Tom Bedell began giving guitar lessons in his home town of Spirit Lake, Iowa. Just a few months later, when Tom was 14 years old, he imported guitars with his name on the headstock from ...
Harvey Vogel was having a difficult time finding and purchasing quality percussion instruments and accessories for his daughter Lauren while she was in high school. He decided to do somet...
Sally Lindner once owned and operated a beauty shop in the small farming community of Watertown, South Dakota. After her husband, Rod, opened a music store in town, she could hardly wait...
Paul Jameson was a pioneer in audio wholesaling as the founder of Custom Products, located in Magnolia, Arkansas. His company was among the first to sell microphones, PA systems and spea...
Tom Haggerty grew up in the Black Hills of South Dakota where he learned to play the guitar. He gigged for many years on the road, which at one point took him to Nashville where he wrote...
Jim Bornhorst was hired by Rusty Brutsche, the founder of Showco, to assist with the development of sound systems. In just a short time, Jim proved he was able to design systems as well ...
Dolores Crooks remembered her husband working in the garage at all hours of the night on a new sound he was after. He tooled his own guitar amplifier and took it down to country dances t...
Mike Lang was a well-respected keyboardist who can be heard on over 2,000 movie scores and countless studio recordings over his long and successful career. He worked with composers such ...
Dolores Crooks remembers her husband working in the garage at all hours of the night on a new sound he was after. He tooled his own guitar amplifier and took it down to country dances to...
Mike Lang is the well-respected keyboardist who can be heard on over 2,000 movie scores and countless studio recordings over his long and successful career. He has worked with composers ...
Sam Radding is the founder the famed American Musical Instrument Manufacturing Company, which was the training ground for several future iconic luthiers including Bob Taylor, Kurt Listug ...
Richie Pidanick was the Vice President of Culture and Values at Guitar Center. It was Richie’s job to train the company’s employees on the philosophy of what is most important to the cor...
Lance Freed is the award-winning music publisher who is the president of Rondor Music International, the music publishing company owned by Herb Alpert and Jerry Moss. Lance grew up in a ...
Howard Durbin was hired by RCA following World War II and worked within the engineering department on improving the phonograph record. He was assigned to the team that addressed unbreaka...
Larry Breedlove is the founder of Breedlove Guitars, although his brother Kim runs the company now. Larry fell in love shortly after opening the Oregon-based guitar company and moved to ...
Nicolas Hernandez played professional guitar when he met Bobby Dukoff in the early 1990s. The famed saxophonist and mouthpiece maker took Nic under his wing and taught him the trade. Ni...
Lauren Wallace was hired by the Baldwin Piano retail store in Cincinnati in 1997 as a salesperson. She had played piano as a young girl and took up playing again when her son was taking ...
Dick Waldron came to music in a most unusual way. His father was a house painter who completed a job only to find out the house owner did not have enough money to pay so he offered a cor...
Tadashi (Sunny) Umekage is an executive within the Japan Music Industry who has been a strong supporter of NAMM and several of the organization’s programs including the NAMM Oral History ...
Russell Thomas was a band director for over 34 years. During his teaching years he often felt frustrated that simple repairs would take weeks and often delay concerts or rehearsals. A l...
Dave Surber’s father was a United States Navy musician who worked for the Leblanc Company after he retired from the navy. When Dave was looking for a job his father found one for him in ...
Jim Stella began playing the trumpet in the fourth grade, continued through college, and attended instrument repair school immediately after. He began working for Leblanc in the Martin Ba...
Gerald Stanley is without question one of the pioneers in pro audio, working as product engineer for Crown International for several decades. Over 45 patents have been issued to him over...
Jack Simpson worked for RCA for nearly 40 years beginning at the time when the electronics and recording company was a regular exhibitor at the NAMM Trade Shows. Jack also became a jazz ...
John Simpkinson had a strong background in advertising when he was hired by the Baldwin Piano Company in Cincinnati, Ohio. Bob Cosgrove and James Mixter hired John for company and produc...
Jack Shallat was a professional violin player who landed several gigs with traveling bands in the 1930s and 40s. During that time he met Buddy Rogers and both men opened separate music s...
Brian Schmidt opened up a small piano and organ retail store in Calgary, Canada, in 1973 with a strong focus on the Baldwin Products. He was just 21 years old at the time and benefited g...
Sally Schiff and her husband Mel moved from New York to Florida where they decided to open their own music retail business. All County Music in Tamarac, Florida first opened in 1976 with...
Mel Schiff and his wife Sally established All County Music in Tamarac, Florida. The first store opened in 1976 with a strong focus on band and orchestra music and repair. However, Mel’s...
Bob Saunders began working in the accounting department for Kaman Corporation. He was asked by the company’s founder, Charlie, to work with his son Bill for the Kaman Music Corporation. ...
