This legendary music man has left us at 83 today, I'm heartbroken as I literally grew up on all the fine work he did with Otis Redding, Sonny & Cher, The Rascals, Solomon Burke, Barbara Lewis, Bette Midler, Ben E. King, The Drifters, The Coasters, Ruth Brown (who left us recently), LaVern Baker, Bobby Darin, Ray Charles, Led Zeppellin, The Rolling Stones, Aretha Franklin, King Curtis, Cream, Dusty Springfield, Doris Troy, Wilson Pickett, and too many others to mention. The only other people in the music industry who have reached his stature are Clive Davis and Berry Gordy.
Where does this fit in with DS? Well, he was a longtime pal of the Halls, and there's a hilarious anecdote in Rebecca Jamison's bio of Grayson in which her honeymoon with Sam is interrupted by a desperate galpal of hers who needed help in getting her boyfriend to propose. The would-be swain was the great record man himself.
It says a lot about the music industry today when it's run by hoods like Suge Kinght instead of men of taste like Ahmet Ertegun......
