Don Johnston has become a well-respected sales manager for the Fender Musical Instruments Corp. He was hired just after CBS Musical purchased the famed electric guitar company in May 196...
David Horine opened a small piano store in Bloomington, Illinois in the 1980s. David became a piano technician and gathered a nice reputation for tuning and repairs before he decided to ...
Dan Herbert played trumpet as a kid and later switched to drums to form a rock band in the days following the Beatle’s popularity in the early 1960s. During the summers, he would work pa...
Takashi “Hagi” Hagiwara has been called the “godfather of Yamaha drums” as the unofficial ambassador of the company’s percussive products around the world. His father was a silversmith i...
Bob Hackett worked for Ampeg on the company’s amplifiers. As a professional bass player, Bob was able to provide vital feedback in the design and sound of the bass amps for Ampeg. Durin...
Richard Gore’s father was a band director who expanded the school’s bookstore into a music store in Denton, Texas. As the store grew, Richard’s passion for music grew, as did his interes...
Robert Fleming has been a long time member of NAPBIRT, missing only a few annual meetings during his long career as a repairman. He worked with Pete Valentino on how plastics could be us...
Peter De Luke Sr. taught music in the public school system in New York for over 25 years. His zest for encouraging young students to make music has been a strong focus of Pete’s even aft...
Kevin Cranley grew up in the music industry and has a passion for all elements of the music business as if it were in his blood. As a young man, he completed odd jobs around the Willis M...
Steve Bosse served as president of the Artley Flute Company in the years after his father, Richard, led the company. Richard and Steve worked together to expand the company and relocate ...
George Benson played trombone during school and studied piano during college. It was during that time that he began working for a local music store. He worked for Hoover Music in Jackso...
John Edmondson and Anne McGinty worked together at Charles Hansen Publishing, where they met. Together they freelanced as composers and arrangers until they decided to form their own fir...
Jeanne Dukoff married the swing saxophonist and mouthpiece maker Bobby Dukoff. Bobby suffered a stroke just before his scheduled NAMM Oral History interview and in true “Bobby Dukoff Spi...
Lee Donais may be the only industry member who played piano (as part of the Navy Band) for three United States Presidents: Johnson, Nixon and Ford. After his career with the Navy Band, L...
Johnny Davis had several key roles within the music products industry, which made his Oral History interview particularly meaningful for the NAMM collection as we seek to preserve our ind...
Chuck Dadisman grew up on a farm and went to school to become a school music teacher, which he did for five years before moving to Omaha, NE, where he worked in piano and organ retail. I...
Pete Ceo grew up in a musical home, thanks in large part to his band-directing father. When Pete was a child his parents owned a small music store in Wheeling, West Virginia. Pete grew ...
Craig Anderson is the General Manager for Allied Supply in Elkhorn, WI. Allied is the largest supplier of parts, tools and cases to the band instrument repair business and has been a corn...
Bob Scheiwiller taught music for three years before landing a job at a music store; the very first store he would later purchase. Bob bought and opened several music stores over the years...
Ede Kidder was teaching full time when her husband came home from his job at a music store with the idea of owning their own store. Luckily for Jim, Ede jumped in with her many skills to...
Michael Skinner grew up in jazz and cut his teeth as a musician at Berklee College of Music. He was a band director right after college and designed several music programs including some...
Janet Gratsch began working at Willis Music when she was 17 years old in the Choral Department. She remained with the store until she retired and even after her retirement she would be c...
Bobby Dukoff was a big band saxophone player during the swing era when he looked for ways of improving his own sound. While working for the Jimmy Dorsey Orchestra, Bobby began playing hi...
Wayne Tanabe is a pioneer in the band instrument repair field who has helped create and improve several methods for instrument cleaning using ultrasound and cryogenics. Looking towards wa...
Frank Kilgard worked for Streep Music in Florida before opening his own band instrument repair shop in Georgia. His strong interest in quality repair led to a life time of learning new t...
Chip Owen was the product specialist at Fox Bassoons who helped engineer a series of instruments for Fox over the years including the Fox Model 900 Contrabassoon, which was first introduc...
Ed Strege is known within the band instrument repair world as “fast Eddie” for his speed at repair and short-cut tricks he has taught members of NAPBIRT for several decades. His classes ...
David Straubinger started a small business in 1969 to repair and rebuild woodwind instruments. He determined early on that one area of consistent concern was they way flute pads were repl...
Jane Stanton worked for the war effort during World War II, which was before she met Ken Stanton, who was a band director, wishing to open a music store. Jane played a vital role in the s...
Joe Baldi became active in a rock band at a young age and formed a group that toured much of New England in the 1970s and 80s. When needing gear, he often visited EU Wurlitzer in Boston. ...
