Jerry Goldman's father, Harry, opened a wholesale piano business inside Marshall Field's Department store in Chicago with his brother back in 1947. Just over a decade later, Harry and his...
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...
Joe Goodman began playing gigs around the Los Angeles area since he was very young with his primary instruments being the piano and trumpet. With a Marching Band scholarship for college i...
Larry Gosch is the owner of Encore Music in Auburn, California, and a long-time recording engineer. In fact, he has been recording bands and singers for nearly as long as he has been pla...
CK Gottschalk is the president of the music store in Michigan that his parents established in 1936, the same year they married. They expanded their business just before CK was born and l...
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...
Ann Patrick Green is the founder of Patrick Music School in Fullerton, California and the music teacher who provided training lessons during the NAMM Shows. Her passion has always been c...
Mike Greene is the president of Greene Music in San Diego, California, a store he started with his father in 1974. Mike grew up in the business and recalls dressing up like a circus bark...
Dennis Hallmeyer has fond memories of his years playing mallet percussion in the school’s marching band, eventually progressing to the xylophone. Beginning in the 7thgrade Dennis took a k...
Ellen Harper Verdries grew up in a music store! Her parents, Dorothy and Charles Chase, formed their first store in Massachusetts before moving to Southern California in 1958. The Folk Mu...
Robert Hill became the president of the Organ Exchange shortly after it was established by Curt Carter. Together the two men worked long and hard at creating a business model that helped ...
Jennifer Hoffman joined the corporate staff of Guitar Center in 2019 as Category Manager, having started at Music and Arts in college before moving to the West LA Guitar Center for severa...
John Hood was working music retail in the Sacramento area at a very heady time. The California capital was booming with innovative rock and pop bands in the 1980s and 90s while John was a...
David Hosler had a friend in school whose father had a wood-working shop. It was in that small shop where David built his first guitar and where his passion for making instruments began. ...
Gerald Ishibashi is the musician, music retailer and concert producer who has taken part and witnessed some of the biggest changes and developments in our industry. With a love for music,...
Dennis James recalls with a smile the day he visited Colton Piano as a teenager. He later worked for Colton founder, Vern Schaffer, getting the experience and training for the career he h...
Charlotte Jansky and her husband Joe set off to fulfill his long time dream, owning a music store. They opened Allegro Music in Fremont, California, in 1960 much to the delight of Joe who...
Kevin Jarvis began working for Gelb Music in Redwood City, California in 1966 as a guitar teacher. The store was established in 1939 by Sydney Gelb, who was still running the store when ...
David Jenson spent his early childhood in Southern California and was inspired early on by The Beach Boys and surf rock, but began his musical journey in earnest after moving to Utah and ...
Jim Hart has two passions, music and animals! His love of music began for him in the 6th grade when he began playing drums for the school music program. In 1981, his family purchased a mu...
Paul Johnson formed one of the early surf bands in Southern California during the golden era of instrumental music. As a guitarist and songwriter, Paul performed and recorded in the days ...
Donald Johnson was known throughout the industry as DJ. He began working in music retail in 1958 in the San Jose, California, area before joining Coast Wholesale in 1961. It was an intere...
Richard Johnston began buying and selling used fretted instruments long before there was a "vintage guitar market." Back when Richard started they were just known as used instruments, bu...
Rob Joly was playing in a surf band in 1966 when Leo Fender hired him to work at a teenage fair. The fair attracted young students and Leo felt the event would be great to introduce his n...
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...
Helga Kasimoff and her husband established the Bluthner piano dealership in Pasadena, California in 1963. Since that time many Blüthner grand pianos have been restored in their workshop s...
Judy Kaufman and her husband, John Pedersen, own Amazing Grace Music, a charming and funky (in a good way) music store located in San Anselmo, California. The couple purchased the store i...
Richard Keldsen is the president of Saga Music in San Francisco, California. His first musical inspiration was hearing Earl Scruggs playing Bluegrass banjo for the first time. After two...
Jerry Keyawa loves to tell stories about the many amazing customers who have shopped at the Professional Drum Shop in Hollywood, California. He and his two brothers run the store that hi...
Stan Keyawa has grown up in the Professional Drum Shop in Hollywood, California. He and his two brothers run the store that his step-father, Bob Yeager, opened in 1959. What makes the s...
Spike Klein thanks his sister and her love of Van Halen for bringing music into his life. Their father made guitars for them out of plywood but pretending to be musicians soon turned into...
Betty Kline was getting a little tired of running to town for band accessories when her husband, a music director, needed something for his students. What started out being a large box o...
