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Award for Musical Excellence 2012Tom Dowd (producer, engineer; born October 20, 1925, died October 27, 2002)As a producer and engineer for Atlantic Records, Tom Dowd recorded some of the greatest popular music – rhythm & blues, rock and roll, soul and even jazz – ever made. Dowd manned the board for recordings by legendary jazz musicians (Charles Mingus, John Coltrane, Thelonius Monk), rhythm & blues acts (Drifters, Coasters, Ruth Brown), soul singers (Ray Charles, Big Joe Turner, Otis Redding, Sam and Dave) and rock acts (Cream, Rascals). He was an inventor, technician and craftsman who

This Month's Picks...By Lauren G. Stay tuned for more! The Brit Box Various Artists If we are being honest here, it all started with Damon Albarn - the floppy hair, the bright blue eyes, the glimmering hope that maybe we could fall in love some day (based solely on the fact that his then girlfriend, like me, was Jewish. Ridiculous. I am.) At the risk of generalizing, I suspect that's how most girls are first drawn to music. We image these handsome devils are singing their songs about us, to us, for us. So like the ladies who came before me, their walls plastered with posters of The Beatles and

As we wrap up Jazz Appreciation Month here at Rhino, we focus on what might be the greatest instrument of all: the human voice. Al Jolson may have been the first jazz singer in the movies, but Louis Armstrong preceded him in real life. A peerless trumpeter, “Satchmo” was also a pioneering vocalist, introducing scat singing to the jazz lexicon. Like Jolson or Cab Calloway, Armstrong was a magnetic personality, and his razzle-dazzle showmanship shaped public perception of jazz performance for years to follow. Ella Fitzgerald also helped shape the mold from which jazz singers are cast. Originally

Every Tuesday and Thursday, former Warner Bros. Records executive and industry insider Stan Cornyn ruminates on the past, present, and future of the music business. I woke up this morning. (I always try to start these essays with something positive.) Overnight, I’d been thinking about what to write, and I liked my dream. It was about Nesuhi Ertegun (Atlantic’s Ahmet Ertegun’s brother), who’d joined Atlantic in New York in the 1955. As a teen, I had met Nesuhi in midtown Los Angeles, where he ran his and his wife Marili’s own record store: The Jazzman Record Shop, at 1221 Vine St. Hollywood 38

Every Tuesday and Thursday, former Warner Bros. Records executive and industry insider Stan Cornyn ruminates on the past, present, and future of the music business. 1979 Each year, in Manhattan, Warner Communications sat, one after one, with its companies (whether movie or record labels or others) to review each company’s financials. Top record label executives flew in for a one-day conference room session at a 20’ round table. Three or four reps from each label facing five or six from WCI. In 1976, WCI had bought a small video-game company up in Silicon Valley. Atari. WCI execs had seen an

Jeff Beck (guitar; born June 24, 1944)Jeff Beck is one of rock's true virtuosos and among its most dynamic instrumentalists. He is not strictly a "rock" guitarist, having taken much from the world of jazz as well. His style is largely based on improvisation, and he's cut hybrid jazz-rock albums on his own and with jazz-fusion titan Jan Hammer. Beck's career has never followed a straight trajectory. Much like his solos, he zigs and zags wherever inspiration leads him. His quixotic career has included membership in the Yardbirds, two hard-hitting lineups of the Jeff Beck Group and a pair of

Every Tuesday and Thursday, former Warner Bros. Records executive and industry insider Stan Cornyn ruminates on the past, present, and future of the music business. Herb Abramson’s unexpected return to New York from Germany’s Army Dental Office set all parties off balance. It was April of ’55, and Herb’s marriage to Miriam had sunk off the map, in full flounder. Arriving back in New York with a pregnant German girlfriend had made that utterly clear. Miriam and Herb would be divorcing. Since his return to Atlantic, Miriam spoke to Herb less than zero, in the office or out. Neither was the rest

Every Tuesday and Thursday, former Warner Bros. Records executive and industry insider Stan Cornyn ruminates on the past, present, and future of the music business. Within Warner Bros. Records, a most handsome, most likeable, impressively tall singer-songwriter had just joined the Artist Roster. If this man came into your office, it was like Cary Grant or George Clooney came to visit you. This man had a voice that melted its listeners. He wrote his own songs. He was heterosexual, single, and eligible. He was, as he got known to be, a very Sweet Baby. We loved our Sweet Baby. Where Sweet Baby

Every Tuesday and Thursday, former Warner Bros. Records executive and industry insider Stan Cornyn ruminates on the past, present, and future of the music business. 1976 The hot label that Joe Smith took over in 1975 from David Geffen -- Elektra-Asylum Records -- had become sizzling mainly because of 1970s acts from The Eagles to Joni Mitchell to Jackson Browne to Linda Ronstadt to Carly Simon. Geffen-style artists, mostly his personal signings. Soft rock, by singer-songwriters, often residents up in Laurel Canyon. Those acts had made David Geffen’s short-term leadership of Elektra-Asylum

There were some more C’s in that soup…so the Doctor is diving back in! ABOUT DR. RHINO A young Dr. Rhino first encountered the magic of song whilst being born in the front seat of a Lincoln Continental. As the attending physician recalls, the tune was “Touch Me In The Morning” by Diana Ross. It was a mind-blower. Over the years, Dr. Rhino listened to many, many more songs. And, after several summers of diggin’ music, making the scene & a stint in Attica, the good doctor joined Rhino Records. A remarkable career of taste & empathy ensued. Dr. Rhino now spends his time hitting bull’s-eyes