The label had known ties to New York City mobsters.[1] Levy ran the label with an iron fist.[2] In 1958 Roost Records was purchased. Goldner subsequently bowed out of his partnership interest in Roulette and, to cover his gambling debts, sold his record labels Tico, Rama, Gee and—years later—End and Gone to Levy, who grouped them into Roulette. Peretti and Creatore later left Roulette and worked as freelance producers for RCA Records throughout the 1960s. They co-founded Avco Records in 1969. In 1971 Roulette took over the catalog of Jubilee Records.
In the UK Roulette's records were issued on EMI's Columbia label. In April 1965, the UK music magazine NME reported that Roulette had agreed to offer a sponsored show to the UK pirate radio radio station Radio Caroline. The hour-long show, recorded in the US by disc jockey Jack Spector, was to be broadcast five evenings a week. The contract covered a two-year period and was worth over £10,000 to the station.[3]
Tommy James (left) has stated that Morris Levy (right) hid royalties from the Shondells' biggest hits
According to Tommy James of Tommy James and the Shondells, whose "Hanky Panky", "I Think We're Alone Now", "Mirage", "Mony Mony", "Crimson and Clover" and many others were released during his time at the label, Roulette was a front business for the Genovese crime family.[4] James estimates that the label kept $30 million-$40 million of the group's royalties but afforded it total artistic freedom, whereas another label would have tampered with its formula and might have dropped the group early on.[1] Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, Roulette was one of the industry's major distributors, handling records for many leading labels.
Levy was the key financial backer for the rap music label Sugar Hill Records, which was founded in 1979 by the husband-and-wife team Joe and Sylvia Robinson. Sugar Hill released the first Top 40 rap single, "Rapper's Delight", in 1979. In the early 1980s, the Robinsons bought Levy out.
In 1981, Henry Stone turned to Levy to help prevent the demise of TK Records, so they set up Sunnyview Records under the Roulette umbrella. In 1986, Levy was arrested, tried and convicted for extorting money from an FBI informant, John LaMonte, but he died in Ghent, New York, before serving any time in prison. In 1989, Roulette Records was sold to a consortium of EMI and Rhino Records, the latter of which was later acquired by Warner Music Group. Rhino would control Roulette’s pop catalogue in the USA, Canada and Mexico, while EMI acquired Roulette’s jazz catalogue worldwide, plus the international distribution of Roulette’s pop catalogue.[5] As of 2013, Warner Music Group now has worldwide rights to the Roulette catalogue as a result of acquiring EMI’s Parlophone label.[6][7]
Following their 1989 acquisition, Rhino and EMI began issuing large royalty checks to former Roulette artists. Tommy James recalled that his checks were in amounts in six or seven digits. Roulette was notorious for not paying royalties to its artists, who had to rely on concerts and personal appearances for their income.[1]
Until 2013, EMI used the Roulette name for the reissue of old Roulette-label material. In the US, Blue Note Records handled the Roulette jazz catalogue for release on the Roulette Jazz label until 2013. It was one of the units of Parlophone that Universal Music was required to sell to Warner Music Group to comply with international regulators.
Reissue series from used by the label during 1973. Not all these albums have "Echoes of An Era" somewhere in the title - some do, some don't. They are two-album sets.
Tommy James and the Shondells is an American rock band formed in Niles, Michigan, in 1964. They had two No. 1 singles in the U.S. – "Hanky Panky" and "Crimson and Clover" – and also charted twelve other top 40 hits, including five in the Hot 100's top ten: "I Think We're Alone Now", "Mirage", "Mony Mony", "Sweet Cherry Wine" and "Crystal Blue Persuasion".
Parlophone Records Limited is a record label founded in Germany in 1896 by the Carl Lindström Company as Parlophon. The British branch of the label was founded on 8 August 1923 as the Parlophone Company Limited, which developed a reputation in the 1920s as a jazz record label. On 5 October 1926, the Columbia Graphophone Company acquired Parlophone's business, name, logo, and release library, and merged with the Gramophone Company on 31 March 1931 to become Electric & Musical Industries Limited (EMI). George Martin joined Parlophone in 1950 as assistant to Oscar Preuss, the label manager, taking over as manager in 1955. Martin produced and released a mix of recordings, including by comedian Peter Sellers, pianist Mrs Mills, and teen idol Adam Faith.
EMI was a British transnational conglomerate founded in March 1931 in London. At the time of its acquisition by Universal Music in 2012, it was the fourth largest business group and record label conglomerate in the music industry, and was one of the "Big Five" record companies. Its labels included EMI Records, Parlophone, Virgin Records, and Capitol Records, which are now referenced under Universal Music due to their acquisition with the exception of Parlophone, as it is now owned by Warner Music.
Tommy James is an American musician, singer, songwriter, and record producer, widely known as frontman of the 1960s rock band Tommy James and the Shondells, who were known for their hits including "Mony Mony" and "Crimson and Clover", and "I Think We're Alone Now".
Columbia Graphophone Co. Ltd. was one of the earliest gramophone companies in the United Kingdom.
Rhino Entertainment Company is an American specialty record label and production company founded in 1978. It is currently the catalog division for Warner Music Group. Its current CEO is Mark Pinkus.
Warner Music Group Corp. is an American multinational entertainment and record label conglomerate headquartered in New York City. It is one of the "big three" recording companies and the third-largest in the global music industry, after Universal Music Group (UMG) and Sony Music Entertainment (SME). Formerly part of Time Warner, WMG was publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange from 2005 until 2011, when it announced its privatization and sale to Access Industries. It later had its second IPO on Nasdaq in 2020, once again becoming a public company. With a multibillion-dollar annual turnover, WMG employs more than 3,500 people and has operations in more than 50 countries throughout the world.
EMI-Capitol Special Markets was an EMI subsidiary handling distribution for special markets. It bought 3C Records in the early nineties.
EMI Records is a British multinational record label owned by Universal Music Group. It was originally founded as a British flagship label by the music company of the same name in 1972, and launched in January 1973 as the successor to its Columbia and Parlophone record labels. The label was later launched worldwide. It has a branch in India called EMI Records India, run by director Mohit Suri. In 2014, Universal Music Japan revived the label in Japan as the successor to EMI Records Japan. In June 2020, Universal revived the label as the successor to Virgin EMI, with Virgin Records now operating as an imprint of EMI Records. In February 2024, UMG Philippines relaunched EMI as a successor to the former EMI Philippines label after 22 years.
Odeon Records is a record label founded in 1903 by Max Straus and Heinrich Zuntz of the International Talking Machine Company in Berlin, Germany. The label's name and logo come from the Odéon-Théâtre de l'Europe in Paris.
Stateside Records, styled as $tateside Records, is a British record label, owned by Warner Music Group and operates through its Parlophone and Warner Records imprints. Upon creation, it initially released licensed American recordings and is now a reissue label.
End Records was a record label founded in 1957 by George Goldner. In 1962 the label was acquired by Morris Levy and incorporated into Roulette Records. Among its more successful recording acts were the Flamingos, the Chantels, and Little Anthony and the Imperials; it also recorded singles by Marilyn Monroe and Wilt Chamberlain. In 1988 Roulette was purchased by Rhino Records, and Rhino in turn was sold in the 1990s to what is now the Warner Music Group, which currently owns the End Records archives.
TK Records was an American independent record label founded by record distributor Henry Stone and Steve Alaimo in 1972. and based in Hialeah, Florida. The record label went bankrupt in 1981.
"Crimson and Clover" is a 1968 song by American rock band Tommy James and the Shondells. Written by the duo of Tommy James and drummer Peter Lucia Jr., it was intended as a change in direction of the group's sound and composition.
Jubilee Records was an American independent record label, specializing in rhythm and blues and novelty records. It was founded in New York City in 1946 by Herb Abramson. His partner was Jerry Blaine. Blaine bought Abramson's half of the company in 1947, when Abramson went on to co-found Atlantic Records with Ahmet Ertegun. The company name was Jay-Gee Recording Company, a subsidiary of the Cosnat Corporation. Cosnat was a wholesale record distributor.
Morris Levy was an American entrepreneur in the fields of jazz clubs, music publishing, and the independent record industry. Levy was cofounder and owner of Roulette Records, founding partner of the Birdland jazz club and the Roulette Room. He was a prominent subject of investigations into organized crime and the music industry, and was convicted of extortion shortly before his death.
Dimension Records was a record label founded in 1962 in New York City by Don Kirshner and Al Nevins, owners of Aldon Music. It concentrated on the girl group sound and showcased songs by Gerry Goffin and Carole King. Their composition "The Loco-Motion", sung by Little Eva, gave it its biggest hit. Background vocals on that record were by the Cookies, who had their own hits on the label, including "Chains", which was later recorded by the Beatles. In the UK, Dimension was licensed to London Records.
Ritchie Cordell was an American songwriter, singer and record producer. He wrote and produced several hits for Tommy James and The Shondells, including "I Think We're Alone Now" and "Mony Mony", and co-produced Joan Jett's I Love Rock 'n' Roll.
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