Marty Sheller was the award-winning arranger and jazz trumpeter whose musical skills can be heard on hundreds of recordings. He worked with Mongo Santamaria for many years (yes, that is M...
Frederick Swann was one of the most famous organists of the last 50 years due to his many publications, recitals, church performances and his long run on the television program The Hour o...
Scott Lombardo worked in the music products industry since he was fourteen years old! His passion quickly developed after hearing The Beatles three years earlier. He would drill holes and...
Fred Parris grew up close to the Apollo Theater in New York where he was able to see many of the top acts in music. These experiences sparked a passion which led to his singing in several...
Jim Widner was given a very special opportunity to join his grade school’s orchestra, which provided him an instrument to play. His love of music was fostered years later when he became a...
Dan Slick grew up in Johnstown, PA playing the family’s upright piano but soon switched his focus to the organ. He began his career in the music industry working at Fulton Piano and Organ...
Dan Miller grew up with music all around him and joined the school band the first chance he got. Dan was the first to admit how fortunate he was to have opportunities to go to many clinic...
Harry Gillum was interviewed for the NAMM Oral History program during the Stay-At-Home Orders for Covid-19 in June 2020. His interview was recorded on Zoom and captured his remarkable car...
Beverly Noga learned all she knows from her mother about the music business. Helen Noga was one of the owners of the Blackhawk Club and the Downbeat Club in San Francisco, California, who...
Luis de Pablo was a Spanish classical composer who provided works for symphonies, chamber orchestras, operas, choir and film over his long and successful career. He was born in Bilbao, Sp...
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...
Ira Sullivan was just three years old when he pulled his father’s trumpet out from behind the couch and began blowing into it. His father began teaching him how to play and by the time li...
Dusti Dryer was just one year old when she was dubbed the world’s youngest musician. A photograph of her playing the harmonica, or rather holding it, was featured in a magazine and launch...
Tom Pick was the prominent studio engineer who was behind the glass inside RCA Studio B, working alongside producer Chet Atkins when hundreds of hit songs were recorded. During his NAMM i...
James Harman was a Blues harmonica player who shared the staged with some of the biggest names in music history. James was just a young man performing at clubs and bars in the 1960s and 7...
Karl Hoyer was born in Schönbach/Luby in the Czech Republic to a family of violin makers. As a child, he helped in his father’s workshop, and in 1944, went to the school of violin making ...
Melvin Dunlap played bass on several classic soul and R&B recordings beginning in the early 1970s. When he was a kid, he was sick and stuck in bed for an extended period of time and s...
Byron Berline established the Double Stop Fiddle Shop in Oklahoma back in 1995. The store became a major hub for musicians which bought and sold a great number of both vintage and new in...
CD Hagan was always a believer in the benefits of the social aspects of being involved in a school band program. While playing in his college band, he met his wife and while teaching band...
Richie Jones Jr. began playing drums professionally when he was 12 years old for teen clubs and skating rinks. While gigging, he developed skills in production and worked for Morris Broth...
Jim Mathews played drums and formed a band when he was just ten years old. He was encouraged by his mother, who was a singer in the big bands during the swing era. He soon developed a str...
Michael Nesmith is best known as the woolen hat-wearing member of iconic television pop band the Monkees, which enjoyed massive global success during the 1960s. Outside of the Monkees, Ne...
Jamie Oldaker sat down in his living room in Tulsa, Oklahoma for his riveting and inspiring NAMM Oral History interview in December 2018. He opened up about his background in music and ho...
Bob Brumley was the owner of Albert E. Brumley & Sons, a music publishing company established by his father in 1944. Albert E. Brumley was a gifted songwriter who often penned religio...
Allee Willis wrote a number of successful songs that have become part of the fabric of pop music. Allee either wrote or co-wrote songs such as “September” by Earth Wind & Fire, the th...
Betty Bennett was inspired to pursue a career in music when she was brought along to gigs by her mother and was allowed to sing with her. After Betty’s first paying gig, making 50 cents f...
Morris Diamond sat down with us for his NAMM Oral History interview at the age of 97 and recalled his career in music which started when he was 15 years old. He was hired to be the “band ...
Ken Hyams was a key franchise owner of Altec Lansing in the early days of consumer electronics. He worked for a Los Angeles retailer for audio, consumer-electronic, products in the late 1...
Don Wilson was a founding member of the instrumental rock band, The Ventures! He formed the band with his friend Bob Bogle. Shortly after their first hit, “Walk Don’t Run,” Nokie Edwards,...
Bonnie Guitar produced a series of hit recordings for her label, Dolton, in the 1950s and 60s. Among the labels most popular acts were the Fleetwoods and the Ventures. Bonnie even recorde...
Normalu Cooper was inspired by her piano teachers as a young girl so she eventually began providing lessons in her father’s piano store when she was a teenager. Like her father, Normalu w...
Bob Olsen often said because he did not play a musical instrument yet had a successful career in the music products industry that he was “a vegetarian in the business of prime meat.” The ...
