Cale

Ah, Tiger Lily - the king of tax scam labels. Yeah, Morris Levy's Roulette-affiliated Tiger Lily seems to be

the tax scam label that attracts the most attention. It certainly gets my vote for having the most interesting

catalog, though like all of the tax scam labels, there's plenty of chaff mixed in with the good stuff.

"Tiger Lily Records was a record label that was run by Roulette Records founder Morris Levy. Purportedly it was a tax scam created by Levy and was never intended to make a profit. Tiger Lily's modus operandi was to acquire demo tapes from artists and then release them without the artists consent and sometimes without even the artist's knowledge. The most prominent artist to have a record released by Tiger Lily was Richard Pryor whose album "L.A. Jail" was released by Tiger Lily in 1976."

So like most things in life, it turns out that's somewhat of an oversimplification. Acquiring demos tapes and

releasing them without the artist's knowledge, or consent was definitely one of the gambits Tiger Lily used, but there were other schemes. In some instances the company seems to have legitimately acquired rights to material. Check out Dr. Barry Fields describing the band Airborne's relationship with Tiger Lily. Tiger Lily also seems to have had a relationship with Joel Ross' Fat Chance Productions, with a number of albums deriving from material recorded for Ross (Steven Hines Band, C.M. Lord, Walrus). Tiger Lily also had some sort of corporate relationship with Artie Ripp's Family Records with a number of 1972 Family releases reappearing on Tiger Lily (Velvert Turner Group, Peter Anders, Billay, and a James Newton Howard solo album that was recorded for Family, but never released). The resulting tapes showed up as a Tiger Lily album

All that said, Tiger Lily's history remains largely unknown, though it's widely accepted that the label was set

up as an attempt to capitalize on mid-1970s tax law loopholes allowing a company to take substantial tax write-offs for investment expenses such as recording costs that failed to generate profits and to offset profits that were made by a legitimate label such as Roulette. The fact that Tiger Lily invested little or nothing in signing artists and acquiring recording material doesn't seem to have been a ethical problem for the owners.

The label only seems to have been operational for a short period (1976-1977), releasing a series of 58 known albums, though their are significant gaps in the catalog indicating there may have been quite a few more that are simply unknown. Some of the Tiger Lily catalog is common and easy to obtain (Richard Pryor's "L.A. Jail"), other releases are extremely rare with suitably high prices - try finding a copy of "Daddy Warbucks 1", or "Dakota".

An added irony is found in the fact some of the Tiger Lily catalog has been reissued by Japanese labels -

bootleggers bootlegging the bootlegger ... A couple of the rarer and more expensive Tiger Lily releases such

as The Jackson Sisters and Stonewall are now widely available as vinyl reissues.

"In 1988 I visited a woman who worked for Tiger Lily Records-she had been the total staff! They consisted

Morris Levy is a fascinating character and Richard Carlin wrote an interesting biography on the man . The book Godfather of the Music Business Morris Levy includes a little insight into Tiger Lily. Frederick Dannen's book Hit Men: Power Brokers and Fast Money Inside the Music Business includes a chapter largely devoted to Levy, providing extensive information on his background and music business career. Not exactly he most inspirational story you've ever read ...

My site's far from complete, but as far as I can tell, it has the most comprehensive collection of Tiger Lily

album covers (including a couple of images I've never seen on the net), and has a fairly extensive write up

for those Tiger Lily albums that I own or have heard. For what it's worth, I've never seen other on-line

descriptions for such rarities as "Airborne", Scott Berry's "Morning Glory", or "Woodstock Revival".

- Received and email from Steve Sherman with contact information and an interest in talking about his Tiger Lily experience.

- Received an email from Ellen Shipley asking for information with respect to the Fields and Shipley Tiger Lily release. Ms. Shipley was apparently unaware of the fact the LP had been released and was interested in tracking down a copy, as well as information on the releasing label.

- Heard from Tom Saviano who was surprised to discover that Tiger Lily had released an album by his '70s band Odyssey

Thanks to Frank Marcski for providing information on TL 14041 Jim Armstrong "Feels Like Spiders" Here's what Frank had to say about the LP itself:

I found the record here in the UK at a flea market for 50c , it seems well produced crediting Mick Guzowski (Guzauski ? ) as engineer and mentions House of Guitars , so I'm guessing it has connections with the New York area [actually Rochester, New York]. I have drawn a blank on info about Jim Armstrong , and the music publishing company Whazoo .

May 22, 2014 - Frank Marcski did some additional research on TL 14041 Jim Armstrong "Feels Like Spiders":

Hi Scott ,

I've done a bit more digging on Jim Armstrong , and think he could be the same guy that played with the Irish band Them , he was based in the States and formed a couple of bands in the late 60,s early 70,s. The guitar playing is the highlight ( Jims forte ), and there is very good production ( jJms good connections ), but the vocals are not for everyone , OK for an indie label , but not a chart topper for a major , or a radio play winner . I can send you a couple of complete sound files via Divshare if you are interested , I would appreciate your comments.

Frank M

Some of these LPs are for sale with set prices. The rest reflect an estimated value based on past sales, or

just pure speculation on my uninformed part. Yeah, some of these are clearly big ticket items !!!

Interesting tidbit from James Baird: "I found out recently that the Vadim label out of France reissued Bobby Boyd on CD and vinyl. http://www.vadimmusic.com/" Wonder how they got the rights to this rarity ...