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convinced that smoking pot would lead me to harder drugs and I would become a heroin addict. Luckily, nothing stronger than pot was offered that night, and even if it had been, I’ve never been tempted to try heroin in any form. At one point I wanted to leave the apartment, but my friends wanted to stay, so I people-watchedand listened to music on the record player. By default, soon I became the one who selected the records. I found the music a lot more interesting than watching other people stoned on pot.
    My parents’ respect for the arts and the creativity they nurtured in me gave me a strong foundation from which to appreciate the music and art uniquely available in Greenwich Village, but their support most assuredly would not have included allowing me to go to the Village without adult supervision. After the night of the reefers I decided to stop risking a yearlong grounding. Instead I stayed in Brooklyn and prayed that a boy—any boy—would ask me out on a date.

Chapter Thirteen
Atlantic and ABC-Paramount
    I was still fifteen when I confided to my dad one afternoon that I wanted to play my songs for Alan Freed. My father sprang into action. All a New York City firefighter had to do was show his badge and he would be admitted as a V.I.P. anywhere in the city, from the finest restaurant to a museum, movie theater, or radio station WINS.
    I don’t know if Alan really thought I had talent or if he was just being nice to the fireman’s kid, but he listened attentively to my songs, and he even took time to explain how the process worked. He told me to look in the phone book under “Record Companies,” make an appointment, and play my songs live for the A&R man in charge of finding artists and repertoire (a fancy name for songs). Usually a label had its own publishing company. If an A&R man liked one of my songs, he might offer me a contract and an advance of twenty-five dollars. The contract was simple. The publishing company would own the copyright and receive all the publishing income. The writer would get a standard writer’s mechanical and sheet music royalty minus the advance and the cost of recording a demo in one of the nearby demo studios suchas Associated, Dick Charles, or Bell Sound. Alan chuckled when he said Atlantic Records didn’t use an outside studio. “If Jerry and Ah-mond like a song,” he said, “they’ll set up a mic in their office and record a demo on the spot.” That’s what I thought he’d said: “Jerry and Ah-mond.”
    I would soon learn that Alan had said “Jerry and Ahmet,” referring to Jerry Wexler and Ahmet Ertegun, partners in Atlantic Records whose sharp intuition and lifelong love of jazz, blues, and other black music would bring career longevity to both. In 1957, at forty and thirty-four, Jerry and Ahmet were zealous in their quest for men and women of exceptional talent who might contribute even further to Atlantic’s success. They went to jazz clubs in big northern cities, churches in small southern towns, and bars wherever they found them. Their roster included Solomon Burke, Ruth Brown, Clyde McPhatter, and Ray Charles.
    I didn’t know any of that when I opened a Manhattan phone book to “Record Companies” that night and wrote down the address for Atlantic Records. All I knew was that Alan Freed had spoken the name, which made it as good a place as any to start. Rather than call for an appointment and risk rejection, I thought I would just go there and see if someone would listen to my songs. The next day, less than ten minutes after the last school bell had rung, I was on an express train from Kings Highway to Manhattan wearing a pink sweater set, a black felt skirt with a pink poodle on it, a ponytail, white bobby sox, and a pair of white sneakers. Along with my schoolbooks in one hand and sheet music in the other, I carried the belief that I was as good as anyone out there. I still had that feeling when I got off the BMT at 57th Street. Someone was going to get