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 ''For the American diplomat see List of ambassadors of the United States to Germany'' 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. ...

, owner of the Titus Oaks Records music chain in

Long Island Long Island is a densely populated continental island in southeastern New York (state), New York state, extending into the Atlantic Ocean. It constitutes a significant share of the New York metropolitan area in both population and land are ...

. Meltzer moved to

Connecticut Connecticut ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It borders Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, New York (state), New York to the west, and Long Island Sound to the south. ...

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 office at this time outside of

Sacramento, California Sacramento ( or ; ; ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital city of the U.S. state of California and the county seat, seat of Sacramento County, California, Sacramento County. Located at the confluence of the Sacramento Rive ...

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 List of municipalities in Colorado#Consolidated city and county, consolidated city and county, the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of municipalities in Colorado, most populous city of the U.S. state of ...

), Bassin (

Miami Miami is a East Coast of the United States, coastal city in the U.S. state of Florida and the county seat of Miami-Dade County, Florida, Miami-Dade County in South Florida. It is the core of the Miami metropolitan area, which, with a populat ...

), and Abbey Road (

Los Angeles Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...

). 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 withou ...

, which later sold to

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

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) which summarizes its core tenets. Many Christian denominations use three creeds ...

Evanescence Evanescence is an American Rock music, rock band founded in 1994 by singer and keyboardist Amy Lee and guitarist Ben Moody in Little Rock, Arkansas. After releasing independent extended play, EPs and a Origin (Evanescence demo album), demo ...

, and

Seether Seether are a South African Rock music, rock band founded in 1999 in Pretoria, Gauteng. 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 with ...

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

References

{{reflist Record label distributors