BUSINESS
March 31, 1986 | Wm. KNOEDELSEDER Jr., Times Staff Writer
A small New Jersey record company specializing in black "rap" music is being investigated by two of the ongoing federal grand juries looking into suspected organized crime infiltration of segments of the record business, The Times has learned. Grand juries in Los Angeles and New York are interested in Englewood, N.J.-based Sugar Hill Inc.
BUSINESS
May 7, 1988 | WILLIAM K. KNOEDELSEDER Jr., Times Staff Writer
Reputed mobster Salvatore J. Pisello has told government investigators that his initial contact with MCA Records in 1983 was through MCA Music and Entertainment Group Chairman Irving Azoff, according to papers filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles. It was the first time that Pisello had made any statement to investigators about his dealings with MCA.
BUSINESS
November 20, 1986 | WILLIAM K. KNOEDELSEDER Jr., Times Staff Writer
A small New Jersey record company specializing in so-called rap music filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Newark on Tuesday charging that it was defrauded and forced into near-bankruptcy in a racketeering scheme engineered by executives of MCA Records and reputed organized crime figure Salvatore J. Pisello. Englewood-based Sugar Hill Records claims in the civil suit that executives of Los Angeles-based MCA and its distribution arm, MCA Distributing Corp.
ENTERTAINMENT
March 2, 1997 | Cheo Hodari Coker
Marion "Suge" Knight, Sean "Puffy" Combs and all the other hip-hop moguls owe their careers to a former disco queen's taste for pizza. It was at a New Jersey pizzeria one afternoon in 1979 that Sylvia Robinson heard a club bouncer named Henry "Big Bank Hank" Robinson rapping some lyrics he had heard in a club. Dazzled by her first taste of rap, she arranged to record him and two friends. The result was the landmark "Rapper's Delight" by the Sugarhill Gang. America's first hip-hop label was born.
ENTERTAINMENT
March 16, 1998 | JOHN ROOS
The seeds of the Austin Lounge Lizards were sown when two Princeton students shared a startling revelation: "Hey, our forthcoming history degrees aren't exactly suited for gainful employment." So in 1976, soon-to-be singer-songwriter-guitarists Hank Card and Conrad Deisler started playing together while attending law school at the University of Texas. Soon the twosome recruited string player Tom Pittman and started a real band.
NEWS
April 4, 2002
* Michelle Shocked, "Deep Natural," Mighty Sound. Miles from her old epistolary folkiness, but her passion, vision and appeal galvanize and unify what may be her most ambitious album. Also: Apex Theory, "Topsy-Turvy," DreamWorks Doc Watson and Frosty Morn, "Round the Table Again," Sugar Hill Records Tami Hart, "What Passed Between Us," Mr.