This month’s Under-Appreciated Rock Band is a Los Angeles psychedelic rock quartet called MUSIC EMPORIUM. The bandmembers are Casey Cosby (organ and vocals), Dave Padwin (lead guitar, acoustic guitar and vocals), Carolyn Lee (bass guitar, acoustic bass, piano, organ and vocals), and Dora Wahl (drums and percussion). A rock band that was half men and half women was rare enough in those days; but in this case, the women represent the excellent rhythm section (bass and drums). In that respect, Music Emporium might be unique among 1960’s bands. Their eclectic background and the fact that three of the four bandmembers are classically trained musicians lend additional interest to their music.
Bill Cosby – who, due to having the same name as the famous comedian Bill Cosby, began to go by the name Casey Cosby – was fortunate to have acquired an accordion complete with eight weeks of lessons from a traveling salesman. He jumped at the chance to become a musician and eventually became one of the leading accordionists in the nation, recording four albums of classical accordion music. He won the U.S. accordion championship five years in a row and also was judged best at his instrument in a 1967 competition at UCLA that was sponsored by Frank Sinatra.
Together with Thom Wade (guitar and vocals) and Steve Rustad (vocals), Casey Cosby – by now playing the organ – formed a combo called Gentle Thursday; all three were members of the UCLA Glee Club. After changing the band’s name to Cage, and wanting to move toward a harder sound, he chose Dora Wahl as the band’s drummer; she was a percussion major at Long Beach State.
At the time, Dora Wahl (who had also previously played the accordion) was the drummer for a 13-piece band called Brass Plus. Her 21st birthday present was tickets to a concert by Cream, where she got to sit directly above Ginger Baker’s drumset. Dora Wahl had become best friends with Carolyn Lee, the bass guitarist for Brass Plus, and recruited her for the new band. Lee was proficient at string bass and was just learning to play electric bass.
Carolyn Lee hadn’t started singing though until she joined an a capella choir at Long Beach State, where she was seated beside Karen Carpenter; Richard Carpenter was their accompanist on piano. The brother and sister would later become world famous as Carpenters, but not many people know that Karen was also a drummer – in fact, she described herself as a “drummer who sings”. Dora Wahl knew both of the Carpenters also.
After changing the band’s name from Cage to Music Emporium, the last of the four joined up, guitarist Dave Padwin. Padwin came from a completely different background and had been in a bar band in Chicago called the Prediktors. When Casey Cosby met him, he was working at a store called the Guitar Center.
The Los Angeles music scene was moving quickly during the late 1960’s, and Music Emporium went to see several of the new bands, with Iron Butterfly being a particular favorite and an obvious influence. Their song set early on included their classic “In-a-Gadda-da-Vida” – the song title is basically a slurred “In the Garden of Eden” – plus two Doors songs, “Light My Fire” and “Back Door Man”. Music Emporium started out trying to be as loud as possible but were more mellow by the time they hit the studio to record their album. Unaccountably, Music Emporium played a lot of weddings and bar mitzvahs.
Casey Cosby knew a sound engineer at Sunset Sound named Bill Lazerus; the idea was that they would make a demo of their album and then re-record it at a record label’s studio. Another of Cosby’s contacts, Jack Ames of Sentinel Records – Ames had just left Liberty Records – bought the tape and decided that the music only needed to be remixed, with the vocals re-recorded.
Jack Ames spent a lot of money on a classy, die-cut album cover, so only 300 albums were pressed. The remarkable album became a collector’s item and was bootlegged several times. Eventually Sundazed Records bought the master tapes and brought out a proper reissue of the album in 2001. Besides the 10 songs on the original 1969 album, instrumental versions of 5 of the songs are included as bonus tracks on the CD. These bonus tracks demonstrate how well crafted the lush musical settings are and show the classical background of most of the bandmembers.
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All of the songs on the album are original compositions, with 8 of the 10 being written or cowritten by Casey Cosby. Four of these were composed by Cosby with Thom Wade, who had been in Gentle Thursday. Dave Padwin contributed “Sun Never Shines”. Milt Bulian – who has worked in the field of education for decades and now lives in the Jacksonville, NC area – describes himself as a “groupie” for Music Emporium; he wrote “Times Like This” and had been a member of Brass Plus.
The music varies considerably and is never better than when Carolyn Lee is singing, particularly on the fantastic “Velvet Sunsets”. Casey Cosby handles most of the lead vocals, with Dave Padwin sitting in for his punky song “Sun Never Shines”. Casey Cosby’s organ defines their sound, though Dave Padwin’s guitar is also prominent.
The album opens with “Nam Myo Renge Kyo” that features chants of the Buddhist mantra that forms the title, along with psychedelic-style lyrics in the manner of the Beatles’ “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds”. “Catatonic Variations” features an atonal structure that was just coming into vogue in the classical world, if I am remembering that correctly. The album closes with the obligatory protest song, “Day of Wrath” that features the tag lyric: “There is no question that there will be peace on earth / But will man be here to enjoy it”.
In 1970, Casey Cosby received his draft notice but managed to avoid Vietnam by taking a job at West Point playing accordion and heading up their glee club; he spent 17 years as an Instructor of Cadet Music there. Casey Cosby and Carolyn Lee were married shortly after Music Emporium broke up.
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