Benevolence Define: Berle Adams

Tuesday, September 25, 2012

Berle Adams

Berle Adams (June 11, 1917 – August 25, 2009), born Beryl Adasky, was a music industry executive and talent booking agent best known for co-founding Mercury Records in the 1940s and later becoming a senior executive at Adams was born to Russian immigrant parents on the West Side of Chicago, Illinois. Adams became attracted to late night remote radio broadcasts of America's swing bands, including those of Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey, Charlie Barnet, Bob Crosby, Glenn Miller, and Benny Goodman. While still in high school, Crane Technical High School, Adams began renting speaker systems and booking bands for his and other schools' proms and for neighborhood weddings, men's and women's benevolent organizations, fire department and chamber of commerce socials. (Musicians in those days earned $4 per sideman and $6 for the leader. Adams' fee was $6.50 a job.)With support from established bandleader Al Trace, whose later recording of "Mairzy Doats" became No. 1 on