Jem Records
| Jem Records | |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1970 |
| Founder | Jeff Tenenbaum, Ed Grossi, Marty Scott |
| Country of origin | United States |
| Location | South Plainfield, New Jersey |
Jem Records (also known as JEM Records) was a U.S. record label that existed from 1970 to 1988, at the time principally known as the parent company of Passport Records. The label was resurrected in 2013 as Jem Recordings.
Jem Records, based on South Plainfield, New Jersey, was founded in 1970 by college friends Jeff Tenenbaum, Ed Grossi, and Marty Scott, also known as Martin L. Scott. Scott was attending Franklin and Marshall College, while Tenenbaum was attending Cornell University and Grossi was attending Wesleyan University. The label name is an acronym for the first letters of the first names of the three founders of the label.
The motivation for establishing the label was when co-founder Marty Scott discovered that he could only obtain the album Direct Hits, by The Who, by importing it from England. The three co-founders started to import a number of albums from England, including foreign releases of American records, and found that they were outselling nearby record stores, through selling the records at their respective colleges.
The company was originally formed to sell imported records from Europe. Its most successful import transaction was the licensing from Epic Records of the right to import Cheap Trick at Budokan, which at the time was only available in North America as a Japanese import. Epic had initially decided not to release the record in the United States. As a result of the success of the imported record, Epic Records decided to delay release of the next Cheap Trick studio album, Heaven Tonight and released Cheap Trick at Budkokan domestically, to great success. "I Want You to Want Me", from the album, became the band's breakout single. Another notable success was in releasing the soundtrack to The Rocky Horror Picture Show, as an import to America. The record, released in 1975, had been deleted everywhere but in Canada. Marty Scott contracted with Lou Adler, whose label, Ode Records, had originally released the album, to distribute the record from Canada, under a production and distribution license.
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