Dan Kobida was first interviewed for the NAMM Oral History program back in 2004 during the Wurlitzer company reunion in Oak Brook, Illinois. Dan was not only a respected former employee o...
Ago (Alan) Koerv joined the Wurlitzer Company in 1960 as Chief Financial Officer after working as a consultant for the instrument maker’s annual reports. Located in the DeKalb headquarter...
Ted Krumwiede was a veteran of the piano industry working for Kimball and Story & Clark in the important re-birth of the piano business following World War II. Ted had training and a ...
Dewey Kuhn grew up listening to his grandmother playing the organ, which she did in her younger days accompanying silent movies. His passion grew as he learned to play.
David Kutner was new to the music products industry when he was offered the job as President of Hammond Organs in the late 1960s. It was a time for change in the organ business as sales s...
Roy Larrick was a distinguished sales representative for Hammond Organs and Panasonic's Technics products before launching his own retail business. After gaining invaluable experience at ...
Bertil Larson was like so many of the former employees at the mighty Wurlitzer Company that found his experiences there to have been happy ones and the friends he has made like family. Th...
Tim Laskey founded the Wyman Piano Company. After a long and successful career with some of the top names in the music industry, such as Wurlitzer and Baldwin, Tim wanted to introduce a ...
Charles Lawson played church organ from boyhood all the way into his 90s. He was hired by a small piano store when he first moved to Bristol, Tennessee, from Knoxville to be close to his ...
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...
Kenny Lee began playing music in grade school and has been passionate about it ever since those early years. When he heard from a friend about a job at Tom Lee Music Company in Hong Kong...
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...
Roger Leithold recalled moving into the historic building where Leithold Music is located on Fourth Street in La Crosse, Wisconsin during his NAMM Oral History interview. The building was...
Teresa Leithold began teaching music in 1956 and conducted her last lesson just ten days before she passed away at the age of 87 on February 13, 2019. Music was her passion! While her hu...
Abbie Leithold-Gerzema is the co-owner of Leithold Music in La Crosse, Wisconsin. Abbie and her brother also share management duties in the store that their great-grandfather established ...
George Lemus opened a music store in his hometown of Guadalajara, Mexico in the late 1950s and named it M. Haus Lemus. He focused on building a family business with consistent and quality...
Jack K. Lewis served as President and COO for the Conn Organ Company after years of serving as it's Manager of Marketing Administration, General Sales Manager, Director of Marketing and S...
Stan Lindenbaum grew up in Brooklyn and developed many thoughts and ideas about selling. While working for several different industries during his career, Stan studied the idea of incenti...
Russell Lindquist joined his uncle’s piano store in Iowa in his early 20s, and soon discovered his love of the business. He especially loved selling. Russell opened a Hammond Organ dealer...
George Lukas recalled, in great detail, when he was aboard a navy ship at the end of World War II and sitting down to play a blue-painted Steinway upright piano (also known as the Steinwa...
Ray Manzarek founded the iconic rock band The Doors on the beach in Venice in 1965 with his friend from UCLA film school, Jim Morrison. From that sunny summer day of sharing songs and the...
Martha Markowitz married her knight-in-shining-armor right after World War II. She soon helped him run the small organ company he started before the war. The Allen Organ Company has been ...
Steve Markowitz’s father invented a unique electronic organ in the 1930s and established the Allen Organ Company in Allentown, PA. Steve’s father, Jerome, built his first experimental ins...
Tom Mathis spent over 50 years in the piano business! Just think of how many instruments he must have sold and all the music currently being made thanks to him! He developed his sales sty...
Scott May knew since he was five years old that he wanted to play the organ! He fell in love with the endless possibilities of the instrument as he grew and discovered that the Hammond w...
Kay McDowell now (and may always) holds the record for the most NAMM shows attended --82 in a row (1923 when she was three until 2005)! As a very young girl, she accompanied her father, t...
Robert McDowell was president of the NAMM Board of Directors from 1969-1971. During that time he assisted William Gard in the expansion of the NAMM organization, including more hands on i...
Sheilah McDowell is a saleswoman and Lowrey class instructor at Piano Craft in Springfield, Missouri. Her passion for the industry goes back to the days she first met her husband, Jim McD...
H. C. McMurtry sure knew a lot about the Wurlitzer Company! Not only did he work for the company for nearly 20 years, he traveled throughout the country, selling the company’s product l...
Rob Meads recalls his father purchasing a Lowrey Organ and how he could think of nothing he would rather do than have a career making music! As a teenager, Rob was hired by legendary musi...
Mr. Menchey founded the Menchey Music Service in 1936 out of his mother’s sewing room in Hanover. By the time he retired in 1982, Menchey’s Music grew into the premier full-service schoo...
