Rick Young has spent over 20 years with Yamaha making several important contributions to the Pro Audio Division and Band Instrument Division. Rick has also played a vital role in the Musi...
Tom Oberheim is the inventor of the first polyphonic music synthesizer, who played a vital role in the establishment of MIDI standards back in the early 1980s. The Oberheim Company create...
Judy Dodds managed the construction of the NAMM headquarters and the Museum of Making Music in Carlsbad, California. The 1997 project was one of many she performed for the NAMM over her n...
Jol Dantzig met Paul Hamer in college and played together in various bands before the two formed their own retail and teaching studio. They soon found themselves designing and building th...
Tom Dale was the original business partner and long time friend of luthier Mervyn Davis. Mervyn began building guitars in the 1970s and as the demand for his unique instruments grew so di...
Alan Dale, as a lover of swing music, found himself as a radio station host in the San Francisco Bay Area. He graced the airwaves over several stations and along the way began approaching...
Brian Crewe fully embraced the benefits of having an organ in the home. As an industry veteran who played a vital role in the boom of the home organ, Brian has outlined several plans that...
Ed Cramer was the long time music attorney who played a vital role in ensuring the performance and composing rights of musicians and songwriters. His list of clients reads like a who’s wh...
Richard Crain has been at the forefront of music education for the better part of his life. As a Texas bandmaster and educator, he has been instrumental in the growth of school music prog...
Margie Coyle joined several big bands as a singer in the golden age of the swing era. Bandleader Ziggy Coyle hired her for his band and the two fell in love. She worked at her husband’s s...
Larry Coryell enjoyed a long career as a jazz guitarist. In addition to touring and recording on his own, Larry worked with some of the greatest names in jazz. Over the years he developed...
Craig Cornwall’s father was one of the three founders of Kendor Music Inc, a music publisher located in Delevan, New York. The trio worked together to publish band music for school progr...
Gary Cooper enjoys a well-regarded career in journalism with a run in recording and popular music magazines before his work in the music products industry. He branched out with celebrated...
Michael Cooney taught music in the public schools in Massachusetts for over 25 years. During the time of his teaching he also established a high-end flute company in the early 1970s calle...
Jim Connors joined Norlin Corp. originally as the head of the Lowery Organ factories. With his strong background in manufacturing and process control, Jim was able to keep up with the 25%...
Bill Collings' passion for guitars may have started on his father’s workbench when as a boy he tinkered with woods and making things. His father’s background in engineering was also an in...
Jim Coleman recalls watching his father, a true traveling music man, tune a piano when Jim was just a boy. He not only went on to make a career of tuning, but set standards for testing tu...
John Clayton loves music! Since the age of 16, the future Grammy winner enjoyed being able to express himself with his music. He studied with Ray Brown before becoming the bassist for Hen...
Joseph Chen has put his vast knowledge of international trade along with his love of music together for a successful and respected career in the music products industry. His career began ...
Thomas Case provided a tour of the Case Brothers Piano Company before our interview. He proudly pointed to a logo of the company when his great grandfather began tuning pianos in 1904. To...
Chip Averwater took over the music retail business in Memphis, just as his father did and his son would one day, keeping the tradition in the family. Chip’s passion for the music business...
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...
Mirek Jaromir Strizka opened a musical wholesale business in the early 1960s and named it European Craft. The company began as the young Czech immigrant established a business in Los Ange...
Chip Wise served in the piano business for over fifty years and enjoyed the customers he met and the people of the music industry. During the early days of the NAMM Oral History program m...
Scott Wedge and Dave Rossum attended college together and soon developed a few clever ways of combining their engineering training with their passion for music. They began creating sound ...
Bart Wascom was the electrical engineer who sought to improve the pro-audio speakers by improving the distribution of sound. After several tests, he concluded that large wooden cabinets c...
Ted Veneman grew up in his father’s music store. As early as 1975, Ted was etching out a mail order catalog under the name “Music Emporium,” which was much earlier than most mail order ca...
Koob Veneman’s father started the first Veneman’s Music Store in Holland, an idea copied by Koob in Maryland in 1960. Koob, like his father, was a luthier who designed his own instruments...
Manuel Velazquez was one of the greatest guitar luthiers of the last one hundred years. He was born in Puerto Rico in 1917 and handcrafted his first classical guitar when he was still a t...
Mark Vail has preserved some of the music products industry’s greatest history as author and researcher of a series of publications. In 1993, BackBeat Books published Mark’s landmark book...