Dallas based record store Josey Records – which has somehow managed to tie the term “mega-store” to their independent operation – has purchased A&R Records, according to the Dallas Observer. A&R was the only vinyl pressing plant in Texas with “seven record-pressing machines dating from the 1960s, when the business first opened its doors.”
Josey is planning to deploy the equipment for what sounds like a peculiar vinyl record zaibatsu. “Under one roof,” Jeremy Hallock notes in the Observer, “Josey Records will have a record label with recording studios, distribution, an in-house production staff and record manufacturing. Talk about making moves.” The additional capacity is surely welcome.
Josey opened one year ago and was founded by Luke Sardello, Waric Cameron and, more familiar to our audience, J.T. Donaldson.
Interestingly enough, one model this kind of vertically integrated music company was the long, lost audio empire of Bud Pressner. The former big band leader operated a manufacturing plant, mastering and recording studio from behind his music store in the heyday of Gary, Indiana, and eventually came to master a great deal of Trax Records’ early releases as we wrote in our story two years ago.
Unlike Pressner, though, Josey is already breaking out of their home turf, expanding from Dallas to Kansas City and “several branches opening in new cities within the next couple of years,” Cameron tells the Observer.
