At first I tried using MoviePlayer to play the files, which worked in Windows, but wouldn’t on Mac. Aaarg! Cross-platform my ass! This past year or so has led me to understand “cross” in cross-platform as its alternate meaning. 
After reviewing some of the Tag code, I just went with Mp3Tag to strip all tags from all files and re-import them into the db. Everything now works as I had initially designed it. 
Thanks all.