Tommy James - Music and The Mob

Music and The Mob

In February 2010, an autobiography Me, The Mob, and The Music was published. James announced that deals were in hand to turn the story into both a film and a Broadway play. Martin Scorsese approached James about making a movie of the book shortly after its publication.

It was evident when James first met Morris Levy, the head of Roulette Records, that he was willing to strongarm others when necessary. Those signed to Roulette were there to produce money for the company, having their needs met only when it pleased Levy. Asking to be paid meant intimidation; to survive, those under contract to Roulette needed to find a means of generating income that did not involve the record company, such as personally booked tours. While a Roulette artist had great creative control when recording for the company, the lack of payment for those efforts was difficult to take.

James estimates the company owed him $30–40 million in royalties he never received. Roulette was a front for organized crime, also functioning as a money laundering operation. In the early 1970s, Levy was at the wrong end of a mob war. James had to leave New York for a while to avoid a mob hit, which explained why he recorded an album in Nashville in 1972. He did not feel comfortable writing his book until all those deeply involved with the record company had died. It was only after Roulette Records and Levy's Big Seven Music publishing company were sold (the record company to an EMI and Rhino Records partnership, the music publishing company to Windswept Pacific Music which was later sold to EMI) that James began to receive large royalty checks from sales of his records.