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...
Don Kong is the manager of Music Village in San Jose, California. Don worked for a few other music companies before begging to be hired by the store's founder, Joe Teixeina, in the early...
Anita DeBlasio manages the Union Ave. location of Music Village in San Jose, California. The store was established by Joe Teixeina in 1964 to serve the musicians and to foster music in t...
Craig Bosco is a musician and manager of Music Village, a retail store in San Jose, California. Craig's passion for music began at an early age and over the years he has become a professi...
Richard Abreau played music in school as a kid but got away from it during most of his professional career. Then in 2001, upon his retirement, Richard returned to music! Encouraged by a...
Carl Mann sang in church as a child and grew up just a few years behind Elvis Presley, who, like Carl, brought the style of church musical expression to popular music when he began record...
Woody Bomar began his career as a songwriter and went on to work in music publishing. In fact, Woody created Little Big Town and had a very successful run in the 1980s and 90s. Woody ma...
Joe Teixeira opened a small music store in San Jose, California in 1964. As the fiftieth anniversary approached in 2013, Joe sat down for his NAMM Oral History interview to begin documen...
Brad Wittmer and his friend and co-worker Richard Schiemer were given an opportunity to purchase the store they were working in, and they took it! The two met while working for Brighton ...
Smoochy Smith was hired by Sam Philips at Sun Studios in Memphis to play piano on a few sessions in the late 1950s. Smoochy was being requested for record dates from both local performer...
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...
Norbert Putnam is a studio musician’s studio musician. With a career that includes playing on most of the early Muscle Shoals recordings as well as hundreds of tracks with Elvis Presley, ...
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...
Jyotindra (JP) Parekh is the owner of Rice Music House in Columbia, South Carolina. He is very active in educational programs within his community and has served the industry on many lev...
Arnie Lazarus invented what is largely regarded as the first three dimensional transducer for musical instruments in 1969. That same year he established a company that echoed the name of...
Hideo Kamimoto wrote the book on guitar repair! He built his first guitar in the late 1950s and soon discovered he had a true passion as a luthier. Within a decade he opened H. Kamimoto...
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 ...
Roland Janes! There were musicians/engineers/producers and then there was Roland Janes! The man nearly single-handedly invented many of the engineering methods used in modern recordings...
Wayland Holyfield wrote several popular songs for both pop and country artists during a career that began with singing in church as a child in Conway County, Arkansas. He penned classics ...
WS Holland played drums behind Johnny Cash for over 40 years! The man put the beat to most of Johnny’s greatest recordings and his innovations in drumming inspired countless musicians aro...
Tony Falcetti grew up in the music business and developed his passion for music before he can remember. The store his parents started in Springfield, Massachusetts soon became the learni...
Jack Ashford played percussion as a member of the famed Funk Brothers, the house band for Motown Records beginning in the 1960s. Jack’s unique approach to the tambourine soon resulted in...
David Israelite is the president/CEO of the National Music Publishers Association located in Washington DC. While his career before NMPA was in politics, David played the guitar at a you...
Brent Fischer has provided several presentations at the Hot Zone during the NAMM Show, providing his insight regarding the music industry. His career started as a young child listening t...
Paul Williams is the actor turned songwriter who penned several of the most popular songs since the late 1960s. His hits include "Rainy Days and Mondays", "We've Only Just Begun" and the...
Mark Sendroff grew up close to downtown New York and at a young age fell in love with Broadway shows. Following his love of the theater and interest in the law, Mark became one of only a...
Larry Richmond's grandfather was a sheet music distributor in New York during the golden era of sheet music sales in the 1920s and 30s. Larry’s father, having grown up in the business, d...
Linda Moran has enjoyed a long and successful career in the music business and is known for her friendships and nurturing attitude towards those starting out in music. When Linda "retired...
Chris Jasper was the funk and soul keyboardist, singer and composer who played a key role in the Isley Brothers sound. He later helped form Isley-Jasper-Isley, which, like the Isley Brot...
