John Larson worked in piano retail in and around North Dakota before opening his own store. He worked the area and became involved in the music programs and lessons within the community. ...
Darrell Kersten served in the National Guard for over 20 years. After his time in the service, he joined the team at Groth Music in Bloomington, Minnesota. After working on the road and c...
Brock Kaericher is the President of REMO Inc. and over the last few decades he has worked closely with the company’s founder, Remo Belli. Brock has been a strong supporter in the product...
Leslie Ann Jones is the renowned recording engineer and pioneering producer and mixer who helped re-define the craft of engineering in the 1970s and 80s. She is well known for her long li...
Todd (TJ) Johnson serves as a manager of the Groth Music Store in Bloomington, Minnesota. As a singer and entertainer, TJ has offered his understanding of the needs of professionals who c...
Andy Hildebrand is the creator of Auto-Tune, which has had a big impact on music makers since it was first released in 1997. After a successful career as a scientist, Dr. Hildebrand had a...
Al Hager is the store manager for the Bloomington, Minnesota based Groth Music. As a professional bandleader and bass player, Al came to the store with a great understanding of musical i...
Jon Haber is the president of Alto Music in Middletown, New York. Jon grew up in New York and as a kid would go into Alto Music, which he later bought and expanded to include sales in the...
Peter Gotcher played drums in a band with Evan Brooks and they both became interested in creating electronics to change sounds. Together the two school mates created digital audio machine...
Alan Friedman opened an accounting firm and soon focused on the music industry. As a musician himself, Alan knew he could offer services to the music industry as a specialized accounting ...
Gary Francisco opened his own music store in Southern California in the mid 1960s. Over the years he developed a strong business calling on schools and creating lesson programs. After clo...
Jerry Donegan began his career in the music industry in October, 1966, when his brother arranged for him to get a job in the shipping department of the Zildjian Cymbal Company. He found t...
William Dollarhide was the president and co-owner, along with his wife Margaret, of Dollarhide’s Music Center in Pensacola, Florida. He grew up in a very musical family, with his mother a...
Spencer Davis hit it big with a string of rock songs during the heyday of the British Invasion of the 1960s. His band, The Spencer Davis Group, started with a school mate named Muff Winwo...
Tony D’Andrea is the grandson of Luigi D’Andrea, the innovative founder of the famed pick company. After college, Tony joined the company and worked long and hard to expand the business o...
Rosemary D’Andrea has always been interested in art and in fact had a series of galleries in and around Long Island, New York. So when her husband, the president of the D’Andrea Guitar Pi...
Michael Ciravolo is the president of Schecter Guitar Research and the designer behind the company’s Diamond Series guitars. Schecter was formed in 1976 to provide replacement parts for g...
Ed Cherney won a Grammy Award for his work as recording engineer for the 1989 Bonnie Raitt’s album “Nick of Time.” This was just one of his many projects as mixer and engineer. He has wor...
Joe Castronovo began working for Unicord in the months before the company was sold and became KORG USA. With a solid team, which included the late Mike Kovins, under the leadership of KOR...
Lou Capece began selling musical products in the 1960s and has since become one of the industry’s largest musical instrument wholesale distributors. One of the successes of the company ha...
Kim Breedlove began building banjos in the 1960s, during the Folk Music movement and the popularity of such performers as Pete Seeger. After working with his brother for a few months he m...
Joe Bergamini is a Broadway and rock band drummer who began writing about the art of percussion for magazines before becoming the Senior Drum Editor for Hudson Music. His own publications...
Gary Bennett entered the music products industry in 1964 working for Chesbro Music in Idaho. At the time of his NAMM Oral History interview, taped during the NAMM Show in January 2012, Ga...
Mike Bates is the senior member of the Institutional Solutions Group in the Keyboard Division of Yamaha Corporation of America. Over the last 28 years with the company, Mike’s career has ...
Gabby Barajas joined Merlin 5 in the early 1990s to work with the company founder and designer, Bill Gerien. The company has become an industry leader in manufacturing, providing machined...
Charles Avsharian is the CEO of Shar Musical Products, which he established in 1962 along with his brother, Michael. The brothers toured for years as professional musicians and along wit...
Vinny Appice began playing drums at a young age, just like his older brother Carmine. Vinny played drums ever since the age of eight and by age sixteen he was working with John Lennon! Hi...
Rebecca Apodaca was the President of A & D Music Incorporated in Southern California. She played music as a child and gravitated to the electric bass. Her father and others such as Do...
Peter Sides is the president and third generation of his family to operate the Robert M. Sides Music Center Pennsylvania. His grandfather opened the store out of his home, selling and rep...
Carol Sides married into the Robert M. Sides Music Center family in the 1960s and soon became an important part of the company’s educational programs and music therapy activity. She work...
