If you don't know the name, you should. Ahmet Ertegun, founder of Atlantic Records, is the music executive who can claim a great deal of responsibility for shaping American music for the past 50 years.
Ahmet discovered Ray Charles and Aretha Franklin and Otis Redding. He worked with the Rolling Stones. He was a giant and a rare breed in the music industry, an executive who actually stuck up for artists and treated them well.
An indication of that is he remained friends with Ray Charles even after Charles left Atlantic for a more lucrative deal with ABC. Another indication: Frank Zappa, no fan of music excutives, named his son Ahmet after Ertegun.
My favorite anecdote is Otis Redding called Ahmet "Omelet," knowing full well what the man's first name was. It was Otis' way of having a bit of fun with the man.
He died at the age of 83 after suffering a head injury in a fall backstage at the Stones' performance at Bill Clinton's 60th birthday party. Really.
Read the New York Times obituary here.
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