I wonder if the business and music executives of the time would be able to earn their corporate positions today, or if they would be seen as old fat white men too unhip to know music.
Frank Zappa said that we were better off with the cigar-chomping old men who were willing to take a chance, than with the “young, hip guys”, who thought they knew what the kids wanted to hear.
Ahmet Ertegun of Atlantic Records would certainly fit that category.
Musicians commented that when you went into the offices of Motown Records, you'd hear records playing at volume, but when you went into the other labels' offices, it was quiet - just another corporate office.