Robert J. Jones traveled on a tour bus with his father and sang gospel music together for many years as the Song Fellows. They recorded for Homeland Records in Nashville and performed aro...
David Teegarden, the drummer for the Silver Bullet Band and noted recording engineer, was among the first musicians to be interviewed for the NAMM Resource Center collection. With a growi...
Billy Taylor was first and foremost a jazz pianist. This fact might surprise some people who knew Billy best for one of a number of other careers he enjoyed in music, including teaching, ...
Dave Pike made an indelible mark on jazz vibraphones! As a percussive based player, Dave wanted to play with both rhythm and pitch and to explore melodies within Bebop riffs. He played wi...
Curtis Pearson served proudly during World War II and, upon returning to the United States, was told of a sales job at the Poole Music Company. After several successful years and getting ...
Günter Körner began designing musical instruments at an early age growing up in Germany and, after gaining an engineering degree in college, he spent his entire career making instruments....
Norman Goldberg studied music from an early age and became a band director early in his life. Seeing the needs of music educators, Norman opened his own store called Baton Music in 1948, ...
George Avakian produced so many pop and jazz recordings over his 50 plus year career with several labels it might be easier to list the recordings he did not take part in. Before entering...
Myung‑Sool Min has become one of the most successful music retailers in Korean history. Through a period in which many changes occurred in the way Korea does business around the world, Mr...
Gordon Keller owned and operated a string of piano stores in and around northern Virginia and became a much-celebrated figure in the area due to his work at the Kennedy Center and Wolf Tr...
Ray Manzarek founded the iconic rock band The Doors on the beach in Venice in 1965 with his friend from UCLA film school, Jim Morrison. From that sunny summer day of sharing songs and the...
Gary Kramer broke into the music products industry, with partner Travis Bean, when they unveiled the innovative all aluminum guitar neck design in the early 1970’s. With his entrepreneur...
Neil A. Kjos, Jr. took over the music publishing company that his father, Neil A. Kjos, Sr. had formed in 1936. He began by developing and adding the best-selling Bastien Piano publicati...
Danny Henkin was one of the true characters of the music products industry. He began his career with G. Leblanc Corporation and later worked as sales and marketing manager for Gemeinhardt...
Paul Heid grew up in the music retail world. His father formed Heid Music in Appleton, WI, and Paul along with his brother, Robert, followed in their father’s footsteps. Paul served on se...
Lee Worsley and Paul Hagen represent the modern distribution era with their music wholesale business in the United Kingdom—a business formed after the advent of computer technology and th...
Horst Wittner’s grandfather, Gustav Wittner, formed a precision mechanical factory for the production of metronomes in 1895. His son, Rudolf, expanded the plant and helped set standards ...
Bob Wiley’s father opened a small music store in Kansas in the mid 1930s and specialized in steel guitars. When the sales rep, Charlie Hayes, came into the store with electric guitars fro...
Mr. Laurie Westell was just 21 years old when he began working in the music products industry. He was hired by Hohner to deliver harmonicas around London. He enjoyed the job, rising in th...
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...
Toots Thielemans enjoyed an incredible career as both a jazz guitarist and a jazz harmonica player. In fact, it is Toots who is credited for bringing the harmonica to jazz. He has perform...
Vijay Talwar’s father sold wood in India, and when Vijay began working for his father as a teenager they noticed an increase in the amount of wood being sold to make musical instruments. ...
Van Schipper is a guitar luthier who has enjoyed embracing the roots of his craft. As a student of guitar building, he sought the advice of others with a mind to paying tribute to his gre...
Dick Rumore has done it all in the music products industry. He has been a retailer for over 40 years, forming Paragon Music in Tampa, FL. He has been a wholesaler, inventor (he holds two ...
Kathy Peck spent her youth laying down the bass lines for some of the most innovative punk music in the San Francisco Bay Area during the 1970s and 80s. She rocked and rolled with the bes...
Gus Pearson began his long and successful career as a sales rep for Wurlitzer back in 1966. He remained with the company until 1981 and has often related his feelings that working for the...
Victor Pavona’s family worked in the steel mills of Ohio, beginning with his grandfather who immigrated to the United States from Italy. Victor was the first person in his family to atten...
Carole Ozanian has been surrounded by music her entire life. As a four-year-old child she took piano lessons and played up to her college years, when she studied to be a choir director. ...
Kline Locher was a seasoned piano salesman who crisscrossed the highways of America long before the era of two-lane interstates. His journey began as a teenage trumpeter, performing with ...
Richard Loberg worked for the Schmitt Music store for nearly his entire working career. The company was formed in 1896 in Minneapolis, largely as a piano store. Over the years the company...
