The co-founder of Atlantic Records Ahmet Ertegun has died, aged 83.

RJ Eskow at Huffington

The Ahmet Ertegun story could have been remembered differently. Picture it: A suave foreigner comes to the United States and makes it in the record business by persuading urbane and sophisticated African-Americans to sound more primitive and raw. He makes millions as a "suit," which is the way musicians have derisively referred to record execs over the years.

Based on that sketchy overview, you would expect to hear that executive remembered as an exploiter of talent, another cultural colonizer using up performing artists as if they were diamonds ripped from the earth. But that's not the way the Ahmet Ertegun story ended, nor is that his legacy.

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