John Hampton was a Grammy winning engineer at the Ardent Studios in Memphis, where he worked side by side with the studio's founder, John Fry. The studio recorded a long list of artists ...
William Kent, along with his brother Ed, formed the Kent Drum Company in 1947 with a focus to create student-level kits to encourage music making at all economic levels. The company offe...
Vern Schafer joined the family business of moving pianos as a teenager, but had the dream of running his own piano store. While still running the Schafer Piano Movers Company, Vern set ou...
Hugh Goldsmith was hired by the Mason-Risch Piano Company of Canada when he was still a teenager in 1937. Times were difficult during the depression era and into the war years when Hugh e...
Frank Green opened his first music retail store in Southern California in 1959 and called it Music For Everyone. He began working in the music industry some 12 years earlier as student en...
Jerry Grote grew up in Minnesota and began playing guitar after seeing the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan Show in February 1964. As a high school student, Jerry began visiting local music st...
Jerry Freed began working in the music industry along with Tommy Moore. Together they promoted percussive instruments for schools and built Kasuga International in the 1960s. Jerry later ...
Eleanor Anderson helped establish Woodbury Music Company with her late husband, Leroy Anderson. The company is managed by their three children (Kurt, Rolf and Jane) with a third generat...
Al Rinaldi was the first person ever to receive the Steinway Lifetime Achievement Award, which was given to him in 2012. Al never worked for the piano manufacturer nor did he work for an...
Charles Watkins invented the Watkins Copicat, an echo unit introduced in 1958. Mr. Watkins was inspired by the Morino Marini Quartet who made famous the Comi Prima, which contained a spec...
Robina Miller opened Swing City Music with her husband, in London, England, in the days following World War II. During the time of the record shortage in the UK, Swing City offered Americ...
Patrick Stansfield was the legendary stage manager who, along with Bill Graham of FM Productions, launched the modern music concert format by creating and popularizing the arena rock busi...
Stanley Jay always admired rare and special fretted musical instruments, so it came as no surprise when he and his friend, Haf Kuffner, opened a guitar shop on Staten Island in New York. ...
Vernon Drane played several musical instruments growing up in Tennessee including the trumpet and saxophone. He later studied instrument repair and spent 68 years (!) working with the Amr...
Larry Moody began his career in the music industry as a retailer working for Ziggy Coyle in Ohio. The store was owned by Ziggy, a past president of the NAMM Board of Directors, and Russel...
Paul Craft always felt a pull towards music but was not just sure how it would take hold in his life. For a time he ran a music store in Memphis called Paul Craft’s Music and Drum City al...
George Roberts is known in the jazz world for his recording of “Stella By Starlight” with the Stan Kenton Orchestra, which featured George on bass trombone. He is known among music instru...
Yoshi Kobayashi began working for Yamaha Corporation of America in 1958. In the early days of his career he was tasked with supervising the import and export of the motorcycle division. ...
Gerald Wilson was among the great arrangers of jazz, beginning back in the swing era when he worked for the famed Jimmie Lunceford Orchestra. He established a distinctive style rich in me...
Ruth Charles and her husband Dick opened a music store in Glendale, California, called Charles Music. They enjoyed a long life together as music makers and teachers and retailers of music...
Frantisek Nemecek was born and raised in Czechoslovakia where he studied advertising and helped the more than 70 instrument makers in the area to sell their products. Frantisek began by e...
Bruno Pedrini and his brother Tom both started music stores in Southern California after World War II –yet the stores remained separate although they were both called Pedrini Music. Bruno...
Steno Giulini served as the editor of the International Association magazine "Euro Piano" for well over 60 years. He was by far the oldest employee of the specialist publishing PPV Medie...
Patrick Hiatt was among the leaders of band instrument repairmen in the industry. His work spanned several decades and was vital in the formation of NAPBIRT, the National Association of P...
Henry Stone wanted to record musical artists that were not able to sign deals with the large record labels of the late 1940s. As a result, Henry found a string of artists and provided th...
Johnny Winter has become an important link between classic blues artists and modern audiences. Johnny’s blues style stays fresh and current while playing the important standards by artist...
Danny Rocks was associated with music publishers for many years. He served at Alfred Publishing as vice president and was a large part of the RPMDA. By all who knew him, he was the RPMDA ...
Calvin Grafton was very interested in the radio business as a youngster. His early jobs included radio repair but he knew he needed more for a solid business, so he opened his own music s...
Alfredo Flores was born in Mexico in 1908 and moved to San Antonio, Texas with his mother and grandmother when he was a small boy. He took several jobs as a young man including a position...
Max Herman played his first professional music job at the age of 13. He enjoyed a stellar music career as the first trumpeter for many of the top name bands of the Swing Era. Most notably...
Don Ravitch pioneered many elements of keyboard retailing as president of Sherman Clay. With an engineering and financial background Don and his partners purchased the music store chain i...
This audio only interview was conducted for a radio program by Dan Del Fiorentino and donated to the NAMM Oral History program: Herb Jeffries was a singer with the Duke Ellington Orchestr...
