Gary Cooper enjoys a well-regarded career in journalism with a run in recording and popular music magazines before his work in the music products industry. He branched out with celebrated...
Michael Cooney taught music in the public schools in Massachusetts for over 25 years. During the time of his teaching he also established a high-end flute company in the early 1970s calle...
Jim Connors joined Norlin Corp. originally as the head of the Lowery Organ factories. With his strong background in manufacturing and process control, Jim was able to keep up with the 25%...
Bill Collings' passion for guitars may have started on his father’s workbench when as a boy he tinkered with woods and making things. His father’s background in engineering was also an in...
Jim Coleman recalls watching his father, a true traveling music man, tune a piano when Jim was just a boy. He not only went on to make a career of tuning, but set standards for testing tu...
John Clayton loves music! Since the age of 16, the future Grammy winner enjoyed being able to express himself with his music. He studied with Ray Brown before becoming the bassist for Hen...
Joseph Chen has put his vast knowledge of international trade along with his love of music together for a successful and respected career in the music products industry. His career began ...
Thomas Case provided a tour of the Case Brothers Piano Company before our interview. He proudly pointed to a logo of the company when his great grandfather began tuning pianos in 1904. To...
Chip Averwater took over the music retail business in Memphis, just as his father did and his son would one day, keeping the tradition in the family. Chip’s passion for the music business...
Will Alexander worked for Oberheim in the heyday of the synthesizer boom of the 1970s. He helped engineer the Oberheim Four Voice System as well as the popular OB-X units. He soon realize...
Mirek Jaromir Strizka opened a musical wholesale business in the early 1960s and named it European Craft. The company began as the young Czech immigrant established a business in Los Ange...
Chip Wise served in the piano business for over fifty years and enjoyed the customers he met and the people of the music industry. During the early days of the NAMM Oral History program m...
Scott Wedge and Dave Rossum attended college together and soon developed a few clever ways of combining their engineering training with their passion for music. They began creating sound ...
Bart Wascom was the electrical engineer who sought to improve the pro-audio speakers by improving the distribution of sound. After several tests, he concluded that large wooden cabinets c...
Ted Veneman grew up in his father’s music store. As early as 1975, Ted was etching out a mail order catalog under the name “Music Emporium,” which was much earlier than most mail order ca...
Koob Veneman’s father started the first Veneman’s Music Store in Holland, an idea copied by Koob in Maryland in 1960. Koob, like his father, was a luthier who designed his own instruments...
Manuel Velazquez was one of the greatest guitar luthiers of the last one hundred years. He was born in Puerto Rico in 1917 and handcrafted his first classical guitar when he was still a t...
Mark Vail has preserved some of the music products industry’s greatest history as author and researcher of a series of publications. In 1993, BackBeat Books published Mark’s landmark book...
Matt Umanov opened his first guitar shop in 1963, following his dream to have a life in music. Over the years, Matt has become one of the world’s leading experts on guitars, which is ofte...
Rick Turner was well known for his innovative handcrafted guitars and for pioneering the resurgence of American luthiers in the 1960s and 70s. With an ear for quality sound and an eye for...
Helen Tozzi was hired to set up the accounting for a new music store that was opening in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Progressive Music opened in 1947 and Helen was there on opening day. She...
Eddie Tishkoff and his brother Jerry owned the famous Hollywood Piano Company and Hollywood Piano Rental Company located in Southern California, one of the busiest piano rental outfits in...
Jerry Tishkoff and his brother Eddie owned the famous Hollywood Piano Company and Hollywood Piano Rental Company located in Southern California. The stores gained fame for providing instr...
Larry Thomas is the current CEO of Fender Musical Instrument Company. He also served as CEO of Guitar Center during the company’s early growth period. He worked closely with music educat...
Clark Terry enjoyed a long and celebrated career as a trumpeter playing with nearly ever iconic jazz musician of the twentieth century. His tone and style of playing was an influence on s...
David Teeple’s first job in the music industry was working for the large Grinnell Brothers chain in the 1960s, based in Michigan. When he was asked to teach guitar, he had to first learn ...
Bob Taylor enrolled in wood shop while a student in high school and made a guitar for his final grade. The idea of making his own guitars came easy to Bob and he set out to create his own...
Wolfe Taninbaum was a leader in the development of synthetic reeds, although he is best known for his mouthpiece designs. The Taninbaum mouthpiece company was established in 1952 to provi...
Don Talbot recalls working with his father at Coast Wholesalers when he was school age, sweeping up and working in the warehouse. Don’s father was one of the three owners and years later,...
Colleen Summerhays recalled the day in 1940 when she walked into a local music store to inquire about a clerical position. She met the owner, her future husband, Hy Summerhays, who had op...
