John Galante was the accountant for the Story & Clark Piano Company beginning in the late 1950s. John oversaw the growth and development of the piano industry during those years and w...
Bob Furst was a veteran of the piano industry for over 50 years, Bob sold nearly every brand of player, upright and grand piano that you can think of. Over the years he also became an exp...
C. Darby Fulton’s father opened a music store, which seemed the perfect place for Darby growing up. He enjoyed the business and worked with his father as the company grew into 26 location...
Larry Fresch has worked by day as a sales manager for piano and organ companies and by night as an accomplished saxophone player and singer in Southern California. He grew up in Sandusky,...
Wolfgang Förster’s family-owned piano company was formed in 1859 by August Förster, who opened a small piano workshop in "Löbau, Germany. Wolfgang grew up in the family business and recal...
John Felice likes to say he was in the right place at the right time when he opened a Hammond Organ dealership in the 1960s. As the home organ market began to take off John had the staff ...
Keith Emerson was the British rocker who in the early 1970s helped define live performances on electronic musical instruments such as the modular Moog. He gained fame as a musical compose...
Vernon Drane played several musical instruments growing up in Tennessee including the trumpet and saxophone. He later studied instrument repair and spent 68 years (!) working with the Amr...
Dave Campbell grew up in a household full of music, with both grandmothers being piano teachers and his father a professional piano player. With such a strong musical background, it was n...
Dean Burtch was a past president of the world famous music publisher and retailer JW Pepper. The company was formed in 1876 and was purchased in 1941 by a group of businessmen headed by H...
Lynn Wheelwright has always been fascinated with the guitar, especially the craft of building the instrument. After performing as a teenager, he developed many of his luthier skills from...
Stephen Stern was born a wood craftsman. In fact, growing up his two passions became building furniture and playing the guitar. When he had an opportunity to put both together in the earl...
Dan Smith was inducted into Fender’s Hall of Fame for good reason. Dan designed the re-launching of the famous guitar company after it was sold by CBS. Dan’s vision was to bring the produ...
Money Mark grew up fascinated with music and musical instruments. He read all he could about the latest keyboards and synthesizers, which were becoming popular during his childhood. In hi...
George Hanson’s father was hired by M. Steinert and Sons, the piano dealer in Boston, in 1900. Forty years later George would help his father out after school and on weekends to earn some...
Frank Green opened his first music retail store in Southern California in 1959 and called it Music For Everyone. He began working in the music industry some 12 years earlier as student en...
DJ Fontana drove down to Houston in a pink Cadillac with Elvis Presley after being hired as the then unknown singer’s first drummer. They pulled up to Herbie Brodstein’s Drum Shop (Herb w...
Lloyd Fillio grew up in the band instrument capital, Elkhart, Indiana. His father worked in the industry as did his uncle and cousin (Ernie Kenaga who was also interviewed). It seemed nat...
Bill (the Buddha) Dickens became a performer/inventor when the speed of his funky bass lines allowed him to do more than the traditional four string electric bass would allow. Working wit...
Rob Cook’s name is very familiar to those interested in vintage drums and the companies who produced them. As an author and publisher Rob has penned a series including “The Slingerland Bo...
David Cockerell designed one of the earliest synthesizers produced in the United Kingdom. The Synthi was introduced in the late 1960s by EMS Ltd. The unit, which came in a case with a KS ...
Ravi Shankar was called the Godfather of World Music by his long time friend George Harrison. Ravi’s role in bringing Indian music to the world was the beginning of many musical exchanges...
Abigail Ybarra was hired to work in the Fender factory back in 1956; just years after the famous electric guitar company released the Stratocaster. She conveyed in her interviews that the...
Speedy West was inducted into the Pedal Steel Guitar Hall of Fame as one of the instrument’s most innovative performers. He was able to apply his unique style to country, jazz, and popula...
Morton Subotnick composed one of the earliest and most important works of electronic music. When his album “Silver Apples of the Moon” was released in the late 1960s, it represented an en...
Artie Shapiro played the double bass during the golden era of the big bands. His approach to the bass was steeped in the tradition of his classical background. Studio orchestras soon hire...
Hargus “Pig” Robbins became a member of the Nashville studio group of musicians known as the A Team. As a gifted piano player, Pig gained the attention of producers such as Owen Bradley a...
Horst Mucha was one of the most recognizable faces within the music products industry. As a past president of Hohner and a pioneer in the expansion of the company’s product line, Horst tr...
Lloyd McCausland worked with Remo Belli when the famed Hollywood drummer began creating his own line of synthetic drumheads in the late 1950s. Lloyd became a fixture at the company and wa...
Max Mathews was working as an engineer at the famed Bell Laboratory in 1954 when he was asked to determine if the computer Bell was designing could create music. The landmark Music 2 and ...
