Ray Stacy began working for the O.S. Kelly Company in 1978 and has a true sense of pride in the work they do in creating piano plates. Located in Springfield, Ohio, the foundry was establ...
Jim Kincaid has fond memories of his father singing and playing his guitar. Jim’s father was the folk singer and publisher, Bradley Kincaid, who helped pioneer folk music on the radio in ...
Linda (Wert) Young asked her parents, when she was twenty, to assist her in the upstart of a music store after realizing her passion for helping children identify their interest and abili...
Dan Crary first played an acoustic music festival in the 1960’s when the steel-string guitar was often in the background. However, Dan’s lead guitar playing caught the attention of a gene...
Dr. Steven Eisenberg is an Oncologist with a deep passion for music making. He followed his family’s tradition of medicine while following his own love of music. Since 2008, he has teamed...
Don Morris is the founder and product engineer behind Electroplex Amplifiers, which includes their famous Rocket series. In 1993, Don sat down with Trev Wilkinson to design a new amplifie...
Rita Goldman sat right next to her future husband in high school and recalls with a smile how their friendship turned to a long and loving marriage. She also warmly recalls his passion fo...
Dan Del Fiorentino is the Music Historian for NAMM who heads the industry's Oral History program. Dan began this special project in March 2000, after having served as the first curator of...
Jack Casady played electric bass for the Jefferson Airplane before forming the band Hot Tuna with his lifelong friend, Jorma Kaukonen. Jack and Jorma played together in Jefferson Airplane...
This audio only interview was conducted for a radio program by Dan Del Fiorentino and donated to the NAMM Oral History program: Tommy Traynor was a singer during the Big Band Era with the...
Ami Belli grew up in the Philippines surrounded by music. She played piano as a girl and would often sing with her mother and sisters. She earned her medical degree and moved to the Unite...
Gene (Cip) Cipriano began his musical career with the big bands led by such stars as Harry James, Tommy Dorsey, and Tex Beneke. He later moved to Los Angeles where he soon began his incre...
Claudio Capponi is a musical instrument technician with a passion for the Farfisa Organ, after all he worked for the company for many years. His interest and dedication to the instrument ...
Rebecca Brill-Argall and her husband, Charlie, worked hard to build their customer base of dealers throughout Canada. Their distribution company provided musical instruments and accessori...
Charlie Argall picked up a guitar and wanted to join a band the moment he heard the Beatles. He took lessons where he was introduced to his local music store, a place he found fascinating...
Takeomi Nishimura found his way to Suzuki Musical Instruments while studying engineering in college. Upon returning home from school one day a friend suggested he work for the company and...
Reiko Suzuki discovered her passion for music at a young age as she watched her father and mother operate a company that manufactured harmonicas and other instruments. This coupled with h...
Seiki Kato was the president of KORG, the Japan based electronics company that has created innovative musical products since his father first established the company in the 1970s. Seiki p...
Luigi Bruti was an accordion champion as a teenager and was asked by the Siel Musical Instrument Company to demonstrate their latest products. It was the beginning of his life long career...
Carlo Lucarelli graduated with an electronics engineering degree in 1963, marking the beginning of a distinguished career. After three years with GTE in Milano, he joined the music produc...
Giuseppe Vecchietti, known throughout his career as Beppe, primarily worked for three companies over his long career. All three were located in the same Italian Marche region by the Adria...
Alessandro Onerati and his brother, Christiano, run the music store with their family name in Florence, Italy. The Onerati workshop was established in Florence in 1980, specializing in wi...
Cristiano Onerati remembers working closely with his father to learn the finer points of repairing musical instruments. He enjoyed the experience and wanted to make sure repairs remained...
Joachim Winter is the president of the Jakob Winter Company, a family business since it was established in 1886. The company supplies accessories like cases and violin bows, as well as a ...
Otto Werner grew up surrounded by music. His dad, a violin maker in Schönbach, produced violins at home and sold them in Markneukirchen while his aunt worked at Junger Company, the main p...
Jürgen Voigt comes from a long tradition of musical instrument makers in the region of Markneukirchen starting as early as 1756. His grandfather and great-grandfather were bow makers and ...
Norbert Stumpf was elected the mayor of Bubenreuth in 2014 and actively promotes the legacy of his town as an important center for stringed instrument production. At the end of World War ...
Ewald Sommer’s grandfather, Ignatz Sommer, started building machine heads for stringed instruments in 1911. Early on, he supplied Höfner with his products for basses, guitars, mandolins, ...
Wolfgang Schnabl is a luthier in Bubenreuth, Germany and has been particularly successful in creating cellos. After learning the craft at the state vocational school for instrument making...
Frank Schlegel was born in 1967 to a family of musical instrument makers in Markneukirchen. Like so many families in this region, he and his father, Klaus Schlegel, carry on the tradition...
