David Gage is a string-bass luthier who is known within the industry as the man who listens not only to music but to the musicians, to produce the instrument that bests works for each pla...
Benny Englund was a rock and roll singer as a teen when he fell in love with the music industry! He toured with groups as a roadie and sound engineer. He also worked for a time for a fe...
Scott Emmerman began taking guitar lessons in his hometown of Chicago when he was five years old. As a musician he toured and recorded with different bands and landed some great gigs, inc...
Khristian Dentley is the baritone for the singing group Take 6. The group was formed in 1980 and Khristian joined the group in 2011. During their career the group has sold millions of r...
John DeChristopher was playing in a band when he would visit the EU Wurlitzer Music Store in Boston. Those early store visits for gear led to a job and John’s introduction to the music p...
Arnold Davidson was born in Port Elizabeth, South Africa where he began playing in area bands. He was given the opportunity to distribute the strings he special ordered from England and ...
Ed Cohen was booking and managing musical acts and even playing saxophone in a band when he first heard Dave Biro’s innovative synthesizer. This was in the early 1970s. Ed worked with Da...
Ed Cornett was hired by Yamaha to head the team in charge of creating the DX7. His story of the long hours, creative and innovative team members and the support of the company uncover th...
San Pao Chen is the General Manager for Taye Drums in Taiwan. Mr. Chen was interviewed during the NAMM Show in 2013 and provided great insight into how the company was formed and his vie...
Alvin Chea is the bass for the singing group Take 6. Alvin joined the group five years after they were formed and soon became an important element in their unique sound. During their ca...
Dave Biro became fascinated with electronic music the second he watched Rick Wakeman perform in the late 1960s. He soon set off on an odyssey to create his own instrument. Dave worked t...
Ben Ash began working for his family’s store before he can remember. He is the fourth generation of Ash family members to work in the company that was formed by his great-grandfather, Sa...
Charles Ahlers began working for the Anaheim Visitor and Convention Bureau as President in the 1990s after a strong career in several other markets. He took pride in looking back at the ...
Tom Schmitt is the CEO and Chairman of Schmitt Music Company, which was founded by his great-grandfather in 1896. The company, which now has several locations throughout the Midwest, has...
Honoring Keith Mardak for his invaluable service in assisting the NAMM Resource Center in obtaining fantastic interview contributions to the NAMM Oral History Program.
This video contain...
Honoring Dennis Houlihan for his invaluable service in assisting the NAMM Resource Center in obtaining fantastic interview contributions to the NAMM Oral History Program.
This video cont...
Honoring George Gruhn for his invaluable service in assisting the NAMM Resource Center in obtaining fantastic interview contributions to the NAMM Oral History Program.
This video contains...
This video is of our annual NAMM Tribute, created in honor of our members and music industry friends who passed away in 2012 and early 2013. This Tribute was shown for the first time at ...
Yoshinori Kimbara was a former Yamaha Japan Corporation executive who worked under Genichi Kawakami beginning in the 1950s. He was the first general manager of the Yamaha Music Foundatio...
Bill Brandom enjoyed playing piano as a kid and was even voted “most musical” in high school. He later was given a book on piano tuning, which changed his life because he realized it wou...
DJ Johnny Juice is perhaps best known for his work on such records as “Rebel Without a Pause” with Public Enemy and “Musica Negra” with Rob Swift. The musical integrity of his contributi...
DJ GrandWizzard Theodore is world famous for inventing the signature sound of Hip Hop, The Scratch, and he was around 13 years old at the time! The story of how this came about 1975 is a ...
DJ Steve Dee, from Harlem, grew up at the time when Hip Hop culture was developing in the parks in and around his neighborhood. He is the 1990 New Music Seminar DJ battle champion. He is ...
John Foley grew up in Elkhart, Indiana and began working in the Selmer factory before graduating high school. He stayed on with the company, working in the Bach department with a focus o...
Jerry Myers is a bell maker for the Conn-Selmer Company in Elkhart, Indiana. Like so many of his co-workers within the factory, Jerry was trained on the job by those who came before him ...
Mike Neely is a supervisor on the plant floor for the Conn-Selmer factory in Elkhart, Indiana, the very factory he began working in nearly 40 years before. He began working in the music ...
Richard Sigman was trained on instrument repairs on the plant floor of the Conn-Selmer factory in Elkhart nearly 40 years ago. He began working in the music industry with the Vincent Bac...
Willie Smith was trained on instrument repairs on the plant floor of the Conn-Selmer factory in Elkhart over 30 years ago. He began working in the music industry with the Vincent Bach Co...
Virgil Storm was trained on instrument repairs on the plant floor of the Conn-Selmer factory in Elkhart over 30 years ago. He began working in the music industry with the Vincent Bach Co...
Roberto Tirado began working in the music industry with William Lewis & Son, the famed violin company out of Chicago. After studying building and repairs he was given the opportunity...
