John Dee Holeman was an influential blues performer known as the last surviving original musician who popularized the Piedmont Blues style. The finger-picking guitar style was also known...
Randy "Baja" Fletcher was a well respected production manager of live events who won the 2010 Parnelli Life Time Achievement Award for his dedication to the industry. His long and passio...
Thomas Broido recalls being carried by his father as he walked in the music publishers’ warehouses to check on business. He remembers the smell of the ink and the smiles that would greet...
Tut Taylor was a world renowned Dobro player, but did you know he partnered with George Gruhn and the two hired Randy Wood to form a music store in Nashville? Gruhn Guitars began as GTR,...
Ralph Stanley was best known for his featured songs in the movie "Oh Brother, Where Art Thou," although his career began in the 1930s. He sang in church with his family and later hit the ...
Eddie Ray was the A&R man for Capitol-Tower Records and Imperial Records for many years. As a result he was instrumental in the careers of such artists as Fats Domino, Sandy Nelson, ...
J. Scott McFadyen served as president of the family operated store after his father, the founder, retired. Scott was heavily involved with the music industry by helping to establish NASM...
Rose Karr's father worked for the founder of Cunningham Piano Company as a technician. When Mr. Cunningham passed away, Rose's father approached Mrs. Cunningham about his goals to continu...
Greg Howren is the past president of his family's music store in Charlotte, North Carolina. Greg followed in his father's footsteps and continued to build the music store, which focuses ...
Donald Hodges is a music educator who has taken on the research role to map the brain's responses to music. His research has shown that music is not just a nice, but unnecessary element ...
Calvin Grafton was very interested in the radio business as a youngster. His early jobs included radio repair but he knew he needed more for a solid business, so he opened his own music s...
Lynn Clapp opened a small guitar shop in the back of a piano store in 1967. He later moved into his own building in Knoxville and called the place Lynn's Guitars. The store was a hot sp...
Fred Buch has always been interested in combining electronic technology with pipe organs. When he entered the pipe organ business in the 1957, electronic organs were not sufficiently adv...
Mark Amentt was brought into the music products industry to help direct the then, newly established AIMM group, to better serve its members. The group soon grew as did its noted annual m...
Kerry King has become a regular artist that NAMM member retailers could meet during the trade shows. His career as a guitarist led to a number of product endorsements and several opportun...
Mac Yasuda played country music at an early age and fell in love with the style. He organized a band in Japan dedicated to country music. As his audiences grew, Mac was being asked more...
Tom White is the President of the MIDI Manufacturing Association. The organization was created following the 1983 introduction of MIDI at the NAMM Show. Since that time Tom has created ...
Lars Wern is the Vice President of Em Nordic AB in Stockholm, Sweden, working alongside the company’s founder, Benny Englund. In fact, during the 2013 NAMM Show in Anaheim, Lars and Benn...
Thomas Weilbier is the President of No. 1 Guitar Center GmbH, which is located in the musical hub of Hamburg, Germany. Thomas related some of the strong rock and roll history of the city...
Rob Wallis began playing drums at the age of 10 when he took his Slingerland set (with a Kent silver snare drum) to the local Kiwanis Club for a battle of the bands with The Revised Editi...
Robin Walenta attended the University of Northern Iowa and Middle Tennessee State University before joining West Music in 1982. She was named president/CEO of the company in 2007. Robin w...
Clemens Von Arnim is the CEO of Louis Renner & Co., producer of the Renner Action and Hammerheads for pianos, the company his great-grandfather was involved with from the very beginni...
Siwei Zou is the founder and president of sE Electronics International Inc. He was born in Shanghai, China, and began playing at an early age. Siwei focused on Western classical music and...
Jerry Trestman grew up in a musical home, in fact his older brother played saxophone for several of the big bands during the swing era. Jerry served in the Korean War and was stationed i...
Jim Tremayne is the editor of DJ Times magazine, a gig he landed just over two years after the publication began. DJ Times is the brainchild of industry publisher Vinny Testa, who was loo...
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...
Chuck Surack is the founder and president of Sweetwater Sound, one of the landmark companies within the music products industry. He formed the company in 1979 and worked hard to gather t...
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...
Wayne Reinhardt began his musical retail career in 1971, with the same company he was working for at the time of his 2013 interview, Schmitt Music in Minnesota. Wayne is proud of the opp...
Zuzana Petrofova is the fifth generation in her family to operate the Petrof Piano Company, located in the Czech Republic. Her great-great-grandfather formed the piano company in 1864 an...
