records. By the mid-1950s Atlantic had an informal agreement with Eddie Barclay's French label Barclay Records and the two companies regularly exchanged titles, usually jazz recordings. Atlantic also began to get recordings distributed in the United Kingdom; initially this was done through EMI on a 'one-off' basis, but in September 1955 Miriam Abramson went to the UK and signed a formal distribution deal with Decca Records, who were soon releasing every new Atlantic title. Miriam later recalled:

"I was the one who came to England at the beginning to negotiate all those deals (in the fall of 1955). I would deal with people there who were not really comfortable with women in business, so ... we would do business very quickly and get it over with. But they were charming. Sir Edward Lewis was wonderful, we became great friends. We kept in touch after I left Atlantic."

A new subsidiary label, Atco Records, was established in 1955 as an effort to keep Abramson involved. East West was founded in September 1957; it initially concentrated on singles and featured an "across the board" roster of pop, rock & roll, rhythm & blues and rockabilly artists and its first releases were by Jay Holliday, Johnny Houston and The Glowtones. After a slow start, Atco had considerable success with The Coasters and Bobby Darin. Darin's early releases had not been successful and Abramson planned to drop him, but Ertegun offered him another chance, and the session he produced yielded "Splish Splash", which Darin had written in 12 minutes and which sold 100,000 copies in the first month and became a million-seller. During 1958-59 Darin's "Queen of the Hop" made the Top 10 on both the US pop and R&B charts and also charted in the UK, "Dream Lover", a multi-million seller, reached #2 in the USA and became a UK #1, and "Mack the Knife" (August 1959) went to #1 in both the US and the UK, sold over 2 million copies and won the 1960 Grammy Award for 'Record of the Year'. "Beyond the Sea", an English-language version of the Charles Trenet hit "La Mer", became his fourth consecutive US/UK Top 10 hit. Darin later signed with Capitol Records and left for Hollywood to begin a movie career although Atco continued to score hits into 1962 with tracks already in the can, including "You Must Have Been a Beautiful Baby" and "Things". Darin returned to Atlantic in 1965.

By 1958 the label had expanded considerably - in 1956 Atlantic's head office moved to 157 West 57th St, while retaining two floors in the earlier premises at 234 West 56th St. New staff hired between 1956 and 1958 included Gary Kramer (director of publicity and advertising), Lester Lees (national sales manager), Victor Selsman (DJ promotions), Lester Sill (West Coast promotions) and Bob Bushnell (recording engineer).

During the 1960s Atlantic distributed selected titles recorded by many small regional independent labels including Dial (Joe Tex), Karen (The Capitols' "Cool Jerk"), Rosemart (Don Covay's "Mercy, Mercy"), Nola (Willie Tee's "Teasin' You"), Vault, Class, Shirley, Tomorrow, Instant, Dade ("Mashed Potatoes" by Nat Kendrick & The Swans), Moonglow, Correct-Tone Records, Lu-Pine, Keetch, Royo, T-Neck, Heidi, Sims and others, using those labels' imprints and separate catalog numbers.