Morris Levy


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.
At the peak of his business career, Levy owned more than 90 companies employing 900 people, including record-pressing plants, tape-duplicating plants, a distribution company, a prominent New England chain of 81 record stores, and many record labels.
Levy, who went by "Moishe" or "Mo" within the record industry, was described by Billboard magazine as "one of the record industry's most controversial and flamboyant players" and by Variety as "The Octopus", for his far-reaching control, disproportionate to the size of his companies, in every area of the record business. AllMusic described him as "a notorious crook who swindled artists out of their owed royalties". Levy falsely took writing credit in order to receive royalties—enriching himself at the expense of many of his signed artists, especially black R&B artists.
Levy was convicted of extortion in 1990 on charges from an FBI investigation of alleged infiltration of organized crime into the record business. Levy died after losing his appeal, two months before he was scheduled to report to prison.

Early life and career

Levy was born a Sephardic Jew in Harlem, New York City. His father and older brother died of pneumonia when Levy was four months old. He quit school at the age of 13 and ran away to Florida, where he worked as a photographer in and around nightclubs. He later joined the United States Navy.
He persuaded the owners of the nightclub where he worked to buy a club in New York, subsequently managing the club as the Cock Lounge. It became successful, attracting musicians such as Charlie Parker and Dexter Gordon, and allowed Levy to set up another club, Birdland, in 1949.
At Birdland, Levy was approached by a representative of ASCAP, seeking payment on behalf of songwriters for booking live music. He quickly appreciated the potential profits that could accrue from owning music copyrights. He then formed a publishing company, Patricia Music, for which he acquired the rights to songs performed in his clubs. In 1956, he founded Roulette Records with George Goldner, initially to release rock and roll music but also diversifying into jazz. In 1967, Levy hired a personal assistant Karin Grasso, the wife of singer-songwriter Richie Grasso whose work includes "Sweet Cherry Wine", co-written with Tommy James and performed by Tommy James and the Shondells. Karin assisted in all aspects of Roulette Records, including signing talent and producing music; such as Richie Grasso, Tommy James, Frankie Lymon, and Tito Puente, among many others. At one point, Morris claimed the rights to the phrase rock and roll itself, which became widely employed after its use by his friend Alan Freed. Levy was known to add his name to the songwriting credits of many artists who recorded for his label.
In June 1975, Levy and Nathan McCalla , a vice president of Roulette Records, were indicted for assaulting an off-duty police officer, Charles Heinz, causing Heinz to lose an eye. The case was later dismissed, and all records were sealed. McCalla was subsequently murdered in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
In the mid-1970s, Levy filed a much-publicized lawsuit against John Lennon for appropriating a line from the Chuck Berry song "You Can't Catch Me" in the Beatles song "Come Together". Lennon ultimately settled with Levy by agreeing to record three songs from Levy's publishing catalogue during the sessions for his 1975 LP Rock 'n' Roll, co-produced with Phil Spector. After complications due to Spector's erratic behavior, and after attempts at a second agreement failed, Levy used demo recordings by Lennon to produce and release a mail-order album titled Roots''. Levy successfully sued Lennon and was awarded $6,795, but he was countersued by Lennon, Capitol, EMI, and Apple Records, who won an award of $145,300.

Conviction and death

Beginning in 1984, the FBI targeted Levy in a -year investigation into the alleged infiltration of organized crime into the record business. The case against Levy involved the extortion of John LaMonte, a record wholesaler in Darby, Pennsylvania. LaMonte had agreed to purchase records valued at $1.25 million from Levy in a 1984 deal, and when LaMonte subsequently refused to pay the full price, claiming that the best titles had been removed from the 60-truckload delivery, Levy reportedly arranged to extort the money from him. LaMonte was subsequently assaulted, sustaining a fractured eye socket.
Levy's arrest in September 1986 at the Boston Ritz Carlton Hotel was televised nationally. Earlier that year, near the end of the investigation, Levy sold Roulette Records and his publishing rights.
During its investigation, the FBI suspected that Levy had used the Roulette Room as a front for Vincent Gigante, allegedly the boss of the Genovese crime family, and that Levy had had ties to organized crime for 20 years. Much of the trial evidence came from covertly recorded conversations taken from wiretaps and listening devices planted in the phones and business offices of Levy and Gaetano Vastola. Levy had a sign behind his desk that read, "O Lord! Give me a Bastard with talent" where the FBI had inserted a microphone inside the letter 'O' of Lord. Two holes were also drilled in the ceiling for cameras ''.
Levy was convicted in December 1988 by a Federal jury in Camden, New Jersey, of two counts of conspiring to extort. Also convicted were Howard Fisher and Dominick Canterino.
Levy vehemently denied the charges. At his sentencing hearing, his attorneys cited his extensive philanthropic work, while FBI agents testified that Levy had also been a major supplier of heroin for a convicted Philadelphia drug dealer, Roland Bartlett. In 1988 Levy was sentenced to 10 years in prison and fined $200,000, and subsequently appealed his conviction. Canterino was sentenced to 12 years in prison. Lamonte entered the federal witness protection program.
During his appeal, Levy remained free on bail, which was secured with his upstate New York estate, Sunnyview Farm. In December 1989, shortly before his death, his conviction was upheld by the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit in Philadelphia.
Also in 1989, as the principal shareholder of BeckZack Corp., which owned all 81 of the Strawberries record stores, Levy sold the chain.
In January 1990, Levy unsuccessfully petitioned to have his sentence eliminated because of his failing health. Instead he was granted a 90-day stay and was scheduled to report to jail on July 16.
Before Levy could report to jail, he died of cancer on May 20, 1990, in Ghent, New York.

Posthumous lawsuit

In 1993, a court found Levy's estate posthumously liable for $4 million in a case initiated by Herman Santiago and Jimmy Merchant of the Teenagers, authors of the song "Why Do Fools Fall in Love", who sued Levy for unpaid songwriting royalties. During the trial, the two testified they had received just $1,000 for the 1956 hit, which sold more than 3 million copies. Santiago testified that Levy told him, "Don't come down here anymore or I'll have to kill you or hurt you."
However, in 1996, this ruling was overturned on appeal because Santiago and Merchant failed to submit interest due to the statute of limitations. The U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear a further appeal.

Personal and family

Levy lived in a Park Avenue apartment in Manhattan, New York City and at his 1,500-acre farm, Sunnyview Farm, seven miles east of the Hudson River in Columbia County, Ghent, New York. The property had been a dairy farm. Levy initially used it to raise cattle, hay, and corn, but later used it exclusively to breed race horses. Sunnyview Farm remained a horse-breeding farm. It was later the site of The Big Up Festival.

Marriages

Levy married five times. In a 1986 interview with the Los Angeles Times, he stated, "the only thing I know about organized crime is my five ex-wives." Josh Alan Friedman, the author of a 2008 exposé of the music industry, Tell the Truth Until They Bleed, said that Levy had sent one of his wives to the hospital after beating her in a telephone booth.
  • Levy first married Patricia Caraeff on August 26, 1950, in Manhattan. She had been the widow of Edward Isidor Caraeff. Morris Levy named one of his companies, "Patricia Music," after her. They divorced in 1954 in Dade County, Florida.
  • Levy married Ruth Rubin on December 17, 1954, in Manhattan.
  • Levy married actress and model Cynthia Brooks in April 1958, but by May they were separated. They reunited on several occasions before ending their relationship In 1961, the columnist Dorothy Kilgallen reported that Levy dated the singer and actress Keely Smith before marrying Brooks. Brooks had been under contract at 20th Century Fox, appearing in Follow the Sun and Westward Ho, The Women, and was previously a chorus girl at El Rancho Vegas. She was previously married, from May 1955 to December 1955, to Rudi Maugeri, lead vocalist with the Crew Cuts. Brooks was featured in a 1957 issue of Life magazine. She then obtained telephone numbers in 26 cities nationwide under the pseudonym Brandy Lee, with instructions for men to receive four of her photographs for a dollar — drawing as many as 4,000 calls a day, hoping ultimately to raise $100,000 for a mail-order gown business. She later left show business to open a ski school in Lake Dallas, Texas.
  • Levy married Jean "Nom" Glassell in February 1962 in Miami. She had previously been married to millionaire Texas oilman Alfred C. Glassell Jr. who, among other things, founded Transcontinental Gas Pipeline Corporation in 1946, the first gas transmission system from Texas to New York.
  • Levy married Karen Levy on April 1, 1979, in Martin County, Florida. Together, they had two sons. At the time of Morris Levy's death, they were in divorce proceedings.