At the heart of Atlantic Records
Rock, pop and soul legends play for the camera
In 1947, when Ahmet Ertegun and two fellow music aficionados founded Atlantic Records in New York City, they could not have imagined that their passion for discovering artists and making records would shape 75 years of popular culture . The reason for such tremendous global success is simple: Atlantic is an innovative industry model that has always embraced and promoted a wide range of genres: Black music like R&B, soul, jazz and hip-hop, as well as rock, pop, dance and many others.
75 Years of Atlantic Records is the official and definitive photographic history of this legendary record label , and involves four years of work and countless images sourced from Atlantics extensive archives, many of them published here for the first time. Discover soul pioneers like Aretha Franklin and Ray Charles , jazz innovators John Coltrane and Charles Mingus , era-defining pop artists like the Bee Gees and ABBA , rock legends like Led Zeppelin and the Rolling Stones , trailblazing female artists Roberta Flack and Stevie Nicks , and current stars like Ed Sheeran and Charli xcx . Some of the world's finest photographers, including Annie Leibovitz , Jim Marshall, Lee Friedlander, Walter Iooss Jr., Anton Corbijn, Chuck Stewart, Albert Watson , and David LaChapelle , captured formal portraits, live performance footage, defining studio moments, and intimate behind-the-scenes looks.
Fascinating commentary by Richie Unterberger and Herb Powell puts the ensemble in context, while award-winning writers David Ritz, Ben Ratliff, Elizabeth Nelson , and Barney Hoskyns , among others, examine the label's diverse genres. All of this is complemented by a complete chronology and profiles of Atlantic's pioneers. As Bruno Mars's foreword states , Atlantic Records revolutionized the way records were made and listened to, and now this history is fully and beautifully documented in a must-have for music lovers.
