New Berlin's Jennifer Young has bought the Exclusive Company in the Greenfield Place shopping center, 5026 S. 74th St., and will reopen it this weekend as Volta Records.
In early April, the Exclusive Company – founded 66 years ago by James "Mr. G" Giombetti in West Bend – announced that it would close all its locations due to the unexpected death of its founder in November.
News emerged that some stores would remain open under new names and with new ownership, including its longstanding East Side Milwaukee location at 1669 N. Farwell Ave., which was purchased by a group of employees to reopen it as Lilliput Records.
The Exclusive Company store in a Greenfield strip mall closed for business on Wednesday, June 29 and its replacement, Volta, will open on Saturday, July 2, according to a Facebook post.
"So much appreciation and respect for the legacy that The Exclusive Company has built in the Greenfield location," reads another post.
"We're thrilled to be able to keep that store going with the same great team! Come say hi and like our page to get updates on all the happenings as we get up and running – see you there!"
Young told Patch.com that she was a longtime customer of the store.
"It's probably been a lifetime in the making," Young said. "I used to go to record stores all the time when I was a teenager. And I always loved going to the Exclusive Company, because they had the Metalhaus in the back."
Employees at the shop had initially been seeking a to continue the business as That Girl Records with an employee-owned model and hosted a GoFundMe to raise money. That money will be returned.
"We didn't want to just take that money because it was intended for That Girl Records," Young told Patch.
"Unfortunately, That Girl records didn't happen, but because of the efforts of that team, we ended up with Volta Records."
The store will continue to stock new and used vinyl, CDs, DVDs and Blu-Rays.
Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., where he lived until he was 17, Bobby received his BA-Mass Communications from UWM in 1989 and has lived in Walker's Point, Bay View, Enderis Park, South Milwaukee and on the East Side.
He has published three non-fiction books in Italy – including one about an event in Milwaukee history, which was published in the U.S. in autumn 2010. Four more books, all about Milwaukee, have been published by The History Press.
With his most recent band, The Yell Leaders, Bobby released four LPs and had a songs featured in episodes of TV's "Party of Five" and "Dawson's Creek," and films in Japan, South America and the U.S. The Yell Leaders were named the best unsigned band in their region by VH-1 as part of its Rock Across America 1998 Tour. Most recently, the band contributed tracks to a UK vinyl/CD tribute to the Redskins and collaborated on a track with Italian novelist Enrico Remmert.
He's produced three installments of the "OMCD" series of local music compilations for OnMilwaukee.com and in 2007 produced a CD of Italian music and poetry.
In 2005, he was awarded the City of Asti's (Italy) Journalism Prize for his work focusing on that area. He has also won awards from the Milwaukee Press Club.
He has be heard on 88Nine Radio Milwaukee talking about his "Urban Spelunking" series of stories, in that station's most popular podcast.
