CD One Stop was a distributor of pre-recorded music in the late 1980s through the 90s. It was started in 1985 by

Alan Meltzer Alan Meltzer (1944 – October 31, 2011) was an American businessman and poker player who founded Wind-up Records along with his ex-wife Diana Meltzer. Record company Meltzer owned Titus Oaks Records, four record stores in New York and C ...

, owner of the Titus Oaks Records music chain in

Long Island Long Island is a densely populated island in the southeastern region of the U.S. state of New York (state), New York, part of the New York metropolitan area. With over 8 million people, Long Island is the most populous island in the United Sta ...

. Meltzer moved to

Connecticut Connecticut () is the southernmost state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, New York to the west, and Long Island Sound to the south. Its cap ...

and launched the company, which was the first of its kind to distribute only compact discs, out of his house in Ridgefield. Meltzer later rented an office and warehouse in neighboring Bethel. But the company's growth was enormous. By 1989, its of office space and warehouse were barely enough. It moved to a facility in Bethel's Francis J. Clarke Industrial park. By 1992, the company had knocked down the northeast wall and doubled the warehouse to . By this time, it was also distributing cassettes and had taken over some exclusive distribution lines owned by Schwartz Bros. CD One Stop also opened a

West Coast West Coast or west coast may refer to: Geography Australia * Western Australia *Regions of South Australia#Weather forecasting, West Coast of South Australia * West Coast, Tasmania **West Coast Range, mountain range in the region Canada * Britis ...

office at this time outside of

Sacramento, California ) , image_map = Sacramento County California Incorporated and Unincorporated areas Sacramento Highlighted.svg , mapsize = 250x200px , map_caption = Location within Sacramento C ...

to compete with Valley Distributors. In 1993, the company was sold to Alliance Entertainment Corp., a holding company buying up distributors such as Encore (

Denver Denver () is a consolidated city and county, the capital, and most populous city of the U.S. state of Colorado. Its population was 715,522 at the 2020 census, a 19.22% increase since 2010. It is the 19th-most populous city in the Unit ...

), Bassin (

Miami Miami ( ), officially the City of Miami, known as "the 305", "The Magic City", and "Gateway to the Americas", is a East Coast of the United States, coastal metropolis and the County seat, county seat of Miami-Dade County, Florida, Miami-Dade C ...

), and Abbey Road (

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...

). Meltzer, and his key management staff, became the odd men out. But Meltzer was rumored to have invested heavily in a startup called CD Now, an early

online music store A digital music store is a business that sells digital audio files of music recordings over the Internet. Customers gain ownership of a license to use the files, in contrast to a music streaming service, where they listen to recordings without ...

, which later sold to

Amazon Amazon most often refers to: * Amazons, a tribe of female warriors in Greek mythology * Amazon rainforest, a rainforest covering most of the Amazon basin * Amazon River, in South America * Amazon (company), an American multinational technology c ...

becoming its music arm. Meltzer's first attempt at a record label was in 1996 with Grass Records, which morphed into Wind Up Entertainment, which gave us the likes of

Creed A creed, also known as a confession of faith, a symbol, or a statement of faith, is a statement of the shared beliefs of a community (often a religious community) in a form which is structured by subjects which summarize its core tenets. The ea ...

Evanescence Evanescence is an American rock band founded in Little Rock, Arkansas in 1995 by singer and musician Amy Lee and guitarist Ben Moody. After recording independent EPs as a duo in the late 90's, and a demo CD, Evanescence released their debut s ...

, and

Seether Seether are a South African rock band founded in 1999 in Pretoria, Gauteng, South Africa. The band originally performed under the name Saron Gas until 2002, when they moved to the United States and changed it to Seether to avoid confusion wit ...

. Steven Lerner, Marketing Director at CD One Stop, became the president of Wind Up.

References

{{reflist Record label distributors