Mirek Jaromir Strizka opened a musical wholesale business in the early 1960s and named it European Craft. The company began as the young Czech immigrant established a business in Los Ange...
Lennie DiMuzio was told for years that he ought to write a book about his career and his many stories, so he did! Lennie was the artist relations director for Zildjian Cymbal Company for ...
Sam Denov retired as the percussionist and timpanist for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra after playing with the group in concerts, on the road and in recordings beginning in 1954. Sam hel...
Russ Turner opened his own organ repair company in the early 1960s in the early days of the home organ boom. He worked with all of the organ dealers in and around the San Francisco Bay Ar...
Layton V. Rawlins was the founder of Rawlins Piano Company in Southern California and a veteran of the piano industry. Layton witnessed many of the biggest changes within the piano busine...
George Hanson’s father was hired by M. Steinert and Sons, the piano dealer in Boston, in 1900. Forty years later George would help his father out after school and on weekends to earn some...
Spider Wilson began recording with Little Jimmy Dickens in 1947 and over the years backed nearly every performer at the Grand Ole Opry as a house band guitarist from the late 1950s until ...
Bill Tregoe drove over 1,300,000 miles over the 35 years that he was a sales rep for CG Conn and later King Musical Instruments. Along the way he made life long friends with many of the d...
Clark Terry enjoyed a long and celebrated career as a trumpeter playing with nearly ever iconic jazz musician of the twentieth century. His tone and style of playing was an influence on s...
Arlette Day and her husband, John, formed Day Murray Music in 1946. The name comes from the young couple’s last name and their hometown of Murray, Utah. They worked closely together and s...
Dee Hoyt played professionally since he was a teenager including in local clubs and played for the National Guard as well as for dances. His band, the Tornados, recorded and performed ro...
Neil Hauser took over the Allen & Heath business in the late 1960s at a time when a group of young engineers had an idea for a new product. The engineers, headed by Andy Bereza, creat...
Fritz Kollitz was an expert on woods used for musical instruments and gained an international reputation for his knowledge and service to violin and guitar luthiers alike. As the founder ...
Bob See was the founder of See Factor, one of the pioneering and innovative pro-lighting and pro-sound services in the world. Bob’s influential career began when Bill Graham opened up a m...
Bob Cavanagh was once the president of the famed Boston music retailer EU Wurlitzer (not to be confused with the R. Wurlitzer Piano Company, the Wurlitzer String Company or the Wurlitzer ...
Fred Morgan was one of the few GI’s, returning home from World War II, who were accepted to the Conn School of Musical Instrument Repair the first year it started. The year was 1946 and F...
Hy Babit can be viewed on the 1966 TV tour of the NAMM Show in Chicago, which highlighted several key exhibitors to the show that year. Hy provided a review of the art of piano roll arra...
This audio only interview was conducted for a radio program by Dan Del Fiorentino and donated to the NAMM Oral History program: Joe Franklin was a music historian who had a series of radi...
DW Caffey was very young when he found himself enamored with the piano. In 1940, when he was just fifteen years old, DW taught himself how to tune pianos. He read a book and asked an ol...
Horace Gamlin was born to a piano tuner who taught his son the trade with hopes he would follow in his footsteps. While Horance enjoyed piano tuning, he felt he would be just as good as a...
Carlo Greco was known throughout the world as one of the premier guitar luthiers. Yet, if you ever got to meet him, he was a very humble man who brushed off compliments with a smile. Afte...
Richard O’Donnell was vice president of Yamaha Corporation of America at a very historic time in the company’s growth and development, the 1970s. Richard worked on several projects includ...
Al Simpkins spent his career selling musical products. One of his former dealers was convinced Al could sell a block of ice to residents of the North Pole. His knowledge of the products a...
Joe Guercio is best known for the 8 years he served as Elvis Presley’s musical director, beginning in Las Vegas in 1969. He formed the orchestra that backed Elvis and his band on every to...
Bob Gand opened a music shop in Deerfield, IL in the early 1960s, which was an influence not only to the community but to his son Gary. Gary went on to open his own successful retail bus...
This audio only interview was conducted for a radio program by Dan Del Fiorentino and donated to the NAMM Oral History program: Jim Galloway was born in Scotland and later relocated to Ca...
Buddy DeFranco’s clarinet style helped to legitimize the instrument in the post-swing era as a modern jazz instrument and his techniques have been a major influence on performers ever sin...
Andy Shearer along with this dear wife Rowena, opened Shearers Music store in Hamilton, New Zealand in 1963. The couple began with a modest inventory but grew to include top brands of mu...
Chip Young was one of the best known recording session guitarists in Nashville. His thumb picking style can be heard on countless recordings and hundreds of hit records made in Nashville ...
John Fry was the founder of Ardent Records and a noted recording engineer with a special talent for sound mixing and studio sound control. The results of his efforts are enough to fill se...
Phil Passin began working for Carl Fischer in 1947 in the shipping department, where he took a deep interest in the industry. After serving in the US Army during the Korean War, Phil ret...
Bob Sperzel’s grandfather and father were both mechanical engineers working in their own shops creating machine parts for several industries. As Bob learned from them he discovered on his...
