Lester Abrams is the songwriter who teamed up with Michael McDonald to pen the Doobie Brothers hit "Minute by Minute." As a teenager and playing drums, Lester's first band was the El Dor...
Mike Adams has a background in mechanical engineering as well as manufacturing, which seemed to fit perfectly when he began working with Bob Moog back in 2002. Bob was looking to expand h...
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 ...
Keith Alexander played the important role of Director of Operations for the Los Angeles-based swing band, the Big Band Alumni. The band, whose leader is Bill A. Jones, was established in ...
Will Alexander worked for Oberheim in the heyday of the synthesizer boom of the 1970s. He helped engineer the Oberheim Four Voice System as well as the popular OB-X units. He soon realize...
Marco Alpert has had a fascinating career in the music industry and lucky for the NAMM Oral History collection he shared many of his stories with us. Marco was an electronic music compose...
Mark Amentt was brought into the music products industry to help direct the then, newly established AIMM group, to better serve its members. The group soon grew as did its noted annual m...
Charles Anderson displayed his love for music education beginning at a young age. In fact, he was hired at the age of 15 to teach while he was still in high school. Over the years he ex...
Craig Anderton was among a very small group of engineers at the dawn of the synthesizer revolution during the 1970s that was in the position to report, educate and compose music based on ...
Rod Argent had an idea for a new sound, a new band in a new era of music. After creating a group and writing songs to perform and record, Rod’s dream of a new style of rock was born (with...
Thomas Austin was a key part of the Sherman Clay team for over 40 years! The store chain focused on pianos; however, Thomas recalls the home organ boom in the 1970s as the company was a ...
Percy Bady grew up surrounded by gospel, thanks largely to the fact his father was a minister. Since he was six years old, Percy expressed his feelings through music, especially in churc...
Adriana Balic is a vocalist, keyboardist, guitarist, songwriter, producer, bandleader, and educator, covering styles from classical to pop/rock and jazz. From 2003 she served as keyboardi...
Mike Bates is the senior member of the Institutional Solutions Group in the Keyboard Division of Yamaha Corporation of America. Over the last 28 years with the company, Mike’s career has ...
Carma Lou Beck was an active musician and teacher when she began working in music retail in Iowa in the 1960s. She opened her own store in Cedar Rapids in 1967, after working for a few ot...
Bryan Bell was given the task of engineering a working synthesizer using all of Herbie Hancock’s favorite keyboards back in the early 1970s, well before MIDI. Herbie’s single instruction ...
Athan Billias had a rather impressive vantage point to witness the growth and development of the synthesizer in the late 1970s and early 80s. After performing as a professional musician i...
Dave Biro became fascinated with electronic music the second he watched Rick Wakeman perform in the late 1960s. He soon set off on an odyssey to create his own instrument. Dave worked t...
John Blanch grew up learning all about solid customer service from his father, who owned a grocery store north of Sydney, Australia. Those lessons helped John during his career in the mus...
Michael Boddicker grew up in a music store, one his parents formed in Cedar Rapids, Iowa and where his love for music began! His amazing musical career has covered many areas, although i...
John Booth has played an enormous role in the development and growth of Roland within the United Kingdom. As President of Roland UK, he has witnessed the expansion of the market in Englan...
David Briggs was learning his skills as a studio musician in both Muscle Shoals and Nashville when he received a call to replace Floyd Cramer in a recording session. That session just hap...
Pete Brown is a Principal Software Engineer in Windows at Microsoft and oversees the company’s MIDI 2.0 implementation. He grew up in Massachusetts and was introduced to synthesizers whil...
Louisa Buchanan, hailing from Queensland, Australia, was immersed in music from a young age, mastering the organ at 6 and piano by 12. Alongside her musical journey, she honed her skills ...
Don Buchla grew up with a passion for music and a passion for engineering. When he combined the two loves, he created electronic musical instruments the world had never dreamed of before....
Avery Burdette, the product manager for Yamaha Corporation of America, began his long love of music pushing down the pedals of his mother's organ as a small child while his mother played....
Paulo Caius played music as a child and enjoyed each chance he had to work with fellow musicians. When the chance came to open his own music store, Paulo jumped at it. Caius Music, locate...
Brendan Callinan likes to say that everything he owns he obtained because of music. As a rock performer in the highly successful Australian group the Radiators, Brendan played and wrote s...
Paul Calvin feels that his experience as a music retailer, including several years with Schmitt Music in Minnesota, has been helpful in his role as Vice President and General Manager of t...
Bernie Capicchiano was coached from the Accounting world to manage a new music retail store for the Brash Group in Australia in 1973.His long career in the industry includes a strong rela...
Rober Castle is currently the managing director of KORG UK, having been tied to the company in one way or another since 1981. In his early days with the company, Rob played a role on the ...
Joe Castronovo began working for Unicord in the months before the company was sold and became KORG USA. With a solid team, which included the late Mike Kovins, under the leadership of KOR...