The Pop Corporation

The music biz and the world of entertainment is a murky place and no mistake, but sometimes, the links are tied mega closely to seemingly innocent songs that you love to singalong to. Take the case of ‘I Think We’re Alone Now’. Many people will think of Tiffany, singing her little socks off in US malls in the ’80s, propelling herself to fame.

But let’s go back in time.

In 1957, jumping on the teen fanaticism of rock ‘n’ roll, George Goldner, Joe Kolsky, Morris Levy and Phil Kahl founded a record label called Roulette, with Levy appointed as the director. The label would land some hits with Jimmie Rodgers, Ronnie Hawkins, Buddy Knox, Frankie Lymon and some minor smashes with trad jazzers like Count Basie. As the ’60s came around, the twist craze caught the eye of anyone wanting to turn a quick profit, and Roulette were no exception. Joey Dee and the Stralighters released ‘Peppermint Twist’ and Bill Haley was talked into making an album of dance songs called ‘Twistin’ Knights at the Roundtable’. Stephen Stills and Richie Furay would first work together on the label while members of Au Go Go Singers, the house group for a club in New York City.

The label would branch out in the UK, sponsoring a show on pirate radio with Radio Caroline, with records issued via EMI’s Columbia label. Roulette would buy up other smaller labels in the process too, acquiring Roost Records and others. George Goldner would be ousted from the company, thanks to out of control gambling debts, losing some of his labels in the process.

Morris Levy was running the company with what was described as ‘an iron fist’. And that’s because Roulette Records to all intents and purposes, was laundering money for the mob. And not just low level mob, either.

Roulette’s most enduring hitmakers were Tommy James and the Shondells. Giving us ‘Hanky Panky’, ‘Mony Mony’, ‘Crimson and Clover’ and, of course, ‘I Think We’re Alone Now’. James says of the label that it was merely a front for the Genovese crime family, and that somewhere around $30 to $40 million of royalties were kept within the company. Complete artistic freedom for the groups, so bands were not having their music meddled with, but well… the Genovese crime family tree.

Levy told James “I hope you’re ready kid, because you’re about to go on one hell of a ride.” Levy, of course, a feared member of the entertainment world, who no plugger, radio producer, DJ, promoter or anyone else, would dare cross. James’ deserved to have hits on the strength of the releases alone, but was their meteoric rise also in part thanks to some stern behaviour from a man in the business unironically referred to as ‘The Godfather’?

And those millions? No surprises to find out that Tommy James received a meagre portion from it. James has said in interviews: “It was always a challenge to get money from Morris Levy and Roulette – one thing you don’t want to challenge mob guys on is money. Morris wasn’t a ‘made man’ – [because] he was Jewish – but he was a mob associate and a very heavy guy. You shook his hand and it was like grabbing hold of a catcher’s mitt.”

“We learned early on that it was highly unlikely we were going to get what we were due, so we just got on with making music – they say crime doesn’t pay and it’s true – the criminals who ran Roulette never paid me!”

Levy’s business partners have the kind of names you’d expect from the mob. He had connections to head guy Thomas Eboli, but his partner was ‘Fat Tony’ Anthony Salerno, who was literally the model for Tony Soprano. In fact, in The Sopranos, there’s a Jewish record label exec played by Hesh Rabkin, which is too on the nose to be coincidental.

To James’ first hit, ‘Hanky Panky’, the group’s manager asked Levy for a cut of the royalties, and with his feet clean off the ground was told that, should he ever set foot in the Roulette offices ever again, he’d be leaving in a body bag. This behaviour would continue, with James’ bandmates quitting and money being difficult to retrieve, all soundtracked to the yearning love of ‘I Think We’re Alone Now’.

By the time the ’70s came around, James had a raft of hits, but war broke out between ‘the families’, forcing James to run to Nashville, where of course, he’d go country, while Levy’s associates were violently murdered. James would slowly back away from Levy who had more on his plate and probably felt like there was a target on his back.

However, Levy wasn’t quite finished yet, stumping up the money for Sugar Hill Records for Sylvia Robinson, which basically invented hip hop. And while in some musical wilderness, James found in 1987, Tiffany was having a hit with one of his songs, reaching number one in the States. Then came Billy Idol’s cover of ‘Mony Mony’.

A year prior to Tiffany’s pop smash, Levy was indicted for racketeering and sold Roulette in 1986. James, for the first time, would receive royalty cheques from the label’s new owner, EMI. Funny how pop music works, isn’t it? Levy himself would avoid a 10 year prison sentence through dying of cancer before they could get the cuffs on him. He also escaped paying Tommy James money that he was rightly owed.

Levy had been tailed by the FBI since 1984, and was involved in the extortion of John LaMonte – a record dealer from Pennsylvania. A dodgy deal on some albums and a fractured eye socket later, Levy was arrested at the Ritz in Boston, and it made national television, not before pocketing over $20million for selling Roulette.

The damning evidence came from wiretaps in the Roulette offices, and conversations between Levy and Gaetano Vastola would do the damage. The hidden microphone, for the record, hidden in the ‘O’ of a sign above Levy’s head that read “O Lord! Give Me A Bastard With Talent!” It transpired that, as well as dealing records, Levy had also been a major heroin supplier for a Philly druglord.

However, James ended up with a hit of another kind on his hands, writing the brilliant book ‘Me, The Mob and the Music’, which was optioned by Barbara De Fina, the producer behind ‘Goodfellas’ and more.