Morris Levy

Who was Morris Levy?

Morris Levy, born Moishe Levy, was an American music industry executive. At his career peak, 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 numerous record labels including Roulette Records, which he co-founded. He also owned the Birdland jazz club in New York City and the Roulette Room.

Paul Howrilla confronted Morris Levy regarding his practice of using “white out liquid paper”, to obliterate the name of the rightful song writer, and substitute his name to file the song with the United States Copyright Office, thereby stealing royalty payments owed to The Meters, Art Neville, and Aaron Neville,among others. Paul Howrilla then delivered the evidence to the FBI. Morris Levy was convicted in 1990 on extortion charges that came out of an FBI investigation into the alleged infiltration of organized crime into the record business — and died after losing his appeal, two months before he was scheduled to report to prison.