Gabe Ireland joined the Coast Wholesale Company while in high school. After college he continued to work for the company as the rock and roll boom began and the entire industry began to c...
Michael Jago has always had a great deal of respect for music retailers and can boast of working with several over his long career. He started retail with one of his early mentors in the ...
Paul Jameson was a pioneer in audio wholesaling as the founder of Custom Products, located in Magnolia, Arkansas. His company was among the first to sell microphones, PA systems and spea...
Tiffany Johnson gets a real kick from serving her school accounts for Southwest Strings and helping each obtain the instruments and services they need in order to provide for their music ...
Ashley Johnson is the daughter of Rosi and Dex Johnson and the granddaughter of the founders of Mississippi Music, Mac and Jimmy. Ashley shared many of her favorite memories of growing up...
Carole Johnston is the Managing Director of CMC Music, a wholesale company she formed with her father, Pat Bonham. Pat was a pioneer in the music industry and a founding member of the Aus...
Won Jung Kim is the president of Shimro Musical Instruments Company in Seoul, South Korea. The company is a leader in manufacturing all levels of bowed instruments and in recent years has...
Brian Justice had been a salesman in many industries in Europe and gained a well-respected name in the music industry for his import/export business between England and Germany, about a d...
Rob Juzek and his brother Adam are the owners of Metropolitan Music in Stowe, Vermont. The family business dates back to the very early 1900’s when his great uncle, John Juzek, began maki...
Adam Juzek recalls playing around in his father’s workshop as a kid. It never occurred to him to do anything other than working in the family business. As a result, Adam and his brother R...
Howard Kalisky is the president of Efkay Music Group in Lachine, Quebec, Canada. Howard's father Fred founded the company in 1957, and Howard is following in his footsteps. Howard has als...
Fred Kalisky became enamored with the maracas on his very first trip to Mexico City and realized it was an instrument that could be successful in the Canadian market (his home since reloc...
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...
Bob King worked at Hal’s Music in Mountain View, California after returning from Vietnam in the early 1970s. He was introduced to the wholesaling side of the industry and soon gained a j...
Doug Kliever is a sales manager for Sound Productions, whose love of audio gear began when he built his home recording studio. The studio allowed him to make money doing side jobs, includ...
Stan Kolb is the president of Taylor Music in Aberdeen, South Dakota. He joined the company in the early 1970s and has since helped develop the various elements of the business over time...
Irena Komatar was the founder and president of the Lastra Company, located in the country of Slovenia. What started out as a small music retail store quickly grew into both retailing and ...
Martin König’s father, Karl, partnered with Erich Meyer in 1949 to create a wholesale business in which their first products were music stands. Soon the Germany-based company grew to not ...
Gene Kornblum’s father formed the famed St. Louis Music Company, which played a legendary role in the music products industry during most of the 1900s. As President beginning in the 1960s...
Eddie Kramer began his long career as a record salesman in the San Francisco Bay Area before opening his own record store in the 1960s. As the Beatle Boom began, Eddie was selling a few g...
Alberto Kreimerman opened Hermes Music Stores in the United States with branches in Mexico beginning in 1982. His goal was always to serve music makers with quality products and service a...
Dale Kroke has been a passionate music maker since he was a kid. He studied music in college and earned a teaching degree before pursuing an advance degree in composition. His first job...
Hap Kuffner was eleven years old when he was given his first guitar during the folk music boom of the early 1960s. As he learned to play the instrument he also taught himself to repair gu...
Sergey Kupriyanov is the president of a retail and wholesale company in Russia. In fact, Sergey was the first current music retailer from Russia to be included in the NAMM Oral History c...
Joe Lamberti worked in his Father and Uncle's music business as a kid and saw many changes over the years. His Uncle Tony opened a small music retail store in the early 1940s and his fath...
Gabriel Lara was asked to create a series of music books with the Hal Leonard company for the Spain market beginning in 1972. Along with his business partner, Antoni Punti, Gabriel worked...
Ron Larcombe formed a rock band with his friends while in high school and fell in love with music. He toured the United States and Canada with several tribute bands before deciding he wa...
Betty Lee co-founded Tom Lee Music in Hong Kong with her husband in the early 1950s. In the beginning, Thomas Lee kept his full time work as an English secretary at a textile company whi...
Frank Lee’s parents established Tom Lee Music Company in Hong Kong to bring quality musical instruments to their customers. As President of the company, Frank has focused on those origin...
David Leed was born in the United Kingdom where he was hired by Boosey & Hawkes, which sent him to South Africa. While there, David became the General Manager for the Hammond Organ Co...
Louise Leed met her future husband while performing as a singer in her native South Africa. After having their four children, her British husband, David, suggested the family move back to...
Susan Lipp has a background in the theater, which she has used to great success in running the pro-audio distribution company Full Compass. The company was formed by her husband, Jonathan...
