Dan Hagedorn grew up watching his father run the family’s music retail business and always knew he would work in the music industry. His father, known as Crazy Al, began his business in t...
Sharon Sagar is the daughter of Paul Barth, the founder of Bartell Guitars. Paul started his guitar and bass manufacturing factory in Riverside, California, in 1964. As a teenager, Sharon...
Greg Martin was able to combine the many musical styles he admired growing up when he helped form the Kentucky Headhunters. The band made up of friends began playing together in 1968 and ...
Steve Miller led a popular rock band beginning in the 1960s with a string of hit songs, most of which he wrote. His passion for music began at a very young age. Did you know Les Paul was ...
Steve Gibson repeated, “I’ve been blessed,” which acted as a recurring theme throughout his NAMM Oral History interview. The sentiment comes from a review of his extraordinary career as a...
Tom Wittrock remembers the very moment he decided to dedicate his career to the guitar: when he purchased his first Les Paul sunburst in the mid-1970s. Many of his friends thought he was...
Greg Golden was in the vintage guitar business back in the days when such instruments were referred to as simply “used.” Along with a handful of key dealers across the United States, Greg...
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...
Art Laboe admired radio broadcasters from the first moment he heard voices coming out of a box his aunt had sent to Art's family when he was eight. He went on to have a successful and i...
Maudie Moore was hired by Gibson Guitars in 1962 to do small piece work and soon branched out to engraving, which became a specialty for her over the next several decades. In fact, she o...
Buddy Merrill played the pedal steel guitar on the Lawrence Welk TV program from its start in 1954 until he left the show in 1974. Buddy played Fender products while on the Welk Show, whi...
Hillel Resner wrote for Mix Magazine for several years before the idea of creating a special award for audio engineering came into existence. Hillel worked alongside David Schwartz, the f...
Susan M. Davis has fond memories of Les Paul and Mary Ford coming over to her house for dinner when she was a little girl. Her father was Gibson Guitar president Ted McCarty who signed Le...
Henry Juszkiewicz, Gibson Guitar Corporation’s former CEO, attended the Rainforest Alliance’s annual gala concert in 1994, where he first heard about the SmartWood program. He realized by...
Ted McCarty was the president of Gibson Guitars when he signed Les Paul to help design a series of instruments with his name. Ted went on to design and patent guitars such as the Flying ...
Les Paul will forever be known for his role in the popularity of the electric guitar, the design of the Gibson Les Paul guitar, the multi track recording, the early guitar effects, and hi...
