Helen Culleton recalls with a smile attending her first concert. The live event took place in London with AC/DC (with their original band members) and the opening act was Def Leppard’s fi...
Paul Brett knows a good story when he hears one and when he began digging into the history of the Bartell Guitar Company, he was hooked. Researching the California guitar manufacturer fro...
Simon Jones has a rich background with the guitar, which has come full circle with his role with the Yamaha Guitar Group. As a teenager he played, and even built his own guitar to play wi...
James Brady was front and center during the MIDI boom, working within the keyboard department at Rushworth’s Music House in Liverpool. The year was 1986 and the synthesizer was at its pea...
Mutter Slater played harmonica, flute and sang as a member of the influential British band Stackridge beginning in 1970s. Although often categorized as a progressive rock band, their soun...
Tony Ferguson has had an amazing career in music! He began playing guitar at a young age growing up in England, touring with bands such as Unit 4 + 2 and Christie before switching to the ...
David Rushworth started in the family business, Rushworth's Music House, in 1966 when he was in his early twenties after leaving University. David quickly moved up through the ranks from ...
Dave Nicholas was just four years old when he began playing a piano that was left in their new house when they moved in the 1930s. The previous owner had purchased the piano on monthly pa...
John Waite was born in Lancaster, England and began playing ukulele at the age of four. In school he studied art and always felt that his music incorporated art at some level in addition ...
Paul McManus recalls the moment he first heard the recording of T Rex. It is a moment most of us can relate to when music enters our lives in a way that we can’t deny. He began playing gu...
Alan Barclay entered the music industry as a salesman, which is where his love of the industry developed. In 2003 he opened Absolute Music, an instrument retail store in England that inco...
Alan Greensall was working for Sound Technology when he helped broaden the reach of several brands into the British market. Among the brands were Taylor Guitars, Line 6 and G&L Guitar...
Dave Bresnan had a true passion for music that began when he was fifteen when he learned to play the piano. Throughout the 1960’s, Dave played guitar and banjo in several groups after dis...
Frank Murphy opened Frailers Guitar & Banjo Shop, which is situated in Runcorn, Cheshire on the banks of the River Mersey - just southeast of Liverpool England. The store was establis...
Lou Rosenthal started playing drums at an early age, eventually playing in bands in Southport Merseyside. Later, after purchasing a Ludwig drum kit, he moved into a more serious group and...
Alan Peters is a trumpeter and guitarist who was brought up on blues and R&B and formed the group Almost Blues in the 1960s. Alan backed many artists in the famous club, the Cavern, i...
Keith Mulholland is a rock bass player from Liverpool, England who played with the signed band, Nutz. He also played the Reading Festival twice as well as toured with Queen and Status Quo...
Will Woo started playing in rock groups at an early age as did his brother, Allan. Allan and Will played in the band, Hamster Farm and in 1980, Will joined the UK chart topping synth band...
Cathy MacLaughlin started learning to play guitar when she was only 8 years old, taking lessons from her brother on his Hofner guitar which was purchased from Rushworth's on the Wirral ac...
Hank Marvin and his buddy, Bruce Welch, formed the instrumental rock band The Shadows in 1958 in England. The highly influential group pioneered the four-member rock band format consistin...
Ozzie Yue started a group with school friends who later went on to be known as the band, The Hideaways. The Liverpool based band played in the Cavern more times than the Beatles – in fact...
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...
Tony Boase started his career in music when he was 16 and landed his dream job at Mersey Music, a musical instrument shop on the Wirral Merseyside near Liverpool in the early 1980s. Tony ...
Albie Donnelly started playing saxophone at an early age and played with Merseybeat groups in Liverpool, England. He was then signed to Virgin Records with his group, Supercharge, which h...
Ronnie Tennant first began playing cornet when he was nine years old. His father joined a brass band when he was about the same age and, in 1952, his father joined the Army Band. Ronnie w...
Brian Farrell was an original member of Colonel Bagshot, a Liverpool based band which was formed in the 1960s. Brian played guitar in the band and wrote several songs recorded by the band...
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...
Gaz Gaskell has fond memories of playing for AKG at the Frankfurt MusikMesse in the 1990s. These gigs were among several booth performances Gaz took part of as a product endorser, which t...
Dave McCluskey was like so many of his peers growing up in Liverpool after the Beatles who joined a rock band. He started off on guitar but switched to bass. In 1988 he landed the perfect...
Keith Hubbard formed a band in Liverpool with some of his school mates and called themselves The Rebels. The band enjoyed success in the pre and post Beatles era. In 1963, the band first ...
Nick Batt is the Director of Sonicstate - a website and podcast dedicated to reviewing and commenting on advancements in electronic musical instruments. During his NAMM Oral History inter...
Gaz Williams is a well know podcaster and consultant for Sonicstate. He is also a passionate musician having played bass since he was 15 years old. At an early age, Gaz combined his bass ...
