Seminal Los Angeles-based comedy label most active from the late 1960s until its bankruptcy in 1985.
Laff Records was a West Coast-based recording label that featured many top comedians of the ’60s and ’70s. Specializing in so-called blue humor, bawdy comics like Redd Foxx, Richard Pryor, and LaWanda Page found a home for their style of comedy, which pushed them into prominence into the mainstream.
The label was based in Los Angeles and was started by Louis Drozen. A well-known party record label, Dootoo Records, went under, which gave Drozen the proper opening for the Laff Records era.
What made the label stand out at the time was the diversity of its roster. Female comics like Page found fame via the label, and the volume of work Laff Records produced gave way to other opportunities for Foxx and Page, who both later reconnected on the classic sitcom “Sanford & Son.”
Laff Records also turned heads for its R-rated album covers that often featured scantily clad women and the featured artists in comprising positions. Stores sold the albums wrapped in brown paper in order to cover the images from peeking eyes and many a young person got into a bit of trouble for sneaking a look and listening to the profane records.
Pryor didn’t work with Laff Records very long and a legal tussle between them resulted in the label releasing recordings of his works. Other comics that were featured included ventriloquist duo Richard and Willie, Skillet and Leroy, and George Carlin, who also had a brief run with the label.
Laff Records went out of business in the ’80s, but many of its master recordings were re-released by Uproar Entertainment, by Louis' son David Drosen.
Notable comedy acts who released albums on the label included Shecky Greene, Skillet and Leroy, Little House on the Prairie star Alison Arngrim (who cut an album for the label spoofing President Jimmy Carter's daughter Amy), Slappy White, Wildman Steve (2), La Wanda Page (a/k/a Sanford and Son's Aunt Esther), Redd Foxx, George Carlin, Real People co-host Skip Stephenson, Kip Addotta (the label's last major artist) and, most importantly, Richard Pryor.
Richard Pryor...As That (African-American) Was Going Crazy (1968-72)
Most famous for signing--and almost derailing the recording career of--Richard Pryor after his first album for Dove/Reprise failed to chart. After the 1971 album Craps (After Hours) sold well, Pryor recorded That Nigger's Crazy for Stax Records sublabel Partee Records and re-signed with Reprise in late 1974 after that LP's success. However, Laff nearly prevented Reprise from reissuing the album (claiming contractual issues with him) until he and Warner Bros. Records, Reprise's parent company, settled with Laff in 1975 to gain control of his recording career. The end result was that Laff endlessly released and repackaged early pre-stardom Pryor material they had recorded between 1968 and 1972, often to coincide with whichever current Pryor movie was in theaters or Reprise/Warner Bros. LP had just gotten released; Pryor's estate gained control of his Laff masters--including a large number of unreleased master tapes--after his death. As a result, only the Craps (After Hours) album is considered part of Pryor's official discography.
