John Beeson is the visionary founder and dedicated owner of The Music Shoppe in Terre Haute, Indiana. His lifelong love affair with the guitar began when he received one as a Christmas gi...
Bob Boss was encouraged to pick up an instrument at a young age by his parents and quickly gravitated toward the guitar when he received his first electric guitar: a Sears Silvertone for ...
Dave Bray began working in the music industry when he joined the Billy Hyde team in the 1970s. Hyde had a strong drum shop at the time and was just expanding into wholesaling, thanks in l...
Robert Bromberg has had a long career in the music products industry, as did his father. In fact, his father designed the mirror piano, which helped keep the industry alive during World W...
Johnny Clark was a sales rep for the Slingerland Drum Company for nearly his entire career. He began working for the company when the founder’s son, Bud, was president and served under ev...
Rich Covas owned Modern Music store's three locations for thirteen years beginning in 1966. The locations covered band and orchestra instruments as well as guitar, keyboards, and drums. T...
Millie Detgen was one of the very few female manufacturers reps in the music products industry in the 1970’s and 80’s. She began working with her husband Gene Detgen after they were marri...
James Deurloo walked through the old Gibson workshop, which is now the home of his company, the Heritage Guitar Company. Pointing proudly to a workstation in the middle of the old buildi...
Mark Dronge was the President of DR Strings and a veteran of the music products industry, having been involved since he was four years old in his father’s retail store! Mark recalled the...
Duane Eddy has profoundly influenced generations of guitarists and helped establish instrumental songs as viable hits in popular music. Beginning in the late 1950s, Duane recorded numerou...
John Egan was working for Ford Motor Company when his old friend and former colleague, Peter Hayward called him. Peter had formed a music wholesale company, which was expanding by the lat...
Larry Goldstein, currently a vice president at Westheimer Music, has a passion for the history of the music industry. Larry was able to provide a terrific perspective to our interview col...
Charlie Gracie was an early Rockabilly performer who recorded three charted songs in a single year, 1957, right in the heart of the golden era of rock and roll. His biggest hit "Butterfl...
Carlo Greco was known throughout the world as one of the premier guitar luthiers. Yet, if you ever got to meet him, he was a very humble man who brushed off compliments with a smile. Afte...
Jerre Haskew was right in the thick of the folk music boom of the early 1960s. He was a founding member of the Cumberland Trio, which recorded with Chet Atkins at RCA Nashville and toured...
Neil Lilien has been a life long supporter of the arts, playing music since he was a child and growing up to own one of the finest names in stringed instruments. Neil worked for Guild Gui...
David Magagna had an incredible career selling guitars for some of the biggest names in the industry. He worked for the government out of high school and attended college in Georgetown b...
Jerry Muenchow a veteran of the music industry worked in music retail for five years before joining the famed Chicago Musical Instrument Company (CMI) as a field sales representative in M...
Jay Pilzer is the founder of New Hope Guitars and has been very active in the vintage guitar market for several decades. While earning his doctorate and teaching history, Jay became fasc...
Ramon Portal moved from Cuba to the United States in 1962 and heard of an inventory job at Guild Guitar and, as he often has said, his American dream came true. Ramon worked his way up w...
Tommy Roe wrote most of the hit songs for which he is best known, such as "Dizzy," "Sheila," "Everybody" and "Sweet Pea." Each were hit songs in the 1960s and were part of the early days ...
Tim Shaw is the Chief Engineer-Guitars for Fender Musical Instruments, helping the company create guitars, pickups and other products. Tim’s career began when Charlie Wicks hired him to r...
Frank Untermyer studied woodworking and instrument building in Germany before returning to the United States to help form Hamer Guitars with college friends, Paul Hamer and Jol Dantzig. T...
Willy Vassilopoulos joined the Ovation Guitar Company in New Hartford Connecticut to follow his love of woodworking. He soon took part in the production of the instrument, which was orig...
