Claire Petsch has enjoyed music for as long as she can remember. She took piano lessons beginning at age 7 but became enthralled with the guitar when she heard her cousin playing. Through...
George Petsch and his wife Claire met while giving music lessons at Sutherland’s House of Guitars in Atlanta during the 1970s. The young couple decided to open their own music studio, whi...
Menzie Pittman is the founder and owner of Contemporary Music Center located in Virginia. Menzie was inspired to to pursue music after he saw The Beatles perform live on Ed Sullivan. Afte...
Summer Pittman began taking piano and voice lessons at Contemporary Music Center when she was seven years old. After studying with many teachers, Summer also started playing guitar. She h...
Jerry Portman learned so much from his father and his grandfather about how to treat customers. Those lessons became key as Jerry set out to not only take over the family’s music store, ...
Fred Rast is the founder of Fred Rast Mouthpieces and a music lesson instructor for Music Village. The store is located in San Jose, California and is his musical haven with students and...
Brian Reardon, owner of Monster Music in Levittown, New York, got his start manufacturing record racks to house albums and songbooks in record stores. One of his customers was Monster Mus...
Delores Rhoads began teaching music in 1939. Seventy years later when she was interviewed by NAMM, she was still teaching. After World War II Delores and her husband opened a small teachi...
Bill Richardson played drums and his brother played guitar growing up in Canton, Mississippi. His drum kit came together very slowly, first a Ludwig part, then something from Slingerland ...
Kevin Rindlisbacher is a passionate music maker who has enjoyed his role in music retail providing musical instruments to bring music into the lives of others. He was a kid when his fath...
George Roeder played the flamenco guitar and sang in Barber Shop Quartets ever since he was young. While he was taking lessons from Evelyn Breu, he took a liking to the retail business –a...
Kev Rones received his first instrument experience when a musician on his block recognized Kev’s passion and allowed him to use the Fender in his garage. That early influence really dir...
Bob Ryder grew up surrounded by music and began playing saxophone at an early age. When he and his wife, Janine, had the opportunity to purchase La Jolla Music in the 1990s, Bob was thri...
Robert Saied took great inspiration from his father, James. Robert’s father formed the Saied Music Company in Tulsa, OK in 1946 after serving as a band director in various schools in the ...
Leo Saleh was the very first person from Indonesia to be included in the NAMM Oral History program, which was an honor for us! His father enjoyed playing piano and Leo recalls music all ...
Rick Santos enjoyed music from a very young age, played guitar, and after college he went into the banking world where a chance encounter with a local music retailer led him to buy a musi...
Tadahiro Sato loved music and baseball! In fact after playing baseball for many years in his youth, he joined the music industry while playing baseball all along. His sister's husband e...
Richard Schiemer grew up in Brighton, Pennsylvania and often went down to Brighton Music Center for supplies and lessons. Little did he know at the time that one day, after college, he w...
Carol Sides married into the Robert M. Sides Music Center family in the 1960s and soon became an important part of the company’s educational programs and music therapy activity. She work...
Peter Sides is the president and third generation of his family to operate the Robert M. Sides Music Center Pennsylvania. His grandfather opened the store out of his home, selling and rep...
Alysha Sides-Greevy grew up in the music store that her grandfather established in 1937 and has enjoyed working in music retail along side her parents and brother. The Robert M. Sides Mus...
Paul Siegel grew up in New York and was fascinated by the impressive record collection of his father, who turned Paul on to music. Paul later began playing drums, got a kit and played in...
Paula Simmons wanted to create a shop where good quality instruments could be accessible to all those who came in the store. As a teacher, Paula was very interested in providing lessons ...
Myrna Sislen is a professional musician who took advantage of the opportunity to purchase a struggling music store and bring it back to being an active and beloved part of the neighborhoo...
Diane Sparks and her brother, Donnie, formed a successful singing group in the 1960s. Donnie & Diane performed and recorded a string of hits, most written by Donnie. Diane's husband, ...
Roger Sparks started teaching guitar lessons in the wake of the Beatles boom in 1964. Just four years later he and his wife, Diane, opened Sparks Music in Arkansas City, Kansas. In 1974, ...
Tim Spicer studied special education in college and has applied his passion of helping others and his love of music when he opened a music store in 2012. Spicer's Music focuses on offerin...
Phillip Stanger began playing drums at an early age and took lessons from the famed percussionist, Roy Knapp. Phil remembers with great joy the first time he walked into Frank’s Drum Shop...
John Stebal owns the Stebal Drum shop outside of Cleveland, Ohio. The store was originally called Stebal Music when his father opened it. When John took over the store he decided to foc...
Sarah Strickland is the School Services Manager for Elefante Music in New Jersey. Her journey began in the rental program before she transitioned into teaching. In 2020, Sarah was promote...
Pete Surowski is the founder of Pete’s Music store in Anaheim, California. He often uses the tag line that his store is the closest music retailer to the Winter NAMM Show. While perform...
