Mark Altekruse, like so many passionate members of the music industry, specifically remembers the lessons he learned from one of his earliest and most influential music instructors. Tromb...
Billy Amendola is the Editor At Large for Modern Drummer magazine whose background as a musician makes him perfect for the job! His passion for music began at an early age and by the time...
Ralph Angelillo grew up inspired by Joe Morello. His dad was a bassist for big dance bands in the 1940s and '50s and his four brothers all played music. In 1961, at the age of 17, Ralph p...
Jim Armstrong worked in the music publishing industry for many years, both for Charlie Hansen and Columbia Music. His music career began at the famous music retailer in southern Californi...
Tom Bedell began giving guitar lessons in his home town of Spirit Lake, Iowa. Just a few months later, when Tom was 14 years old, he imported guitars with his name on the headstock from ...
Christian Benker has been an influential leader in the German musical instrument manufacturing industry. With fresh ideas and marketing skills he helped Hofner reinvent itself during the ...
Gerhilde Benker served as president of Hofner Music, a firm founded by her grandfather Karl Hofner in 1864 in Eger, Germany. Her father, Walter, was the inventor of the Hofner bass, which...
Pete Best grew up with a strong musical influence within his mother. She encouraged the passion and desire to bring music into the lives of Pete and the kids in Liverpool, England by open...
Tony Bolland was just 16 when he got a job at Plug In, a rock shop in Liverpool. The store was part of Hessy’s Music, the famous store which sold instruments to the Beatles in the early p...
Kevin Bowe, a native of Minnesota, began playing guitar and writing songs for the rock and punk talent coming out of the Midwest in the 1980s and 90s. Kevin wrote several songs for the te...
Tony Buffalo retired in 2023 after a distinguished career as a district manager for Guitar Center. His father was a trumpet player and leader of a swing band called Vito Buffalo & His...
Billy Butler started in the early 1960s singing with the Merseybeats group, The Tuxedos, having also sang with The Merseybeats and even performed on the same stage as The Beatles. He soon...
Michael Campion has attended the NAMM Show since the late 1970s, first as a wide-eyed musician, then as a retailer and finally as an exhibitor. Tracing his evolving roles at the show mirr...
Joe Cardinale played jazz bass in clubs and theaters all around New England. He created his own trio and studied at what would be Berklee College of Music. He joined the wholesaler Harris...
Joe Carducci remembers with a smile sitting in front of his parents black and white television set on a Sunday evening in February when he watched the Beatles storm America on the Ed Sull...
Owen Clayton began playing the double bass while in school. At the time, he had to stand on a box to play, but he didn’t mind at all because he enjoyed the sound of the instrument and it’...
Ted Cohen founded TAG Strategic to help companies understand how technology can empower, rather than threaten, the future of music. As early fears around AI and digital disruption took ho...
Jim Collins was given a Silvertone Guitar by his dad following the Beatle’s appearance on the Ed Sullivan television program, an event he still recounts with enthusiasm. Jim took a day jo...
John Connolly established the Connolly Music Company (originally Connolly & Co., Inc.) back in 1970. Best known for distributing such brands as Thomastik-Infeld and König & Meyer,...
Frankie Connor was an original member of the Liverpool based band The Hideaways, which enjoyed success since first forming in 1963. A few of the bands’ career highlights include playing a...
Don Cromwell realized music was his passion when was playing in bands with his friends at a young age. His sophomore year of high school he switched from guitar to bass and never looked b...
Joshua Curlett was enlisted as a stage hand for his church when he was a kid. That experience led him to pay close attention to the inner workings of stages and live performances. While i...
Don Cusic recalls that in 1964 he was greatly influenced by three musical discoveries: Roger Miller, Hank Williams, and The Beatles! After forming his own band and playing Bluegrass music...
John D’Addario's family has been shaping the music industry since the 1670s, when Donato D’Addario began crafting strings by hand. Following in this legacy, John's father pioneered synthe...
Rosemary D’Andrea has always been interested in art and in fact had a series of galleries in and around Long Island, New York. So when her husband, the president of the D’Andrea Guitar Pi...
Tony D’Andrea is the grandson of Luigi D’Andrea, the innovative founder of the famed pick company. After college, Tony joined the company and worked long and hard to expand the business o...
Ivor Davis was working as the foreign correspondent for the London Daily Express when he was assigned to travel with the Beatles. He joined the Fab Four during the summer of 1964 in San F...
Al Di Meola has long been known for his impeccable technique, perfect sense of rhythm and timing, and lightning fast displays of guitar virtuoso. Al has also become a very unique and mult...
Lew DiTommaso was a key member in Daddy’s Junky Music for many years and built a reputation on honest and passion driven hard work. That passion for Lew started when he first heard the B...
Brian Donaldson is an exuberant cheerleader for NAMM’s Museum of Making Music, where he volunteers as a docent. He joined the team in 2016 and can often be found leading tours, jamming wi...
Jerry Douglas fondly recalls his first guitar, a Sears Silvertone, which he replaced with a Gibson Les Paul Deluxe when he was 16 years old. When he was about 14 years old he began hangin...
Scott Emmerman began taking guitar lessons in his hometown of Chicago when he was five years old. As a musician he toured and recorded with different bands and landed some great gigs, inc...
