Berle Adams
| Berle Adams | |
|---|---|
| Born | June 11, 1917 Chicago, Illinois |
| Died | 25 August 2009 (aged 92) Los Angeles, California |
| Occupation |
Record executive Band booking agent television producer |
Berle Adams (born Beryl Adasky, June 11, 1917 – August 25, 2009) was a music industry executive and talent booking agent best known for co-founding Mercury Records in the 1940s and later becoming a senior executive at MCA.
Adams was born to Russian immigrant parents on the West Side of Chicago, Illinois. Adams became attracted to late night remote radio broadcasts of America's swing bands, including those of Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey, Charlie Barnet, Bob Crosby, Glenn Miller, and Benny Goodman. While still in high school, Crane Technical High School, Adams began renting speaker systems and booking bands schools proms, weddings, men's and women's benevolent organizations, fire department and chamber of commerce socials.
With support from established bandleader Al Trace, Adams' briefly worked as a band booker. Adams left the music business temporarily, married his neighborhood sweetheart Lucy Leven, and began selling life insurance door-to-door. Insurance sales during the Depression proved unprofitable. Adams talked his way into a job for Varsity Records, promoting the tiny company's little-known artists for space on the city's jukeboxes against stars recording for industry giants like RCA Victor and Decca.
Adams was hired by GAC, where he studied the one-night band booking practices of GAC's Joe Shribman and determined to become an agent. In one of his earliest efforts, he managed to introduce bandleader Louis Jordan and his Tympany Five to Chicago café lounges in May 1941. The Jordan association lasted nine years and solidly established the careers of both men.
Over the next few years, Adams represented clarinetist Jimmie Noone, saxophonists Ben Webster and Coleman Hawkins, boogie woogie stylists Albert Ammons and Pete Johnson, Fats Waller, Art Tatum, and young saxophonist Illinois Jacquet. Adams booked road dates for Glenn Miller, Woody Herman, Charlie Spivak, Claude Thornhill, Nat King Cole, the Andrews Sisters, Joe Venuti, and Jimmy Dorsey. In 1943, Adams left GAC to become Jordan's personal manager and established the Berle Adams Agency.
...
Wikipedia