US audiobook / spoken word / classical / ethnic label. For company credits (distributor, copyright, etc) please use CMS Records, Inc.

CMS was an outgrowth of Chesterfield Music Shops, Inc. founded by Irving Tepper and Jerry Schoenbaum in 1940s as a wholesaler and retail mail-order operation, selling discount classical records to schools, libraries, and the general public. By the early 1960s, longtime CMS employee Leon Golovner had become a partner in the company, and began consulting with New York Library Association on its annual kidisk directories. In the 1950s, CMS issued at least one title under CMS Records (11) imprint, but it was not until the mid-1960s that it became a full-fledged label CMS (10), and began developing a large catalog of spoken-word and other literary-type recordings, joining Caedmon, Spoken Arts, and Folkways as a leader in the field. Horace Grenell had been doing business with Leon Golovner since 1970, when CMS reissued the Parents' Magazine Music Appreciation Library (now called the "CMS Music Appreciation Series"). In 1974, with his health increasingly impaired by diabetes, Grenell sold Desto to Golovner, who then reissued Desto titles on the CMS label.