Berle Adams

Berle Adams (born Beryl Adasky, 11 June 1917 – 25 August 2009) was an American music industry executive and talent booking agent best known for co-founding Mercury Records in the 1940s and later becoming a senior executive at MCA.

Early life Adams was born in 1917 to immigrants from Russia on the West Side of Chicago, His mother died when he was 18 months old. In one of his earliest efforts, he managed to introduce bandleader Louis Jordan and his Tympany Five to Chicago café lounges in May 1941. The Jordan association lasted nine years and solidly established the careers of both men.

Over the next few years, Adams represented clarinetist Jimmie Noone, saxophonists Ben Webster and Coleman Hawkins, boogie woogie stylists Albert Ammons and Pete Johnson, Fats Waller, Art Tatum, and young saxophonist Illinois Jacquet. Adams booked road dates for Glenn Miller, Woody Herman, Charlie Spivak, Claude Thornhill, Nat King Cole, The Andrews Sisters, Joe Venuti, and Jimmy Dorsey. In 1943, Adams left GAC to become Jordan's personal manager and established the Berle Adams Agency.

Mercury Records

In 1944, Adams established the Champagne Music and Preview Music publishing companies and the next year he formed the Mercury Radio and Television Company, which became Mercury Records, with partners Irving Green, Ray Greenberg, and Art Talmadge.

Mercury soon began recording Erroll Garner, Dinah Washington, Frances Langford, Glen Gray and the Casa Loma Orchestra, Tony Martin, and employing Mitch Miller and Norman Granz as producers.

In 1946, Mercury recorded Frankie Laine's version of the 1931 tune "That's My Desire," and it became the singer's first hit. Other successes followed at Mercury, including Vic Damone's "I Have But One Heart," which launched the singer's career. and during a short interval directed marketing events surrounding Hank Aaron's 715th home run, surpassing the career record of Babe Ruth. In 1978 he was executive producer for "The Brass Target," a feature film starring Sophia Loren, John Cassavetes, George Kennedy, Robert Vaughan, and Max von Sydow.

In his later active years as head of BAC Inc., Adams distributed the TV specials of George Burns, Dolly Parton, Neil Diamond, Goldie Hawn, Cher, Dean Martin, Liberace, and Nat King Cole, among others. For 24 years he was the sole distributor of TV's Emmy Awards show to more than 100 countries.

Personal life His wife Lucy Adams died of cancer on April 1, 1990. Both she and her husband had, long before her illness, become interested in cancer research. Adams joined Cancer Research Associates, the support group of the University of Southern California's Norris Cancer Center and Hospital, and in 1985 he became the organization's president. The Adams family—Berle, his children Helen and Richard, and their families, established the Berle and Lucy Adams Chair in Cancer Research at USC's Keck School of Medicine. His cousin was Los Angeles County Sheriff Sherman Block. Services were held at Mount Sinai Memorial Park.

In 1995, Adams self-published his autobiography, A Sucker for Talent. In 2009, he died in Los Angeles at age 92.