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...
Kenneth Gamble was singing and playing the guitar in a band he formed in Philly when he first met his future songwriting partner, Leon Huff. The two discovered they had the same goals of...
Amani Duncan served as the Vice President of Marketing for C.F. Martin & Company in Nazareth, Pennsylvania. Since joining the company, Amani has focused her attention on embracing the...
DJ GrandMixer DXT brought the turntable front and center as a musical instrument! DXT is a proud member of the "first generation" of DJs in the dawn of Hip-Hop. When he recorded a sessi...
Jody Carver was a legendary steel guitarist who, as a session player, recorded with many top performers beginning in the 1950s. Jody developed a life-long friendship with Don Randall at ...
Steno Giulini served as the editor of the International Association magazine "Euro Piano" for well over 60 years. He was by far the oldest employee of the specialist publishing PPV Medie...
Greg Walker was inspired by musical masters and song stylists such as Nat "King" Cole, Johnny Hartman, Sarah Vaughn, and Sam Cooke, and started singing at the age of nine. These legendary...
Jack Pinney grew up in San Diego, California, where he developed a love of music and began playing drums in the early 1960s. When some friends wanted to form a band, Jack was eager to jo...
William Kent, along with his brother Ed, formed the Kent Drum Company in 1947 with a focus to create student-level kits to encourage music making at all economic levels. The company offe...
Jim Kaplan and his longtime partner, Jim Botti, were both band directors in Pittsburgh area schools when they saw the need to provide private lessons after school. Together they opened a...
Ruth Kadison enjoyed her role as a NAMM Foundation’s Museum of Making Music volunteer, and applied many of her talents and skills to the organization over the years. Her love of music go...
Booker T. Jones grew up in Memphis and began recording as a session player while still in high school at the age of 17. While waiting for a session to begin, Booker and the other musicia...
Chuck Campbell revolutionized the "Sacred Steel" style of gospel music by adding electric guitar effect pedals to his amplified pedal steel guitar. Campbell—a member of the Keith Dominio...
Stan Buswell had owned and operated several businesses when his teenage son, John, took an interest in the drums. Stan decided to open a small shop, which his son helped establish in Pit...
John Buswell was a 16-year-old drummer in the school band when his father, Stan, decided to open a drum shop. The year was 1976. The city was Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The store was cal...
Jim Botti always had a passion for music education and in fact taught most of his life. In 1958, after he met Jim Kaplan, the two opened a teaching studio that would grow into a music st...
Joe Beard doesn't remember a time when he didn't have a guitar. He grew up near Ashland, Mississippi becoming friends with locals Syl and Jimmy Johnson and Floyd and Matt Murphy. In Memp...
Tony Yarbrough’s love of music led to buying a music store in Memphis that was closing and renaming it Yarbrough Music, which soon became a hub for musicians in and around town. He took ...
Craig Yarbrough worked alongside his brother Tony and sister Phyllis (his younger sister joined them later) in running the music store they established in Memphis to serve the working mus...
Karl Schulze’s grandfather worked in the piano business during his career, so it certainly was not out of place when young Karl began learning the craft of piano building. Karl worked fo...
Bob Riskin started working for McCabe’s Guitar Shop in Santa Monica just a few years after it opened in 1958. Before long the shop was abuzz with the folk music boom and later played an ...
Yoshi Kobayashi began working for Yamaha Corporation of America in 1958. In the early days of his career he was tasked with supervising the import and export of the motorcycle division. ...
Clifton “Fou Fou” Eddie began his career as a big band and jazz drummer but soon discovered he has the skills for the blues and pop music. He has played with the likes of The Dells, Patt...
Larry Dunn played a key role in the success of the legendary group Earth, Wind & Fire! As the keyboardist for the group he added new sounds in the innovative era of electronic musica...
