AVI Records
American independent record label
AVI Records was an independent record label established in 1968, as a unit of American Variety International. It released music from numerous genres, and was sufficiently successful with its disco recordings that it began doing its own distribution in 1977.
History
AVI Records began in 1968. It was formed by Seymour Heller, Ed Cobb and Ray Harris. American Variety International was subsequently incorporated in 1972, and Harris became president of the Record division. One of the Los Angeles–based label's earliest signings was Liberace, who was signed to the label through his manager Heller, and stayed with the company for more than 20 years.
The label was initially distributed on a case-by-case basis, usually through either Capitol, MGM Records, Dot Records or Tower. Harris started the label's disco initiative after attending a Midem convention and recognizing the selling potential of mixes and extended cuts. Additionally influenced by Donna Summer, Barry White and Van McCoy, AVI produced an album by studio group El Coco, passing off the product as European. AVI had laid the foundation for its own distribution in 1976, and activated this network in 1977 after having found success in the disco and R&B genres, particularly with El CoCo, while becoming the first label to produce custom jackets for its 12-inch singles.
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This entry incorporates text from “AVI Records” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.