Berle Adams

Berle Adams

Berle Adams, a onetime big-band booking agent who co-founded Mercury Records in the 1940s and later became a senior executive at MCA before launching his own successful business as an international television program sales representative and distributor, has died. He was 92. Adams, who had been ailing during the last year, died Tuesday at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, said Ken Kleinberg, his son-in-law. "One of the things that's exciting and fortuitous about his life is he rose to great stature during a period when the music business was young and the television business was young," said Kleinberg, an entertainment lawyer. During his more than 60-year career, Adams booked road dates for big bands and entertainers such as Glenn Miller, Woody Herman and the Andrews Sisters in the 1940s. He also served as personal manager for musician-bandleader Louis Jordan, whose career as "The King of the Jukebox" he helped build. In 1945, Adams, Irving Green and Arthur Talmadge founded Mercury Records, whose early artists included Erroll Garner, Dinah Washington, Tony Martin, Frankie Laine and Vic Damone.

Berle Adams

Berle Adams

Berle Adams

Berle Adams

Berle Adams

Berle Adams

Berle Adams

Berle Adams

Berle Adams