About Me

Purely on the infectious enthusiasm of Elektra PR Man Danny Fields, who saw both MC5 and the Stooges in the space of a Detroit weekend, Jac Holzman snapped up both groups. Uncharacteristically, Jac agreed to the deal on the phone without having heard a single note. He advanced $15,000 to the MC5 and paid the Stooges $5,000 to sign with Elektra. At the end of October 1968, just two months later, Holzman with Doors’ engineer Bruce Botnick recorded the MC5 live over two days at Detroit’s Grande Ballroom. It was a full-pedal-to-the-metal fusion of hollering, high-energy rock-n-roll, with loud blasts of heavy jazz and blues.

The following day, November 1st, MC5 manager John Sinclair founded the White Panthers, with the MC5 inducted as its house band. Sinclair’s inflammatory politicizing and the group’s penchant for attracting troublemakers created enough of a stir, their debut album, Kick Out The Jams, landed in the Top Forty.

If they MC5 were a disaster waiting to happen, it didn’t take long for the disaster to arrive. Shortly after the release of Kick Out, the group took out an ad admonishing Detroit department store, Hudsons, for refusing to stock their album. The ad also implicated Elektra and barely six months after signing the group, Holzman felt compelled to release them from their contract.

The MC5 quickly re-emerged on Atlantic with a more disciplined sound that lacked the thrills and danger of their Elektra debut. The Atlantic release Back In The USA failed commercially. The group was over by 1972, but their notorious reputation helped ignite the punk phenomenon five years later.

The following year saw Ronstadt’s multi-platinum breakthrough, Heart Like A Wheel, which she quickly followed up with two more platinum-certified albums, making her the first-ever female artist to release three consecutive million-sellers.

The second, 1976’s Hasten Down The Wind, also earned Ronstadt a Grammy Award for “Best Pop Vocal Performance, Female,” a category in which she has been nominated a remarkable seven times. Later that same year, Asylum released Linda Ronstadt’s Greatest Hits, which would eventually become the singer’s biggest seller, earning seven-times platinum certification in the U.S., with more than 20 million sold worldwide.

1977’s Simple Dreams was a three-times platinum-certified country/pop/rock crossover success, spending five consecutive weeks atop the Billboard album chart. What’s more, with “It’s So Easy” and the platinum-certified “Blue Bayou,” Ronstadt became the first-ever female artist – and first artist overall since The Beatles – to have two top 5 singles on Billboard’s “Hot 100” simultaneously. The double platinum Living In The USA topped the album chart one year later, followed in 1980 by Ronstadt’s seventh consecutive million-seller, the New Wave-inspired Mad Love.

Since signing with Asylum a decade earlier, Linda Ronstadt had earned seven consecutive million-selling albums, conquered the charts, and effortlessly crossed the country/rock/pop border. So in 1983, she took a decided left turn, choosing to record a selection of standards by Irving Berlin, George & Ira Gershwin, and other icons of the Great American Songbook, with full orchestral arrangements by the legendary Nelson Riddle. What’s New proved a groundbreaking sensation, catching Elektra by happy surprise. The album spent 81 weeks on the Billboard album chart, with sales now exceeding 3 million

Two platinum-certified sequels followed – including 1984’s Lush Life – before the always-adventurous singer recreated herself once more in 1987 with Canciones de mi Padre, a landmark collection of the traditional mariachi music of Ronstadt’s Mexican family heritage. As with her jazz trilogy, the double platinum-certified, Grammy Award-winning album turned out to be a landmark popular success, the biggest selling non-English language album in American record history.

Ronstadt would follow it up with 1990’s Mas Canciones, but first she decided a collaboration with soul singer Aaron Neville was in order. The resulting Cry Like A Rainstorm, Howl Like The Wind – featuring four duets with Neville – was yet another blockbuster, selling 3 million copies in the U.S. alone and bringing Ronstadt and Neville not one but two “Best Pop Vocal Performance By A Duo or Group” Grammys.

After forays into Afro-Cuban jazz, classic ‘60s pop, and children’s music, the final Elektra/Asylum release of Ronstadt’s quarter-century history with the label came in 1998 with We Ran, a return to rock featuring songs by Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, and John Hiatt. Having more than sealed her place among the pantheon of great interpretive singers, Linda Ronstadt continues to record and perform, ever-changing and always magnificent.

Keith Sweat is the undisputed King of New Jack Swing, the hugely popular and influential merging of melodic R&B with hip-hop’s rhythms and production techniques. Signed to Elektra in 1987, the Harlem-born singer/songwriter/producer released his debut album, Make It Last Forever, to instant acclaim and RIAA three-times platinum certification. Highlighted by the #1 R&B/Hip-Hop hit, “I Want Her,” the album reached #1 on Billboard’s “Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums” chart – the first of five consecutive albums to do so.

A remarkably prolific artist, Sweat was unstoppable as the ‘90s got underway, dominating the “Top R&B/Hip-Hop Singles” chart with such #1 singles as “Make You Sweat,” “I’ll Give All My Love To You,” and “Keep It Comin’.” As if all that weren’t enough, Sweat discovered the Atlanta-based vocal quintet Silk, for whom he co-wrote and co-produced “Freak Me,” which hit #1 on Billboard’s “Hot 100” in May 1993.

1996 proved a banner year, with the release of Sweat’s self-titled, four-times platinum-certified fifth album. Keith Sweat saw the vocalist joined by a number of guests, including soul legend Ron Isley and his great friend Gerald Levert, with whom he’d later form the supergroup LSG alongside Johnny Gill. What’s more, the album featured Sweat’s biggest crossover hits to date in the platinum-certified, R&B/Hip-Hop #1s, “Nobody (Feat. Athena Cage)” and “Twisted (Feat. Pretty Russ & Kut Klose).”

With a seemingly inexhaustible flow of fresh songs, Sweat remains among the most popular and productive superstars in modern R&B, his unique style and smooth sound still setting the gold standard for urban contemporary soul.

In 1963, Jac Holzman had opened an office in LA as an adjunct to Elektra’s New York operation, but he found very little there that fired his imagination, except for Judy Henske.

On a label that had more than its share of original talents, Judy Henske still stood out. She had honed her act opening for Lenny Bruce at her manager Herb Cohen’s club, Cosmo Alley. Recorded before an audience, Henske’s Elektra debut, Judy Henske, was an odd mix of gutsy blues and jazz tinged cabaret that failed to find a niche.

Her second album for Elektra, High Flying Bird, was stripped down to a simpler ensemble sound that anticipated folk rock at times, notably on it’s title track, later covered by Richie Havens and Jefferson Airplane. “Wade In The Water” is a tour de force, completely suited to her gutsy, bluesy voice, but which belied her kooky image. Described by Herb Cohen as a ‘real force of nature’, Judy Henske was always slightly out of step with the times. Henske was an undoubted influence on both Cass Elliot and Bette Midler, but she was never the star she should have been.