Larry Erny began working with his father when he was a very young boy, emptying trash and sweeping the floors in the store and traveling with him as he set up and created school band prog...
Byron Walls is a singer/songwriter who began his career during the folk music boom of the early 1960s. He sang in a number of groups during his career, including The Travellers, for which...
Ervin Somogyi began his career as a instrument repairman, which is how he learned the important elements of a guitar. He studied what went wrong with guitars, their weaknesses, and what h...
George Edwards is the General Manager for Sound Image Productions, a division of Sound Image that is located in the San Francisco Bay Area. His career has included working in every live s...
Jerry Goldman's father, Harry, opened a wholesale piano business inside Marshall Field's Department store in Chicago with his brother back in 1947. Just over a decade later, Harry and his...
Gordon McNelly is the Manager for Fields Piano in Santa Ana, California. Fields Piano is the local authorized Steinway dealer, which is a perfect home for Gordon who has been involved wit...
Howard Ungerleider spent over 40 years as Lighting designer/director as well as 25 years as Tour Manager for Rush! His focus has always been in creating a show for the audience and not j...
Rodrigo Garcia recalls the day his father bought him his first bass. It changed his life. He later went on the road to play professionally and toured with Alexander Silver throughout Chil...
Bill Sapsis has been rigging for theater and live events since the early 1970s. He was a welder and helped with set designs in both Philadelphia and New York and in 1981, he formed Sapsis...
Tony Andrews is one of the world’s most influential loudspeaker designers as well as a founding figure of the modern pro audio industry. His childhood devotion to audio led to the creatio...
Kostas Prelorentzos, along with his brother, Joseph, were the first to be interviewed for the NAMM Oral History Program from Greece. It is an honor to include their story within our colle...
Joseph Prelorentzos sat next to his brother, Kostas, as they became the first people to be interviewed from Greece for the NAMM Oral History Program. The interview took place in Anaheim a...
Norman Whitfield Jr grew up surrounded by music. His father was the noted songwriter, Norman Whitfield, who penned such classic hits as “I Heard It Through the Grapevine”, “Just My Imagin...
Don Menza is the noted jazz saxophonist who worked with some of the giants of jazz during his long and storied career. Don sat in the Maynard Ferguson’s Orchestra for a few years beginnin...
Kevin Brandon is the studio bass player known as "Brandino". While he was born in Southern California, his musical roots go back to New Orleans. When he was four, he met Louis Armstrong, ...
Seah Kok Hwa was born in Malaysia and wanted to make music when he first heard the Beatles. His uncle gave young Seah a guitar and he learned to play some of his favorite songs. After wor...
Tim Paul may have been destined for a career in the piano business. Growing up, his mother was a piano teacher and his father a piano technician. One of his earliest jobs was as a ballpar...
Howard Paul is the president of Benedetto Guitars and has had a passion for the instrument since he was a kid. In fact, Howard was playing professionally when he was thirteen. Over the ye...
Anthony Resta is a gold and multi-platinum awarded producer-composer/multi-instrumentalist. His past clients include Duran Duran, Elton John, Collective Soul, Perry Ferrell, Guster, Needt...
Stephen Olsen grew up with a passion for business, so when he had an opportunity to join the family music store, he jumped! Blues Angel was established in 1997 by his step father Jim and...
Jun-Ichi Miki joined the Roland Corporation in 1977 right after graduating from university. After working in research of sound synthesis and analysis for electronic musical instruments, i...
Denny Tedesco archived his father’s career as a noted studio musician in Los Angeles in the award winning documentary, The Wrecking Crew. Tommy Tedesco, along with other top rated studio ...
Charlie Butten, audio engineer, teamed up with Bob Cohen in the mid-60’s to create an intercom system for crew communication in live productions. By 1968, they developed the industry’s fi...
Bob Ulius began working in the music industry when San Francisco retailer, Stu Goldberg, hired Bob at Marina Music in 1969. It was the beginning of a long career that included gigs at Leo...
Steve Dillon has a great appreciation and knowledge of vintage band and orchestra instruments. The first musician in the Dillon family can be documented back to the 1700s, thus the store’...
Jim Fahey adds a unique twist to many of the tours he provides as a docent for the NAMM Foundation’s Museum of Making Music. Growing up in the 1960s, Jim understands the impact music has ...
Sandy Radom is a volunteer at the NAMM Foundation’s Museum of Making Music in Carlsbad, California and can often be found enjoying one of the many concerts presented at the museum. Sandy...
Philip Burn is currently the managing director of Hal Leonard Australia. He first commenced work for iconic Australian distributor, Rose Music, in 1976 (which in 1986 became Yamaha Music ...
Merv Cargill was the owner of Cargill Custom Guitars. After completing an apprenticeship in violin making he learned the finer details of building wooden instruments and became a qualifie...
Vera May was the matriarch figure of the iconic Australian acoustic instrument maker Maton Guitars. Wife of the founder, Bill May, Vera worked in the business from 1954 until her retireme...
