Bugs Bower was one of the great characters of music publishing that helped re-direct the industry following World War II. Before and during the war, Bugs was a musician and arranger who p...
Dick Boak has served as Director of Artist Relations for the C.F. Martin & Company during the development of the popular signature series product line, as well as for such historic pr...
Gayle Beacock and her brother are second-generation music storeowners with a flair for business and a passion for encouraging music making. Gayle’s parents started Beacock Music to build ...
William Bartolini and his wife, Patricia, are among the world’s foremost experts on the science of acoustics. Their early publications on the subject in the 1960s and 1970s have since bec...
Buddy Harman Jr. followed in the footsteps of his legendary father, Buddy Harman, one of the most influential studio drummers in Nashville history. Since his father’s passing in 2008, Bud...
Brian Holland and his brother Eddie are among the most popular songwriting teams in the history of popular music! For decades they have created the words and music to Motown’s classic sou...
Eddie Holland gained worldwide fame as a Motown Record’s songwriter and music publisher along with his brother Brian. Eddie was also a recording artist who performed the chart-topping hit...
Mike Stoller always had musical ideas as a kid but never felt complete as a songwriter until he met Jerry Leiber. Together Leiber and Stoller redefined R&B and Rock & Roll with a ...
Jerry Leiber was one half of Leiber and Stoller, one of the most influential and successful songwriting teams of the 1950s R&B movement. They played a critical role in the early days ...
Nina Rockley has been a strong force in the success of Rockley Music in Denver, Colorado. Soon after marrying the store's president, Robert, she brought her business knowledge to music re...
Robert Rockley took over the music store that his parents had started in Denver, Colorado. Bob, along with his wife Nina, expanded the products they carried while he focused on growing th...
Jane Traum and her husband Happy, are the founders of Homespun Music, which for decades has offered a growing collection of musical instrument training classes. Happy began with a new cla...
Happy Traum began his musical career in the 1960s, greatly influenced by the folk movement that had gripped the culture in America. He and his late brother, Artie, helped establish a New ...
Patricia Bartolini and her husband William formed the Bartolini Pickup and Electronics Company in 1973 largely based on the acoustic research both had conducted over a range of several ye...
Danlee Mitchell was destined to live a life of music. Raised by parents who were both accomplished musicians, he began his music studies at a very early age. His life took a strange and w...
Maury Rhodes enjoyed a long career in the music industry with a focus on the music publishing side of the business. He oversaw the Chicago operation of the Carl Fischer Company before bei...
John Lee is the eldest son of Tom and Betty Lee, the founders of a chain of music retail stores in Hong Kong and Canada. During John’s first NAMM interview, he spoke of the company’s expa...
Henry Lee is the youngest son of Tom, the founder of the successful stores in Hong Kong and Canada. Henry interned the business after college and took over the Canadian operation while hi...
Vito Pascucci was assigned to band instrument repair during World War II for Glenn Miller’s Army Air Force Band. Although Miller was much older, the world-famous bandleader and Vito becam...
Lillian Siegh played a vital role in the inner workings of NAMM for over 35 years! William Gard hired Lillian as a secretary in 1949 and for a time she was the office manager before becom...
Ryoji Okamoto was the chairman for Kiwaya Corporation in Japan, which was established in 1919 and has since become one of the most important manufacturers of the ukulele. With his keen in...
Bobby Wood enjoyed playing the organ as a child growing up in church in northern Mississippi. He crafted a well-regarded career as a recording artist and studio artist who is perhaps best...
Babe Simoni began working for the Fender Guitar Company in 1953. He was a teenager when George Fullerton hired him to work on the factory floor. Babe’s father had worked in the plant just...
Dorothy Schwartz was one of the original members of a girls Barber Shop style group that was brainchild of a girlfriend from high school in her hometown of Sheboygan, Wisconsin. The group...
Dick Schory had a very successful career as a composer and arranger of percussive music. With over a dozen albums as a musician and arranger and another 400 as a producer, Dick has made a...
Fred Salvador grew up in the music business. His grandfather opened a small music store for which Fred remembers working in as a small boy. Years later Fred joined the staff of the musi...
Paul McGuire served as president of the Electro-Voice microphone and Speaker Company, having worked his way up through the organization. Paul’s love of the company and attention to detail...
Jim Long first joined Electro-Voice as a summer engineering intern in the 1960s and later returned, soon transferring into marketing, where he held a variety of positions over the years. ...
Roger Linn forever changed the way people dance! As the inventor of the electronic Linn drum machine, he ushered in the new wave of electronic dance music beginning in the 1980s. The Linn...
Craig Knudsen cut his teeth on the industry as many people who have come to service in leadership positions. He started working for the Wurlitzer Company during college. After graduating ...
