Gail O'Brien Stewart grew up in a family that greatly appreciated music and as a child she often attended live concerts. In elementary school she went to a young people’s concert where se...
Cosmo Watts is a multi-talented musician and songwriter who played an important role in the music products industry as a sound designer, synthesizer programmer and music teacher. Growing ...
Sharell Del Fiorentino remembers as a little girl pretending the back of her daddy’s car seat was a piano keyboard. As long as she can recall, she has always wanted to be a pianist. When ...
Gary Panton grew up in Niagara, New York, and played the drums and vibes in high school. It was there that he started his first band, a jazz trio. In 1970 he was hired by Dick Crino in Du...
Dusty Wheeler served as a medic in the US Air Force during the Vietnam War. After the war he attended college all the while playing guitar and giving lessons. In 1979 he opened Dusty’s Gu...
Jim Palenscar opened up his small shop, Steel Guitars of North County, in Oceanside, California back in 2000. While in college, Jim heard the steel guitar on Jackson Browne’s recording of...
Jimmy Edwards grew up in a musical family. His father was a singer in a rock band and Jimmy began playing drums by the time he was five and later picked up the guitar. After serving in th...
Jeff Berlin has always been surrounded by music and considers it the most important element of his life besides his family. The first instrument he picked up was the violin at age five, w...
David Brock is a gifted violin and banjo teacher who provides private lessons at the Folk Music Center in Claremont, California. His long association with the musical instrument store goe...
Marvin Blickenstaff has had an indelible mark on countless music students of all ages over his long career. As an educator he taught at the college level and has provided thousands of wor...
Dr. David Karp grew up with music all around him and with the encouragement of his parents to pursue his passion for music. As a composer, pianist, professor and author of published teach...
Claudio Cecere grew up in the music store his father established in Southern Australia. He learned to play drums at an early age and started giving music lessons while still in school. Hi...
Joe Cecere established a small music school in 1967 in Southern Australia. As a teacher, he wanted to provide a safe and welcoming place for students at all levels to learn and appreciate...
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...
Takashi Yamazaki developed a passion for music at an early age. He played guitar and piano and was encouraged by music teachers, which became an inspiration for him in starting his chain ...
Marjorie Jones and her husband opened the Bill Jones Music store in Knoxville, Tennessee back in 1973. She joined Bill full-time in 1989 after raising their children, and in 2011, Marjori...
Bill Richardson played drums and his brother played guitar growing up in Canton, Mississippi. His drum kit came together very slowly, first a Ludwig part, then something from Slingerland ...
Tommie Vaughn was just seven years old when his father purchased a piano. He played in church since age 11 and was inspired and encouraged by the church organist who also took time to sho...
Lauri Knapton is the founder of Knapton Musik Knotes in Janesville, Wisconsin. The store, which was established in 2000, provides musical instruments, lessons, and a long list of communit...
Kyoko Hara is proud to continue her family tradition of being involved in the music products industry. It all began in 1919 when her grandfather opened a small store. Her father, Ryoji Ok...
Abdulla Muijrers was encouraged to pursue his musical dreams by his parents. He was inspired by Queen and Motörhead while playing drums in a thrash medal band. Abdulla landed a job in the...
Patrick Nettesheim was a Milwaukee based guitar instructor when a life-changing meeting occurred in 2007 with Vietnam-era Marine, Dan Van Buskirk. Dan had always wanted to learn how to pl...
Mat Donaldson set out to create an encouraging and exciting lesson program when he opened his own shop, Drum World, in 1990. He opened the store, located in Tulsa, Oklahoma, with the idea...
Mary Ortigara has always had a deep passion for education and was an English major at Xavier College. After graduating in the late 1950s, she began working in her brother’s music store gi...
Mario Ortigara joined his brother’s music store just two years after it opened. Since 1949, Mario worked alongside his brother Ben who started the store to teach and sell accordions. By 1...
Linda (Wert) Young asked her parents, when she was twenty, to assist her in the upstart of a music store after realizing her passion for helping children identify their interest and abili...
Jacques Masson was just 15 years old when he began giving drum lessons at a local music store. He has been involved with teaching music ever since. As a player, Jacques was approached by ...
Steve Held was involved in music retail beginning when he was a teenager working at the Music Corner in Waterloo, Iowa. He later worked for West Music in Iowa City for well over a decade ...
Rand Cook recalls his mother taking him into the Candyman Strings & Things music store when he was three years old. He was quickly disappointed at that young age that the store when h...
Steve Harkey and his father, Don, formed Accent Music in Wilmington, Delaware in 1988. He was joined in the store by his wife, Joyce, after she raised their five children. The couple met ...
Joyce Harkey took regular piano lessons as a child and remembers the day when she was a teenager and her love for music just clicked. She focused on what she could do to use music to help...
Tim Spicer studied special education in college and has applied his passion of helping others and his love of music when he opened a music store in 2012. Spicer's Music focuses on offerin...
