Laff Records was a small American independent record label specializing in comedy and

party record A party is a gathering of people who have been invited by a host for the purposes of socializing, conversation, recreation, or as part of a festival or other commemoration or celebration of a special occasion. A party will often feature ...

s originating on the

West Coast of the United States The West Coast of the United States, also known as the Pacific Coast, Pacific states, and the western seaboard, is the coastline along which the Western United States meets the North Pacific Ocean. The term typically refers to the contiguous U.S ...

during the 1970s. Amongst their artists were

Richard Pryor Richard Franklin Lennox Thomas Pryor Sr. (December 1, 1940 – December 10, 2005) was an American stand-up comedian and actor. He reached a broad audience with his trenchant observations and storytelling style, and is widely regarded as on ...

, Redd Foxx,

LaWanda Page LaWanda Page (born Alberta Peal; October 19, 1920September 14, 2002) was an American actress, comedian, and dancer whose career spanned six decades. Crowned "The Queen of Comedy" or "The Black Queen of Comedy", Page melded blue humor, signifyin ...

George Carlin George Denis Patrick Carlin (May 12, 1937 – June 22, 2008) was an American comedian, actor, author, and social critic. Regarded as one of the most important and influential stand-up comedians of all time, he was dubbed "the dean of countercu ...

, black ventriloquist duo Richard And Willie, Kip Addotta, Belle Barth, Rex Benson, and Skillet & Leroy. Releases on Laff were notorious for their raunchy content on both the record and its album jacket. Many of these titles have had to be denoted with an "Adults Only" warning on the front cover and sold under the counter, decades before the infamous

Parental Advisory Advisory (abbreviated PAL) is a warning label introduced by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) in 1985 and adopted by the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) in 2011. It is placed on audio recordings in recognition of profan ...

sticker was a fixture on album covers. Many Laff album covers featured

topless Toplessness refers to the state in which a woman's breasts, including her areolas and nipples, are exposed, especially in a public place or in a visual medium. The male equivalent is barechestedness, also commonly called shirtlessness. Expose ...

models. Laff also became notorious both for the questionable quality of its record pressings and for its frequent repackaging of previously released titles with new titles and artwork. Pryor's vast quantity of releases issued by Laff is a case in point. Pryor released only one album for Laff, '' Craps (After Hours)'', with his direct participation and then later signed a deal with the larger

Stax Streaming API for XML (StAX) is an application programming interface ( API) to read and write XML documents, originating from the Java programming language community. Traditionally, XML APIs are either: * DOM based - the entire document is read i ...

label. Laff sued Pryor after Stax released ''

That Nigger's Crazy ''That Nigger's Crazy'' is the third album by American comedian Richard Pryor. It was recorded live at Don Cornelius' Soul Train nightclub in early 1974. The album's title was derived from a remark made by Pryor himself in '' Wattstax''. Initiall ...

'' in 1974; the case was settled when Laff gave Pryor his freedom in exchange for being allowed to compile albums from recordings it made with Pryor between 1969 and 1973. Laff went out of business sometime in the 1980s, with their last "hit" recording being Kip Addotta's "Wet Dream" (a favorite of fans of the

Dr. Demento Barret Eugene Hansen (born April 2, 1941), known professionally as Dr. Demento, is an American radio broadcaster and record collector specializing in novelty songs, comedy, and strange or unusual recordings dating from the early days of phonograp ...

radio show), but many of their more profitable recordings still circulated through other labels for some time afterward. In 1993, Island Records briefly re-released Foxx and Pryor titles on cassette and compact disc that had been originally issued by Laff, including Pryor's '' Craps (After Hours)''. These releases disappeared from store shelves after Island's parent company PolyGram was absorbed by Universal Music. In 2002

and his wife/manager, Jennifer Lee Pryor, purchased the rights to all of Richard's Laff masters and raw tapes from San Juan Music, the successor in interest to Laff Records. The Pryors then gave free rein to

Rhino Records A rhinoceros (; ; ), commonly abbreviated to rhino, is a member of any of the five extant species (or numerous extinct species) of odd-toed ungulates in the family Rhinocerotidae. (It can also refer to a member of any of the extinct species ...

to go through the tapes and make an anthology that included the entire '' Craps (After Hours)'' album and the best of other Laff releases. The results were released in 2005 on the 2-CD set '' Evolution/Revolution: The Early Years (1966–1974)''. Some of the remaining Laff masters have been reissued by Uproar Entertainment. Note that there were several earlier, unrelated companies that issued 78 RPM discs under the name Laff Records in the late 1940s. Of these, one was based in New York, a second was allegedly from Chicago, and a third released titles under the name Laff-Disc (later abbreviated to L D). All were probably defunct long before the Los Angeles label began operations.

References

External links

Laff Records Illustrated Discography at rassoodock.com

Uproar Entertainment
{{Authority control American independent record labels Defunct record labels of the United States Comedy record labels 1970s in comedy

See also

References

External links