13 Facts About Nat Tarnopol

Responsible for launching the careers of The Chi-Lites, Jackie Wilson, Tyrone Davis, Barbara Acklin and The Young-Holt Unlimited, Tarnopol scored 150 songs on the Billboard charted singles between 1957 and 1981.

Nat Tarnopol was the younger of two sons born to first generation Americans from Eastern Europe on January 26,1931, in Detroit, Michigan.

Nat Tarnopol came down to the JBK studios every evening for a couple of months and helped pick the records.

Jackie Wilson's widow Harlean Wilson said the following in a 2019 interview published in The Chicago Defender: Jackie, she adds, owed much of his commercial success in the music business to his dedicated producer at Brunswick Records, Nat Tarnopol, who was the head of the label and had originally brought Jackie to New York from their shared native city of Detroit.

Unlike many other African-American entertainers of the day, Wilson was treated fairly by Brunswick and Nat Tarnopol, says Harlean, but outside of the confines of the company, that was not always so: The singer and his wife were often subjected to painful, vicious rumors and untruths, legal entanglements and other indignities, including women who claimed to be linked with Jackie romantically and, later, both men and women claiming to be his children.

Decca's ultra conservative approach to music and promotion was a continuous hurdle that Nat Tarnopol struggled with for years to come.

In 1960, Nat Tarnopol persuaded Decca to guarantee an advance of a quarter of a million dollars to Wilson to re-sign with the company.

In 1966, displeased with the direction Jackie Wilson's recording career had taken, Nat Tarnopol contracted Chicago's Carl Davis to produce one album for Wilson.

Nat Tarnopol then expanded the label by signing mostly Chicago based artists.

Between the years of 1970 and 1975, Nat Tarnopol totaled nineteen Top Ten Billboard records and had rebuilt the Brunswick trademark.

Reggie Jackson credited Nat Tarnopol with orchestrating the deal that brought Jackson to the Yankees from the Baltimore Orioles.

Nat Tarnopol was ultimately cleared by an appellate court in 1977.

Many of the songs that Nat Tarnopol first recorded have been sampled by artists such as Jay-Z, Paul Wall, Fantasia, Jaheim, Joss Stone and Beyonce.