Ernie Briefel played a tremendous role in the wholesaling of musical instruments in New York City, beginning in the 1950s. His understanding of the business and close partnerships resulte...
Larry Larson loved the accordion! He played it most of his life, so when he had the idea to sell and teach the instrument, opening a store seemed like the right thing to do. He opened ...
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...
George Lukas recalled, in great detail, when he was aboard a navy ship at the end of World War II and sitting down to play a blue-painted Steinway upright piano (also known as the Steinwa...
Rose Shure took over ownership of Shure Incorporated after her husband Sidney N. Shure died in 1995. With her great understanding of the products and office policies (having been employed...
William Locke worked for the Canadian division of the C.F. Martin & Company going back to the early 1970s. During that same time period, several suppliers came together to form the Mu...
David Cooper recalled, with a warm smile, when his father took him to his first NAMM Show. The Cooper Piano and Organ Store in Georgia began in 1905; therefore, David did not just grow up...
Morty Manus and his lovely wife Iris were the driving force behind the Alfred Music Publishing Company for over 50 years, when their sons took over the operations of the company. During t...
Harry Osiecki’s father started a music store out of his parent’s home. In 1933, he opened up his first store, which had a living unit upstairs for his family. Although he tragically died ...
Lance LeRoy was a top music manager in Nashville, TN, and was the founder of the Lancer Agency. Among his clients was the famed guitarist Lester Flatt. Lance helped outline Mr. Flatt’s ca...
Ed Rizzuto was surrounded by music his entire life. As a young boy he started playing trombone, which he continued throughout high school and into his military service in the early 1950s....
Marvin Snyder became president of Rico Reeds in 1976, after managing the cane plantations, which were used to make the reeds. His father worked with the Lockie family, who owned a chain o...
John Eaton spent the latter part of the 1960s composing for electronic musical instruments such as early synthesizers developed by Robert Moog and Paul Ketoff. His microtonal music includ...
Norman Pickering had a storied career. He worked as instrument designer for the legendary C.G. Conn Company in Elkhart. He also played a large role in the audio engineering field with his...
Phillip Stanger began playing drums at an early age and took lessons from the famed percussionist, Roy Knapp. Phil remembers with great joy the first time he walked into Frank’s Drum Shop...
Crane Bodine’s father, Elmer, was a piano man who formed a retail store in Minneapolis, Minnesota in 1933. When Crane was 17 years old, he began working in the store. In 1962, he took ove...
Delores Rhoads began teaching music in 1939. Seventy years later when she was interviewed by NAMM, she was still teaching. After World War II Delores and her husband opened a small teachi...
Michael Kropp loved folk music for as far back as he could remember. As he grew up and played in various bands in the 1960s and 70s he also became involved with the music industry. After ...
Allen Toussaint represented one of the quintessential New Orleans sounds. Toussaint’s compositions and songs seamlessly blend blues, jazz, ragtime, R&B, and funk to create an amalgam ...
Ken Ingram served as Vice President of Sales and Marketing for the Selmer Company in Elkhart, Indiana. He enjoyed working with the dealers around the country and the staff at Selmer, whic...
Ruth Sibley Bensinger wrote a song called “So Long Sweetheart” when she was a teenager. The song was about lovers split by war. Members of her musically inclined family thought the song...
Don Banks was a band director who felt he could have more of an impact on music makers by providing them with quality instruments. In 1967 he opened Don Banks Music in Tampa, Florida to s...
Craig Schertz worked for Byerly Music in Peoria, Illinois and saw an opportunity to purchased two of the company’s ten locations when his boss and the current owner, Loren Zimmerman, was ...
Dave Pike made an indelible mark on jazz vibraphones! As a percussive based player, Dave wanted to play with both rhythm and pitch and to explore melodies within Bebop riffs. He played wi...
Richard Ellis was proud of the three main areas of his professional career; playing, teaching and selling musical instruments. As a teenager Richard traveled with a big band, playing danc...
DeWitt Scott knew about as much as a person can know about steel guitars! As a retailer he sold them, as a performer he played them, as a composer and author he wrote about them and as a ...
Ben Cauley can be heard on hundreds of Stax Record hits including those with Otis Redding. Ben was a member of Otis's backup band called the Bar-Kays, which originated as the horn sectio...
Yoshinori Kimbara was a former Yamaha Japan Corporation executive who worked under Genichi Kawakami beginning in the 1950s. He was the first general manager of the Yamaha Music Foundatio...
Lothar Seifert came from a family of musical instrument makers in the Kirchberg area of Germany. His father, Oskar, began making bows in 1924 and by 1932 has set up a work shop in Graslit...
Ed Hendricks always enjoyed selling. After serving heroically in World War II, he worked in several Chicago-area department stores before being hired by Don Broman to work for Lyon & ...
Bill Tarpley remembered the stories his father used to tell him about the early days of the family music retail store in west Texas. Times were hard during the era of the dust bowls and d...
Joe Hume was a veteran school band director before he opened Hume Music located in Kansas. His love of school bands continued as a retailer and as such he established new bands and expand...