Ron Mesh is a tour manager for some of the biggest names in Live Sound. Ron cut his teeth as an audio engineer for touring bands such as Uncle Sam and the Chesterfield Kings, a Punk Rock ...
Brian Ray had the most remarkable beginning of his amazing musical career when he was hired by Bobby Pickett to play guitar on Pickett’s big hit “Monster Mash” for a fundraiser. The event...
Bud Roberds was two months shy of his 103rd birthday when he was interviewed for the NAMM Oral History program about his life in music. His father was an avid musician, always bringing in...
Ney Nakamura established Marutec Music, a distribution company based in Brazil in 1994. The company distributed Yamaha consumer keyboards in the early days and later expanded into the gui...
Tana Douglas wrote a book about her life in Live Sound, released in 2022, entitled LOUD: A life in rock n’ roll by the world’s first female roadie. The title leaves out the fact that she ...
Tina Morris is the Studio Manager for one of the most iconic recording spaces in Los Angeles, The Village. With an impressive background in music performance and sound technology, managin...
Lucas Van Der Mee, Principal Design Engineer for Apogee Electronics, has a fascinating background in Live Sound and studio engineering. He spent ten years on the road as an audio engineer...
Roger Robindore found himself overdubbing at an early age. While he was born in Pennsylvania, Roger became a recording engineer in Paris for several years in the 1990s. He had some wonder...
Greg Laney started working at Westlake Studios in 1982, right in the middle of the Michael Jackson Thriller session. It was an exciting time and Greg witnessed firsthand the producing tal...
Keith Alexander played the important role of Director of Operations for the Los Angeles-based swing band, the Big Band Alumni. The band, whose leader is Bill A. Jones, was established in ...
Jack Redmond began playing the trombone at the age of nine, thanks largely to his mother’s support, who herself played the C-Melody Horn in movie theaters for Silent Films. Jack played th...
Sam Glenn has had a marvelous career as a saxophonist in big bands and many Los Angeles-based recording studios. He took clarinet lessons at Kitt’s Music in Maryland (now Jordan-Kitt’s Mu...
Lanny Aplanalp says he was happily playing football in school at the age of 16 with a focus on sports when he first heard the jazz saxophone. He was hooked and everything changed for him!...
Larry Dougherty has always been grateful for the vast pool of great musicians who made up the swing bands of the 1940s and 50s. This allows so many to go on the road with a number of band...
Michael Feisthammel is a lifelong history teacher who has a passion for the construction and design of pianos. He acquired a Chicago-made Conover '77 grand almost 20 years ago. The high q...
John Papadolias began working at Lyon & Healy in Chicago in 1999 as a harp technician. The job is perfectly suited for John who has a long history as a musician and instrument tech. E...
Massimo Dolce was born in Italy and became his family’s first musician when he studied piano at the age of nine. He focused on business management in school with his driving passion for m...
Bogdan Pawlikowski grew up in a family of violin luthiers. His uncle John and father Walter both achieved notoriety for their handed crafted instruments as well as their well-respected re...
Walter Pawlikowski was born in Maruszyna, Poland, not long after World War II. His older brother John became a well-known violin repairman and luthier, which inspired Walter to follow in ...
Dan Hagedorn grew up watching his father run the family’s music retail business and always knew he would work in the music industry. His father, known as Crazy Al, began his business in t...
Kevin R. Maher grew up in his family’s music publication business, a business responsible for the iconic jazz magazine DownBeat as well as the music product industry’s Music Inc and UpBea...
Chuck Findley can be heard on the beautiful Flugel Horn solo on the Carpenter’s 1970 hit “(They Long to Be) Close To You.” However, that one recording should not define the range and enor...
Marty Panzer was just 16 years old, working in the mail room at CBS Television in New York when he met and became lifelong friends with Barry Manilow. Barry was also working in the mailro...
Betty Bennett is the President, CEO, and one of the three founders of Apogee Electronics, located in Santa Monica, California. She was president of Soundcraft USA in 1985 when she teamed ...
Peter Nguyen joined the team at Hammond Suzuki in 1998 and serves as the Chicago-based company’s Chief Financial Officer. He began as the Controller and enjoyed his early years at the com...
Tim Bales is a hard-swinging brass player and long-time member of the band the Ides of March. His playing career began in the first grade when he was just six years old playing the cornet...
Ray Gerlich is the long-serving production engineer at Hammond Suzuki, and began playing the organ when he was ten years old. While in high school he was given the opportunity to apprenti...
Katie Kailus studied at Elmhurst College in the Jazz program playing guitar and majoring in writing. In 2009, she combined her passions and education by serving as an intern for Downbeat ...
Luyang Liu was born in China and was greatly encouraged by her mother to develop her skills as a musician. Luyang attended VanderCook College of Music and earned her degree in music educa...
Chris Walz remembers the moment he first heard blues legend Mississippi John Hurt on the radio. Chris was captivated and immediately inspired to play old-time finger-picking guitar. At t...
