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I came close to signing Elvis Presley. I offered $25,000 for his contract and they asked for $45,000 and I just didn't have the other $20,000. I should have gotten the Beatles. But one of my lawyers kind of messed up.

Ahmet Ertegun

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Ahmet Ertegun
Age: 83 †
Born: 1923
Born: July 31
Died: 2006
Died: December 14
Composer
Entrepreneur
Record Producer
Songwriter
İstanbul
Ahmet Ertegun
Nugetre
A. Nugetre
Close
Elvis
Asked
Beatles
Came
Contract
Didn
Lawyers
Kind
Contracts
Offered
Presley
Gotten
Messed
Lawyer
Signing

More quotes by Ahmet Ertegun

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The songwriters whom we think of being the greatest songwriters usually write one hit and six or seven flops.
Ahmet Ertegun
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I used to drink a bottle of vodka a day, every day, for about 40 years and it never occurred to me it'd kill me. If I'd have continued it might have killed me. My doctor said I should stick to wine.
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My first wife was a theater person.
Ahmet Ertegun
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People like Clyde McPhatter who came out of the black churches - like Sam Cooke and Aretha Franklin - were all church singers who became great pop singers because gospel singing is very close to the blues.
Ahmet Ertegun
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I became a jazz fan quite early and never went off the path thereafter.
Ahmet Ertegun
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It is a great life, this life of music.
Ahmet Ertegun
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My father believed very strongly in Ataturk. Ataturk was a very powerful man and a man of great vision.
Ahmet Ertegun
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The Ertegun Jazz Hall of Fame will provide a center where the lives and the artistry of the greatest jazz musicians will be celebrated, and where people will come to learn about jazz, something to which my brother devoted his lifes work.
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The main thing is that Ataturk saw the desperate condition of the countries that had not had an industrial revolution. Ataturk saw where history was going. He really did in Turkey what we are all hoping somebody will do in [Islamic] countries where fundamentalists thrive, that they get somebody today that has the vision that Ataturk had in 1915.
Ahmet Ertegun
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Everyone felt like they knew Ray Charles and in a way they did, because he was embodied by his music.
Ahmet Ertegun
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A singer's biographical film should have their music and their voice.
Ahmet Ertegun
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My father was a very religious person. And he prayed five times a day. And he did that throughout his relationship with Ataturk - at a time when it was very brave to do because Ataturk was cutting off the heads of the imams. And people thought that that was foolhardy of my father.
Ahmet Ertegun
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Whenever a songwriter writes a big hit, then the next 20 songs they write - no matter how bad they are - get recorded.
Ahmet Ertegun
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The first time I heard Clyde McPhatter singing with the Dominoes at the Apollo I just fell off my chair
Ahmet Ertegun
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The all-time greatest Atlantic group - The Drifters
Ahmet Ertegun
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There's been so much bad blood between the Kurds and the Turks.
Ahmet Ertegun
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I did a little bit to raise the dignity and recognition of the greatness of African-American music.
Ahmet Ertegun
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There are still many great surviving talents: Stevie Winwood. Another great talent is Stevie Wonder. Another one is Eric Clapton. Another one is Phil Collins. Eminem, Kanye West I like all those people.
Ahmet Ertegun
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Theres two kinds of music: black soul music, and the white imitation thereof.
Ahmet Ertegun
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I've been in the studio when you go through a track and you run down a track and you know even before the singer starts singing, you know the track is swinging ... you know you have a multimillion-seller hit - and what you're working on suddenly has magic.
Ahmet Ertegun