Fred Vail was making announcements on a local radio station in Sacramento, California when he was just 12 years old. While in high school, he led the committee that brought bands to the s...
Ricky Peterson is a lifelong Minnesotan musician whose family is deeply rooted in a characteristically “Minneapolis” sound. Ricky is best known for his 20 year association with saxophone ...
Max Jones is the official greeter at Bill Jones Music in Knoxville. He does his best to meet each person as they enter the store and won’t mind if the customers take a moment to rub his b...
Marjorie Jones and her husband opened the Bill Jones Music store in Knoxville, Tennessee back in 1973. She joined Bill full-time in 1989 after raising their children, and in 2011, Marjori...
Bruce Bartlett is the founder of Bartlett Audio and has designed an impressive list of microphones over his long career. He worked for Shure and Crown International, where he designed and...
Tom Pick was the prominent studio engineer who was behind the glass inside RCA Studio B, working alongside producer Chet Atkins when hundreds of hit songs were recorded. During his NAMM i...
Joseph Fox knew his great grandmother, Sarah, who along with her husband Otto, formed Fox Music House in South Carolina back in 1928. She was a great inspiration to Joseph who grew up kno...
Charles Fox learned so much from his grandparents who established the family business, Fox Music House, in 1928. His father, Maurice, expanded the company to several locations and brought...
Victor Quarterman began taking drum lessons as a kid at Leonard’s School of Music, which was established by the father of his longtime friend and mentor, Danny Leonard. Danny introduced V...
Lowell Samuel was the quintessential music man! He devoted his life to creating school band programs in the small towns of Illinois before and after World War II. After serving as a band ...
This audio only interview was conducted for a radio program by Dan Del Fiorentino and donated to the NAMM Oral History program: Johnny Catron formed his first band in Boston back in 1939,...
Steve Araujo grew up in Southern California playing guitar and bass in school and in local bands. Becoming a professional bassist, Steve toured and taught music for many years. Seeing a ...
David McLaren worked closely with his father, John McLaren Sr., at BBE Sound in Southern California, which purchased G&L Guitars. David fell in love with the G&L story and product...
John McLaren Jr. grew up in the music business as his father, John McLaren Sr., served as a strong leader for CBS Musical Instruments, which owned such brands as Steinway pianos and Fende...
Rusty Richards would like to point out the distinction between Singing Cowboys and Cowboys that sing. He was very much a cowboy, having roped, rode in the rodeo and worked as a ranch hand...
DJ Grandmaster Flash combined his love of music with his passion for electronics to become one of the pioneers of Hip Hop music. His innovative style of mixing records and blending beats ...
Phil Ealy is an award-winning lighting designer who established West Coast Concert Lighting in the late 70’s. Having designed the lighting rigs for several large rock tours, Phil became k...
Terry Oliver grew up in Southern California and remembers the day his father took him for guitar lessons at RC Allen’s guitar shop in 1964. The famous luthier had dozens of projects in th...
Ken King performed in several Country and Western bands in and around Los Angeles beginning in the 1940s. While playing his guitar as a guest on the Spade Cooley television show in late 1...
Tim O’Brien joined the Taylor Guitar team in the marketing department back in 2013. At the time, the digital world was changing with the rise of smart phones and social media. Tim assembl...
Mike “Monte” Montefusco played both trumpet and piano as a kid before playing bass guitar professionally for several years. Like many touring musicians, Monte worked in a local music stor...
James Harman was a Blues harmonica player who shared the staged with some of the biggest names in music history. James was just a young man performing at clubs and bars in the 1960s and 7...
Cesar Rosas was born in Hermosillo, Mexico, in the state of Sonora, and was greatly influenced by the music he heard as a child growing up. He was exposed to traditional Mexican music and...
This audio only interview was conducted for a radio program by Dan Del Fiorentino and donated to the NAMM Oral History program: Jac Winroth was born with a handicap that his mother insist...
Matt Guzzetta loves to design things. He designed a motorcycle that won a place in the Guinness Book of World Records for a coast to coast ride on only one tank of gas. As it turned out, ...
Mark Guerrero has had a passion for music ever since he was a young boy growing up in East Los Angeles. His father was singer/songwriter Lalo Guerrero, who inspired a generation of Chican...
Charlie Redden played guitar in bands when he was in school and always has had a passion for playing. After working for Amazon in the early days of that company's history, back when they ...
Fred Bernardo was repairing and teaching guitar in his local music store when the idea came to him to open his own shop. In 1972, with one guitar and a set of strings he was given as a pr...
Slim Jim Phantom and his two school friends, Brian Setzer and Lee Rocker, formed the iconic band Stray Cats in New York back in 1979. They revived the rockabilly style of the 1950s with a...
Tony Louscher saw Jimi Hendrix live at the San Diego Sports Arena in 1970, which became an inspirational event in forming his musical passion. Just a few years later, Tony began working a...
