AHMET’S TOWNHOUSE, New York City, 2006: Ahmet’s words hung in the air. After listening to him complain that he hadn’t gotten what he wanted out of life, I just turned the question back on him. I asked him why I had never found true love, why my career always seemed to stall, why men passed me over at nearly every job. His answer: “What did you expect? You’re a woman.”
I didn’t know how to respond. I knew it was a bullshit answer, but I still had no rejoinder. In some ways, my time in the music business was more incredible than I could have imagined. In other ways, it had scarred me for life, and Ahmet was one of the men who did the scarring. Two decades after our first meeting in his office, I still felt like his secretary, but I was a different person entirely. I had seen good people die and bad people succeed. I had been harassed, gaslit, abused, and fucked over too many times to count. I never quite reached my dream, but how many people do? How many manage to come as close as I did? Ahmet broke my reverie with a line from his beloved Mick Jagger: “I guess you can’t always get what you want,” he said. “You get what you need.” I wondered if it was really that simple.
Before I left, I told Ahmet I wanted to write about my career, or lack thereof, in the music business. He replied, “Go tell them what I’m really like. Just wait till I’m dead; I don’t want to take all the calls.”
Classic Ahmet.
The invitation arrived on a Thursday morning, buried under a pile of catalogs, magazines, and bills. There was no return address, but the back flap was sealed with a gold Atlantic Records logo. I carried it upstairs and opened it at my dining room table. My dog, Pepper—the last remnant of my marriage to Joey Carvello—panted by my feet. The first thing I saw was the name in big black capital letters:
AHMET ERTEGUN
A celebration
It had been four months since Ahmet died. He suffered a brain injury after falling backstage at a Rolling Stones concert. He slipped into a coma, and within a few weeks, he was gone. Eighty-three years old, and he died partying. Leave it to Ahmet.
I scanned the invitation. At the bottom it read, “Invitation is non-transferable.” It seemed an odd note to put on an invitation to a memorial, but like everything concerning Ahmet, it was sure to be a hot ticket. The card came loose from the envelope and I tucked it away in my calendar. Of course I would go. Pay my respects. Close a chapter. See old friends—and enemies. It was the end of an era, for music and for me.
Then I noticed the inscription on the inside of the envelope, transposed over a photo of Ahmet: “When you can spend your life doing something you love, you are living a very fine life.” I read the line over and over. Ahmet found that kind of love in the music industry. I always hoped I would, but in the end, it was an empty relationship. My definition of a “very fine life” consisted of things I found outside of work, outside of status, even outside of money. My friendships with Charlie, Frank, and Michael meant more than any band I signed; being there for my mother at the end of her life was more important than any hit record I found. I couldn’t hang these things on a wall. They weren’t gold records, but they carried me like songs.
On April 17, 2007, I went to Lincoln Center for Ahmet’s memorial. The auditorium of Rose Hall was filled with a crowd of glitterati from the worlds of music, society, and politics. Bette Midler acted as mistress of ceremonies. Mrs. Ertegun looked somber dressed in black. The Chiquitas sat scattered around the room, along with former assistants, staff members, Atlantic employees, and artists. Doug didn’t come.
The ceremony was incredible. Crosby, Stills & Nash sang the Beatles’ “In My Life,” and Eric Clapton also performed. Even in death, Ahmet could get the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame together. Then the speeches started. When David Geffen took the stage to give his eulogy, I almost laughed. I couldn’t imagine anything Ahmet would have hated more. I listened to the other speakers and thought, If they only knew what Ahmet said about them on a daily basis. Everyone remembered Ahmet as a mentor, a benign father figure, and an industry legend. The speeches were nice, but they were too . . . reverent. Then Mick Jagger spoke. Here was Ahmet’s favorite artist, the man he wanted to be more than anyone. Mick looked around the auditorium and said, “Well, I don’t know the man these people are speaking of. Ahmet was not like a father to me—more like a wicked uncle.” I stood up and applauded. Finally someone had told the truth.
Ahmet was a fucked-up, complicated, brilliant man. He was a historic figure, a legend, and an abuser of substances and people. He gave me my first job and set the tone for the rest of my career. He taught me the most valuable lesson in life: it doesn’t matter what others think of you; it only matters what you think of yourself. He also fractured my arm, called me stupid nearly every day, and made unwanted sexual advances at will. What the hell was I supposed to do with that? How was I supposed to make sense of his death, this man who had been both mentor and tormentor, or the death of the magical world he had created at Atlantic Records? Atlantic was truly the House That Ahmet Built, and although the house still stood, something irreplaceable was gone from it forever. I could only thank Ahmet for all he had given and forgive him for all he had done. Dog keep barking, caravan keep moving. It was complex.
It still is.