Shane Fontayne grew up in England and came to the United States for the first time in 1976. He has recorded and performed with a long list of musical greats including Joe Cocker, Van Zant...
Frank Ford was beginning to build guitars and mandolins when he met Richard Johnston. The two guitar lovers decided to open a repair shop in Palo Alto, California called Gryphon Stringed...
Lita Ford asked her father to use his old reel to reel tape machine as an amp for her newly purchased electric guitar. With a little soldering, she transformed the tape machine and set o...
Orrin Foslien grew up around music. He started out playing the ukulele, then moved to the banjo and guitar. In high school he began singing in the choir and playing the trombone. Around 1...
Ann Foster is the matriarch of the Foster Family String Band and a guitar player in this Bluegrass group. Her husband Bill and his brother sang as a duet growing up so it was natural for ...
Peter Frampton is known around the world as a musician and singer who took the charts by storm in the 1970s. To the music products industry Peter is best known as a friend and promoter of...
Micki Free is a Native American rock guitarist who has a strong passion for music education. He has worked with many tribes to encourage the youth to become active music makers. His own p...
Larry Fresch Sr. exuded the passion and the love of music that is so much a part of this industry. His four Fresch Music stores in Ohio not only became part of their communities, they enc...
Hubert Friar was hired by the Gibson Guitar Company in Kalamazoo in 1959. Hubert worked for the company over 25 years. He worked at the end of the line, doing fret work. Hubert grew up...
Elaine Frizzell was an artist endorser for the Mosrite Guitar Company back in the 1960s. Over the years she became close friends with the company’s founders, Semi and Andy Mosley. She wit...
George Fullerton befriended Leo Fender back in the days before Leo quit the radio repair business and started in the guitar making business. George worked for the Fender Guitar Company fr...
Steve Fulton was born in California but quickly made his way to Austin to perform in bands all over town. Although he was originally a drummer, he was struck by the aura of the guitar and...
Roy Gaines, like his brother, Grady, who played saxophone for Little Richard, made his mark in the early days of rock and roll. As a blues guitarist, Roy recorded a number of songs for RC...
Jamie Gale, the visionary founder of Jamie Gale Music, hails from Ontario, Canada, where his fervent love affair with music, particularly the guitar, blossomed from a young age. From the ...
Mitch Gallagher grew up in a musical family. His mother and her sisters sang three-part harmony for dance bands, encouraging all of the children in the family to get involved with music. ...
Bob Gallien has been an innovator in bass guitar amplification for some 30 years! Inspired as a young guitar player in the 1960s by bands like the Rolling Stones and the Beatles, Bob love...
Bryan Galloup somehow convinced his parents to set up a guitar repair shop in their basement back in 1975. Their support encouraged young Bryan to learn all he could about the art of guit...
Gary Gand grew up playing music and developed a passion for musical instruments. In 1971, he parlayed this passion into a successful career in music retail. Gand Music and Sound, located ...
Dave Gantz watched the Beatles on television and instantly he knew that he wanted to play bass. Dave had many interesting adventures in music throughout the 1960s, including attending Woo...
Mark Gardner, currently a co-owner of Naperville Music near Chicago, was a working musician who needed a day job, so he joined the company in 1985. Learning from a NAMM seminar in the ear...
Gerard Garnier is the president of ALGAM in France and likes to say with pride that he started in the music industry with only one thing: a Black & Decker drill! He began making woode...
Larry Garris is the founder of Corner Music in Nashville, Tennessee. Located in the heart of the country music region, Corner Music has become the place to purchase the latest gear and to...
Richard Gellis remembers the early days of the vintage guitar movement when greater value was being placed on "used instruments." As his small store grew in Santa Cruz, California, so di...
Ed Gerhard knew that there was something special about playing the guitar when he heard Andrés Segovia play on TV when he was 10 years old. He took a few lessons from a music store but le...
William Gerien is the industrial and mechanical engineer who invented the Kahler Tremolo Bridge System for the electric guitar. Gary Kahler hired William to follow his design on a new sys...
Roberto Giannini is part of the third generation running Giannini Musical Instruments alongside his brother, Flavio. Their company has thrived on being innovative and working around issue...
Flavio Giannini is part of the third generation running Giannini Musical Instruments alongside his brother, Roberto. One of their most well-known designs is the Craviola, which is designe...
Giorgio Giannini proudly recalled the beginning of his family’s involvement in the music industry as part of his interview for the NAMM Oral History collection. Mr. Tranquillo Giannini w...
Steve Gibson repeated, “I’ve been blessed,” which acted as a recurring theme throughout his NAMM Oral History interview. The sentiment comes from a review of his extraordinary career as a...
Roger Giffin is a master guitar luthier whose guitars have been played by musicians around the world. He began building guitars as a teenager in London and went on to work for Gibson in...
Pirmin Giger is the luthier who partnered with Silvan Kung to form Relish Guitars. Located in Switzerland, the company creates electric guitars based on the “sandwich” design of several m...
Rosa Gil del Bosque was the only female founder of Amigos de la Guitarra de Valencia, an organization dedicated to presenting concerts that showcase the classical guitar in and around Val...