Dean Samuel is the son of industry leader, Lowell Samuel, who not only formed the Samuel Music retail store in Effingham, IL but the pioneering music wholesale company, MIDCO, in 1964. Lo...
Bill Mendello retired as president of Fender Musical Instrument Corp in the fall of 2010 after a long career in the industry. He was hired in the accounting department of CBS Musical Inst...
Robert Ulrich served as Chairman of Target and helped pioneer the mass retailing of affordable musical instruments in what has been known as the Big Box Stores. In 2010, the year after hi...
Peter Webster has dedicated his career to music education. Peter is the John Beattie Professor of Music Education at the Bienen School of Music at Northwestern University in Chicago. He w...
Marcia Neel began her career as a band director in a public high school. After a successful teaching career, she turned her focus on advancing music education within the American educatio...
Felice Mancini grew up in a home full of music. Her father was an Oscar-winning composer and her mother is the noted vocalist who formed the Society of Singers. Felice has devoted herself...
Stanley Leonard, the principal timpanist emeritus for the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, was interviewed during PASIC 2010 on the very day he was inducted into the PAS Hall of Fame. It wa...
George Jacob greatly enjoys creating musical products for musicians –of all levels and ages. When a customer needed a softer sound with his drum sticks, George came to the rescue and deve...
Billy Grammer formed his own guitar company after years of playing country music in and around Nashville. Billy recorded several hit records on his own as well as playing behind some of t...
Jim Funada has dedicated the past four decades to serving the music products industry with passion and commitment. His journey began at the Yamaha Corporation, where he delved into keyboa...
Terren Frenz has been likened to Mr. Holland from the film “Mr. Holland’s Opus,” a dedicated and long lasting music educator who cares deeply about bringing music into the lives of his st...
Ritchie Fliegler has come to be known throughout the music products industry as “the Amp guy.” He wrote several articles and two popular books on amplifiers. He has been in the forefront ...
Wes Faulconer is the founder of Explorers Percussion in Kansas City, Missouri. He formed the store in 1984 with the goal of bringing quality drumming products to students and educators w...
Chris Crockarell and his partner in music publishing, Chris Brooks, have created a special line of percussion methods and music books for those educators looking to bring fun to the art o...
John Craviotto, the founder of Craviotto Drum Company, has helped pioneer the handcrafted solid-shell snare drums, a leading product for his company and a tool he sought as a young drumme...
Roy Clark, the Country Music Hall of Fame guitar player, was always proud of his connection with the music products industry. In addition to the products he endorsed over his long career,...
Jim Catalano loved playing drums as a small boy but never imagined a life in music. Jim jumped at the chance to work for the Ludwig Drum Company in the early 1980s. There he became known ...
Donald Casey has witnessed many changes in music education during his career. As Dean of DePaul School of Music in Chicago, Donald has studied the role of music and music education and i...
Chris Brooks was proud of the publications he and his partner, Chris Crockarell, created as part of their percussion-focused music publishing company. Since forming Row-Loff in the early ...
Janet Barrett feels strongly that if each person played their part in music education, the American system would gain the strength it needs to provide a meaningful element in the lives of...
Bruce Bannister is the current president of Samuel Music in Effingham, Illinois. The store was formed in the 1940s by Lowell Samuel, the band director turned music industry pioneer. Bruce...
Spencer Aloisio began working for the Slingerland Drum Company in 1969 and stayed with the company until 1986. During that time he worked on the selling, promoting and marketing of the po...
Dennis Guillaume began his career in the music industry in piano retail in the late 70's, a position he feels very much assisted him when he worked for Kimball Pianos throughout the 1980'...
Fred Allard has been passionate about music making since he began playing guitar in the 8th grade. As a teen he worked for Milano’s Music Center in Mesa, Arizona in the mid 1960s. Fred wo...
Dennis Bamber helped pioneer mail order catalogs for musical products beginning in the 1970s. After opening a small woodwind store in South Bend, Indiana in 1978, Dennis noticed that many...
Charlie Musselwhite recalls the day Muddy Waters called him on stage to jam with the legendary bluesman in a small Chicago blues club. It was the beginning of a long and impassioned caree...
Al Siniscal received the Audio Innovator Parnelli Award in 2010 for his major contributions to professional audio innovations over his career, which began in the early 1960s. As founder o...
Tetsuya Takagi served as Executive Vice President of Yamaha International Corporation (currently Yamaha Corporation of America) and worked for Yamaha Corporation in Japan holding several ...
Daniel Glass is the noted drummer for the Royal Crown Review, which helped renew popularity for swing music beginning in the 1990s. Daniel has studied the art form of drumming in all form...
Jonah Jones endorsed the HN White King line of trumpets as well as the FE Olds products during his noted career as a jazzman beginning in the 1930s. Jonah played lead trumpet for Stuff Sm...
