Ilene Berns Born Cleveland, Ohio - record company director.

Berns worked as a go-go dancer in New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

 nightclubs before meeting her husband Bert Berns

Bert Berns

Bertrand Russell Berns , most commonly known as Bert Berns as well as Bert Russell and Russell Byrd, was an American songwriter and record producer of the 1960s...

, the songwriter and record producer and founder of Bang Records

Bang Records

Bang Records was created by Bert Berns in 1965 together with his partners from Atlantic Records: Ahmet Ertegün, Nesuhi Ertegün and Jerry Wexler...

. Together they had three children (Brett, Cassandra and Mark) before Bert died of heart failure on December 30, 1967.

A widow at the age of twenty-four Berns set out to carry on her late husband's legacy. After re-releasing material from such Bang Records artists as Van Morrison

Van Morrison

Van Morrison, OBE is a Northern Irish singer-songwriter and musician. His live performances at their best are regarded as transcendental and inspired; while some of his recordings, such as the studio albums Astral Weeks and Moondance, and the live album It's Too Late to Stop Now, are widely...

 and Neil Diamond

Neil Diamond

Neil Leslie Diamond is an American singer-songwriter with a career spanning over five decades from the 1960s until the present....

, she discovered Mississippi

Mississippi

Mississippi is a U.S. state located in the Southern United States. Jackson is the state capital and largest city. The name of the state derives from the Mississippi River, which flows along its western boundary, whose name comes from the Ojibwe word misi-ziibi...

 singer/songwriter Paul Davis

Paul Davis (singer)

Paul Lavon Davis was an American singer and songwriter, best known for his radio hits and solo career which started worldwide in 1970. His career encompassed soul, country and pop music...

. She relocated Bang Records to Atlanta, Georgia

Atlanta, Georgia

Atlanta is the capital and most populous city in the U.S. state of Georgia. According to the 2010 census, Atlanta's population is 420,003. Atlanta is the cultural and economic center of the Atlanta metropolitan area, which is home to 5,268,860 people and is the ninth largest metropolitan area in...

 in 1970 and presided over a decade of success with Paul Davis ("Ride 'Em Cowboy," "I Go Crazy," "Sweet Life"); she also signed and developed Atlanta-based R&B funk

Funk

Funk is a music genre that originated in the mid-late 1960s when African American musicians blended soul music, jazz and R&B into a rhythmic, danceable new form of music. Funk de-emphasizes melody and harmony and brings a strong rhythmic groove of electric bass and drums to the foreground...

 group Brick

Brick (band)

Brick is a former American band that created a successful merger of funk and jazz in the 1970s. Their most popular single was "Dazz", which was released in 1976.-History:...

 ("Dazz

Dazz (song)

"Dazz" was a hit song by R&B/funk band Brick. "Dazz" is a combination of disco and jazz. Released in 1976 from their Good High album, it would become their biggest hit, spending four weeks at the top of the R&B singles chart and reaching number three on the Billboard Hot 100 singles...

") and singer/songwriter Peabo Bryson

Peabo Bryson

Peabo Bryson is an American R&B and soul singer-songwriter, born in Greenville, South Carolina...

.

Berns sold Bang Records to Columbia Records

Columbia Records

Columbia Records is an American record label, owned by Japan's Sony Music Entertainment, operating under the Columbia Music Group with Aware Records. It was founded in 1888, evolving from an earlier enterprise, the American Graphophone Company — successor to the Volta Graphophone Company...

in 1979 - leaving a legacy fulfilled by few women in the record business. The Berns family kept the music publishing operations (Web IV Music and Sloopy II Music)http://www.allbusiness.com/retail-trade/miscellaneous-retail-retail-stores-not/4630849-1.html which are currently run by one of her sons Brett Berns.