The legendary record producer who helped shape R&B music with his powerful and influential recordings of Aretha Franklin, Ray Charles, and other greats, and later made key recordings with the likes of Bob Dylan and Willie Nelson, has passed away at the age of 91 of congenital heart disease. Jerry Wexler’s death was first confirmed to The Associated Press by David Ritz, who was the co-author of Wexler’s 1993 memoir, Rhythm and the Blues. His son, Paul Wexler, told the AP his father’s death was “a tremendous loss…the number of artists that he was involved with and helped significantly or just made great records with, is almost unbelievable.”
Wexler originally earned his reputation in the music industry while a partner at Atlantic Records, which provided an outlet for the wealth of seminal music written and performed by African-American artists in the 1950s and 1960s. The company also went on to become home to such rock icons as Led Zeppelin and the Rolling Stones. Wexler helped Bob Dylan win his first Grammy by producing his Slow Train Coming album in 1979, then personally worked to boost the careers of both Ray Charles and Arethra Franklin, as well as Wilson Pickett and Percy Sledge. Among the standards produced by Wexler are Franklin’s “Respect” (originally an Otis Redding song); Sledge’s ballad “When A Man Loves A Woman” and Pickett’s “In the Midnight Hour,” with a horn vamp inspired by Wexler’s admittedly rhythmless dancing. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987.