Jack Ames spent a lot of money on a classy, die-cut album cover, so only 300 copies of the Music Emporium LP 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 Music Emporium album on CD in 2001, Music Emporium. 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.
All of the songs on the Music Emporium 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.
(October 2013)
