1. Gerald Wexler was a music journalist turned music producer, and was a major influence on American popular music from the 1950s through the 1980s.
13 Facts About Jerry Wexler
1. 2.
Jerry Wexler was born in the Bronx, New York City, the son of a German Jewish father and a Russian Jewish mother; he grew up in the Washington Heights neighborhood of Upper Manhattan.
3.
In 1935, Jerry Wexler enrolled at what is Kansas State University, where he studied intermittently for several years.
4.
Jerry Wexler cultivated a tight relationship, and a distribution deal, with Stax Records founder Jim Stewart, was an enthusiastic proponent of the then-developing Muscle Shoals Sound and launched the fortunes of Muscle Shoals Sound Studios and the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section.
5.
In 1975, Jerry Wexler moved from Atlantic to its parent Warner Records.
6.
In 1979, Jerry Wexler produced Bob Dylan's controversial first "born again" album, Slow Train Coming at Muscle Shoals; a single from that album, "Gotta Serve Somebody", won a Grammy Award in 1980.
7.
When Jerry Wexler agreed to produce, he was unaware of the nature of the material that awaited him.
8.
In 1987, Jerry Wexler was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
9.
Jerry Wexler retired from the music business in the late 1990s.
10.
For most of the 1990s, Jerry Wexler lived on David's Lane in East Hampton, New York where he shared living space with a Chinese family who aided him with daily functions and kept him company.
11.
In Ray, the biopic of Ray Charles, Jerry Wexler is portrayed by Richard Schiff.
12.
Jerry Wexler is portrayed by Marc Maron in the 2021 movie Respect, the life story of Aretha Franklin, and by David Cross in season three of the television show Genius.
13.
Jerry Wexler died at his home in Sarasota, Florida, on August 15,2008, aged 91, from congestive heart failure.