M arty Scott was clearly ahead of his time. A music enthusiast early on, he brought imported albums to the U.S., first by distributing them in dorm rooms and then, with the help of some buddies, Jeff Tenenbaum and Ed Grossi, eventually turned his efforts into the largest distributor of imported albums in the U.S. Operating under the name JEM Records, they brought such hard-to-find albums as The Who’s Direct Hits and Cheap Trick at Budokan to their fellow enthusiasts and became a staple source for American retailers nationwide.
“We started having other people selling in different dorms,” Scott recalls, noting that each of the partners invested $300 to put their operation into motion. “So we decided we should go into business selling imports to the college kids, and we were selling them for cheaper than what the stores were selling them for. So then, after we graduated college, which was in June of 1971, the three of us went on a trip to Europe and Israel. One, which you couldn’t get in America. I had this epiphany… I decided I wanted to bring it to other people that might want it as well. So we went to a company that sold albums wholesale, and then we started importing their records. It took six weeks to get our first import order, but once it started to sell and stores started to call us, we started to get more and more inventory. And before we knew it, we moved from the trailer we were operating out of at the time and into a small little area inside a one stop. We incorporated in August 1972, and so that’s the date from which we’re marking our 50th anniversary. At that point, more and more stores began calling us and our business exploded. In 1973, we got our first real true warehouse building area and we expanded from there.”
