music historians

The Majeski Family has donated decades of Music Trades back issues to the NAMM Resource Center. Courtesy of Paul and Brian Majeski, the Resource Center has received bound annual editions of a nearly complete run of issues from 1951-1974. This in-depth documentation of the music products industry over this historic period of time in the pages of Music Trades is an invaluable research tool. This is a fantastic asset and we are honored to make it a fixture of our ever-growing documentation of the music products industry.

Frank Alkyer has asked a lot of questions. As a writer and editor of Music Inc. he has interviewed music retailers and suppliers alike. As a writer and editor for DownBeat Magazine, Frank has interviewed countless jazz and big band performers. With this background you can imagine how meaningful it was for the NAMM team to have the opportunity to interview Frank for the Oral History program. Frank has been an active member of the industry supporting music educational programs, as well as professional development efforts such as the series of sessions he has hosted at various industry events such as the NAMM show. So, at least it was our turn to ask him some questions!
 

Paul Bierley is the leading expert and author on the life and music of John Philip Sousa. A passionate fan of band music, Paul noticed several elements of Sousa’s career that were not documented. With his own publishing company, he penned several books on the March King’s life, including unearthed volumes of Sousa’s own photographs and manuscripts that otherwise may have been forever lost. Beginning in the 1960s, Paul began interviewing all of those he could locate who were associated with Sousa, from performers in his bands to the bandleader’s personal cook. What Paul discovered and wrote about often was Sousa’s charm and passionate personality.  

Q David Bowers contributed greatly to the archiving of the music products industry. As an author, he researched and published several books on the early era of mechanical instruments. His 1972 publication, The Encyclopedia of Automatic Musical Instruments, has become the definitive reference source on the topic. Along the way he also saved an enormous and invaluable collection of vintage trade magazines dating back to the 1880s from being lost. Those materials have since been scanned by the NAMM Resource Center, thanks to Mr. Bowers’ devotion to history, and will be made available for access to those seeking to learn more about our industry.
 

John Boylan is best known as a hit-making record producer working with Charlie Daniels, Linda Ronstadt, Boston and the Little River Band. In addition to his successful career, John has a passion for the history of electronic and recording equipment. He has studied the roots of recording gear and its development over the last one hundred years. In recent years John has worked on several movie projects including “Born on the Fourth of July” and the TV program, Elmopalooza. 

Walter Carter wrote the book on the Gibson Guitar Company’s history. Along the way, he developed friendships with many of the old timers who worked the assembly line before “assembly line” was even a popular term. He spent months researching what was thought to be true to confirm it. Along the way, he fought to showcase those efforts of innovators and engineers whose work would otherwise be lost and unnoted. Walter became the first historian for Gibson and worked hard to do what is so important in our industry--preserve it.
 

Lou Curtiss has been a long time supporter of American folk music and in fact, he helped coin the phrase “roots music.” For over 30 years he created, arranged and promoted the annual folk music festival in San Diego beginning in 1967. Lou has also hosted a jazz radio program as well as running his rare record shop in San Diego for over 40 years. His vast knowledge of the growth and development of American music is nothing short of amazing as are the many stories he tells of promoting music and the music makers he has worked with for over 50 years.
 

Daniel Glass is the noted drummer for the Royal Crown Review, which helped renew popularity for swing music beginning in the 1990s. Daniel has studied the art form of drumming in all forms of American popular music and has become an expert, author and teacher on the subject with a focus on jazz drumming and innovative percussive products of the 1920s and ‘30s. Daniel has created several programs that he has used to form unique clinics for music retailers and educational groups around the world. His passion for drum history is not only interesting but infectious.

David Goggin is known throughout the industry as Mr. Bonzai, the author and photographer behind several books and thousands of articles on recording, engineering and the people who work in the industry.  To say he is a wealth of information about the recording industry is really an understatement. Thanks to his talents as a writer he has shared much of his knowledge and many of his stories with his readers.  His first recording studio experience occurred in 1967 as the Beatles recorded “I Am the Walrus.”  And so started a love affair with the process and the people in the recording business.  He managed a recording studio in California and then began writing about it.

Sam Hinton was a national treasure. It seems appropriate to use that term when talking about him because he become an important and invaluable preservationist of some of our nation's greatest treasures, folk songs. Sam spent many years traveling the backwoods of this country in search of traditional songs that surely would have been lost without his efforts. As early as 1947, Sam recorded his favorite folk songs for the Library of Congress.