Tetragrammaton Records was an American record label, founded by artist manager Roy Silver, Bruce Post Campbell, Marvin Deane[1], and comedian Bill Cosby (who was managed by Silver) in the late 1960s. The name references a term for the un-nameable name of God.
Tetragrammaton's biggest act was the first incarnation of the rock band Deep Purple. The label was also responsible for issuing John Lennon and Yoko Ono's Two Virgins album in the United States (1968), after Capitol Records (who distributed Lennon's records in the US) refused to handle it, because of its nude cover photo of the pair. 8:15 12:15, a double-album of Cosby's stand-up comedy, was also issued by the label (1969), as were two albums by comedian Murray Roman, titled You Can't Beat People Up & Have Them Say I Love You, and A Blind Man's Movie (which featured black-on-black artwork and text).
Despite having some popular artists, Tetragrammaton suffered bankruptcy in 1971. In mid-1972 Warner Bros. Records, who now had Deep Purple as an artist on their label, leased the masters for Deep Purple's first three Tetragrammaton albums and reissued them on the Warner Bros. label as the compilation album Purple Passages in November 1972.
In Canada, some of Tetragrammaton's releases were released by the Canadian division of Polydor Records. Polydor of Canada also released a couple of unique Deep Purple compilations after Tetragrammaton's demise.
In the 1980s, a few reissues appeared of old Tetragrammaton albums (mostly of Deep Purple's first three albums), but these were of inferior, bootleg-record quality, pressed and released by Creative Sounds, Ltd., based in Philadelphia, who had acquired the rights to the label's master recordings.
The label's co-founder, Marvin Deane, died on August 16, 2010 in Los Angeles, from heart failure, at the age of 79.[1]