Ed Tomlinson is the CEO of California Keyboards Music Center in Bakersfield and a well-regarded piano technician and trainer. After touring the world as part of a Contemporary Christian g...
Peter Nguyen joined the team at Hammond Suzuki in 1998 and serves as the Chicago-based company’s Chief Financial Officer. He began as the Controller and enjoyed his early years at the com...
Ray Gerlich is the long-serving production engineer at Hammond Suzuki, and began playing the organ when he was ten years old. While in high school he was given the opportunity to apprenti...
Felix Cavaliere is the Hammond B3 keyboardist and songwriter behind a string of popular songs recorded by the Young Rascals during the mid to late 1960s.
Dave Amels is a huge fan of the Hammond B-3 organ, which he’s played on records and with garage rock bands including Husky Team and The Reigning Sound. In the late ’80s he co-founded Voce...
Mark Stein played an important role in psychedelic rock in the 1960s as keyboardist for Vanilla Fudge. His dad was a singer and was always supportive of Mark’s career in music, which bega...
Russ Fontaine played the organ, with a special affinity for the Hammond B3, since he was seven years old. His father was an organist and saw to it that Russ take piano and organ lessons....
Greg Mathieson spoke passionately about his career in music during his NAMM Oral History interview. He brought up some very interesting points, such as his views on working on the road vs...
Ellis Hall is a man of many talents. This singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, actor, and composer may have lost his sight at the young age of 18, but he quickly found inspiration by...
Tom Thompson first heard an organ in a small church as a child and knew at that moment that somehow, someway, that instrument would be a part of his life. He was right! His first job in t...
Mike Finnigan was a leading Hammond B3 performer who recorded with many of the top performers in pop, rock, and jazz for nearly 60 years, although his soul had always been rooted in rhyth...
Paul Shaffer served as the band leader and musical director for David Letterman's late-night television program from 1982 until David retired in 2015. Along the way, hundreds of noted mu...
Papa John DeFrancesco was taught music by his father, a saxophonist for several big bands during the great Swing era. Papa John first played trumpet and later began playing the organ, whi...
Charles Hodges and his brothers were regular session players in Memphis. Charles was among the early keyboardist for Willie Mitchell's band, which was the cornerstone for the Hi Records ...
Steve Nathan is among the top studio musicians in Nashville. Although his recording career began in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, Nashville studios have been requesting his musicianship non-st...
Bill Jones is the founder of Bill Jones Music in Knoxville Tennessee. The retailer started in 1973 with a focus on piano and organs, which was during the height of the organ boom. Over t...
Keith Beckingham recalls watching his father, a church organist, playing the piano at home and then sitting down and copying the music he heard. He grew up fascinated by the piano and org...
Don Airey is widely known as the current keyboardist for Deep Purple, a gig he has had since 2002. His career spanned the development of electronic instrumentation, which grew as his own ...
Larry "Moogstar" Clemon gained his nickname playing synthesizers for several funk and R&B bands such as the Zapp Band and Cameo. While working with Roger Troutman with the Zapp Band,...
Michael Falkenstein grew up in a very musical family. His father was repairing musical instruments when Michael was a small child. Michael watched his father work in the music industry ...
Jimmy Vivino wanted to be a blues guitarist when he first heard “Foxy Lady” by Jimi Hendrix! He has since been a successful musician both on stage and in the studios. He and his brother ...
Booker T. Jones grew up in Memphis and began recording as a session player while still in high school at the age of 17. While waiting for a session to begin, Booker and the other musicia...
Dave "Baby" Cortez recorded an instrumental hit playing the Hammond B-3 entitled "The Happy Organ." He followed that with another top ten hit "The Whispering Organ" and continued to play ...
Dr. Lonnie Smith was among the well respected organists who endeared himself within the music products industry as a master of the Hammond B3, who often demonstrated his skills for fellow...
Jack Ripperger was the director of marketing for the Hammond Organ Company for seven years, at the height of the home organ boom in the United States during the 1960s and 1970s. During hi...
Jon Hammond has successfully created a career based on his musical talents and his passion for the music industry! As a musician Jon has performed with many legendary players and as a cli...
Kyle Barker began working in the piano retail industry in 1969 when the Sherman & Clay Piano Company in Northern California hired him. Five years later he established Barker Music in ...
Jimmy Gibbs opened the very first crate containing a Hammond B-3 in the United Kingdom in the 1950s. Several years later, at the height of the Cold War, Jimmy brought the famous organ to ...
Gerald “Wig” Wiggins was a world renowned composer, arranger and jazz keyboardist. As an early pioneer in playing jazz on the Hammond B-3 organ, Wig had a strong interest in new and inven...
Manji Suzuki had a deep passion for the music industry. He is the founder and president of Suzuki Musical Instrument Manufacturing Company in Hamamatsu, Japan. The company began as a harm...
Houston Person, after a 3-year old musical partnership with the great vocalist Etta Jones, is only now receiving the recognition he deserves as one of today’s leading instrumentalists in ...
Joey DeFrancesco
Joey DeFrancesco single-handedly brought back the popularity of the Hammond B-3, beginning in the 1990s. Joey’s soulful approach echoes his heroes of the past such as Jim...
