Van Alexander co-wrote “A-Tisket, A-Tasket” with Ella Fitzgerald while both worked in the Chick Webb Orchestra back in 1938. The success of that song led to a job as arranger for Webb as ...
John Altman, the world-renowned composer, grew up in a musically rich family and found his own passion for music at an very young age. His uncles (Woolf and Sid Phillips) were successful ...
H.B. Barnum started his life off as a child actor, staring in TV shows such as the Jack Benny Show and the Amos n Andy Shows. Throughout his life, however, he had a fascination with the p...
Larry Batiste has served as the musical director for the TEC Awards for over 20 years. His love for music all started when his uncle’s piano arrived in his home while Larry was a child. H...
Larry Blank was greatly influenced by attending Broadway musicals with his parents as a kid. As a result he studied drama yet realized he wanted to be a musician. Larry played piano growi...
Milton DeLugg wrote many remarkable and popular songs such as "Orange Colored Sky," recorded by Nat King Cole. He wrote TV theme songs and stacks of movie music. All the while, he was wor...
Ronnie Drumm had a full and fulfilling life in music! As a child he picked up the trumpet, which he played during his time as a big band leader, musical director and educator. Ronnie work...
Larry Dunn played a key role in the success of the legendary group Earth, Wind & Fire! As the keyboardist for the group he added new sounds in the innovative era of electronic musica...
Sheila E sat down for her NAMM Oral History interview to discuss the importance of music and music education, as well as her early musical experiences. She has always believed her earlie...
Snooky Flowers was asked to put a band together to go on the road and travel with a young blues singer named Janis Joplin. As her bandleader he helped to prepare her for road performances...
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...
Joe Guercio is best known for the 8 years he served as Elvis Presley’s musical director, beginning in Las Vegas in 1969. He formed the orchestra that backed Elvis and his band on every to...
Tom Haggerty grew up in the Black Hills of South Dakota where he learned to play the guitar. He gigged for many years on the road, which at one point took him to Nashville where he wrote...
Randy Hart has played piano and keyboards since he was a kid, however, his early career in the music industry was booking bands in the Washington DC area. One such band was Tractor, for w...
Andre Jacquemin remembers the day he was asked to engineer some comedy records for a young group of writers in London. He thought, who will want a record with only jokes? That group of wr...
Hugh Martin was a great American songwriter who teamed with Ralph Blane at the end of the golden age of Tin Pan Alley to give us such classics as “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas,”...
Kerry Marx is the Music Director for the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, Tennessee. He began working for the Opry in 2000 as a member of the staff band. The band regularly backs up the many ...
Scott May knew since he was five years old that he wanted to play the organ! He fell in love with the endless possibilities of the instrument as he grew and discovered that the Hammond w...
Tony Newton was nicknamed “Baby Funk Brother” by the original studio musicians at Motown Records where he began working in 1964. His first session with the Funk Brothers was the song “Bab...
Brian Ray had the most remarkable beginning of his amazing musical career when he was hired by Bobby Pickett to play guitar on Pickett’s big hit “Monster Mash” for a fundraiser. The event...
Sylvester Rivers has applied his musical talents to thousands of hit recordings over the years as well as music for television and motion pictures. His list of credits includes several ca...
Roby Turner moved to Las Vegas as a teenager and soon embraced the rich and diverse musical landscape of the city. He played for a number of groups, big and small, in dives, bars and show...
David Rosenthal has been playing keyboards in Billy Joel’s band since 1993, much of that time as the music director. He’s done everything from arranging Billy’s music for live orchestra t...
Patrice Rushen has forged many in roads in the music industry. While Patrice got her start recording as an accomplished jazz pianist, she soon branched out into many other genres includin...
Rey Sanchez is a professor and the Associate Dean for the Frost School of Music at the University of Miami - one of the leading schools for music business programs. This special focus has...
Frank Simes was born in Tokyo, Japan and began studying guitar at the age of ten. During his fascinating career in music Frank has played guitar with the likes of Mick Jagger and Stevie ...
Joe Spivey is a much-in-demand fiddle player in Nashville who has recorded and toured with Shania Twain, The Blackhawks, Dolly Parton and John Anderson, among others. He grew up in Shreve...
Billy Taylor was first and foremost a jazz pianist. This fact might surprise some people who knew Billy best for one of a number of other careers he enjoyed in music, including teaching, ...
Allen Toussaint represented one of the quintessential New Orleans sounds. Toussaint’s compositions and songs seamlessly blend blues, jazz, ragtime, R&B, and funk to create an amalgam ...
Jonathan Tunick’s impressive career began with taking piano lessons as a kid and later learning the clarinet and saxophone. Attending LaGuardia Performing Arts High School and working wit...
Nate Watts grew up in Detroit, Michigan when Motown was in full swing, and it proved to be a major inspiration for the bass legend. In 1974 Nate was summoned by Stevie Wonder to join his ...
Harold Wheeler remembers standing in front of the large orchestra about to raise his hands to conduct when it hit him - "I am at the opening ceremonies of the 1996 Olympics!" That epic mo...
