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used to bands complaining about their onerous contracts or lack of marketing support. They were even used to gripes from legitimate companies or individuals owed hundreds of thousands of dollars. A business strategy based on poking the record industry in the eye made about as much sense as one built on trying to blackmail the Mafia.

In fact, it nearly was trying to blackmail the Mafia. Organized-crime figures played a major role in the history of rock-music distribution and sales, as thoroughly documented by court records, journalistic exposés, and books such as 1990’s Hit Men, by Fredric Dannen. Royalties were chronically and enthusiastically unpaid, leaving music legends unable to make ends meet. One story unearthed by Dannen involved Florida songwriter George McCrae, who had a number one record in 1974 called “Rock Your Baby.” McCrae hadn’t seen a dime of the more than $100,000 he was due, and he couldn’t pay his rent. He went to visit label boss Henry Stone in his office and threatened to cut Stone with a knife. “You really surprise me, today of all days,” Stone said calmly. He fished out a thick wad of bills, perhaps a few thousand dollars, and handed it to McCrae. “But that isn’t all. You see that Cadillac? It’s yours, George,” Stone said, and gave him a set of keys. Stone had a guest in his office at the time, and the visitor couldn’t believe that McCrae had fallen for the time-honored cheap-car trick. As soon as McCrae left, he asked Stone: “How much did that Cadillac cost?” Replied Stone: “What cost? It’s rented.”

Morris Levy, founder of Count Basie home Roulette Records, was just one of the major industry players with close ties to the mob. Levy affixed his name to the copyrights of songs he didn’t write—like Frankie Lymon’s “Why Do Fools Fall in Love?”—and did business with New York’s Genovese crime family. Before his sentencing for extortion alongside a mob underboss in 1988, Levy managed to get letters of support from the heads of all six big record labels. (The present-day Big Five, all with subsidiary labels, are Universal, Sony, Bertelsmann’s BMG, EMI, and AOL’s Warner Brothers.) Such tough guys were revered within the record business. As the labels grew more corporate, the rough-and-tumble of the business grew subtler. But it did not go away.

Take, for example, the matter of payola. Even before rock ’n’ roll took hold of radio, bagmen routinely gave disc jockeys money to spin certain

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