Deceased
Rebecca Apodaca was the President of A & D Music Incorporated in Southern California. She played music as a child and gravitated to the electric bass. Her father and others such as Doc Kauffman (Leo Fender’s partner) and Bernardo Rico (BC Rich founder) taught her guitar repair. She grew up...
Kazuo Yairi was one of the most renowned guitar luthiers in Japan. His long career began as a child when he watched his father building unique handcrafted instruments for local students and musicians. The company expanded under Yairi-san's leadership to include several new models, but always with...
Toyomasa Namikawa was the founder and chairman of the board for the Japan music publisher Teine Corp., which was named after his initials. He dedicated his life to providing students and teachers with band instrument publications throughout Japan. While attending the Midwest Band Clinics in the...
Yoshinori Kimbara was a former Yamaha Japan Corporation executive who worked under Genichi Kawakami beginning in the 1950s. He was the first general manager of the Yamaha Music Foundation, which was created to strengthen music education in Japan. Kimbara-San was associated with recreational music...
Elliot Fine is best known to percussion students for the method book he wrote with Marvin Dahlgren called 4-Way Coordination, which was first published in 1963. Over the years, he has published several method books on drumming including Accent On Accents. He played for several big bands before...
Tadamichi Fukuda was the Chairman for the Global Corporation, located in Shinjuku, Tokyo, Japan. The company was established in 1975 based on the repairing of musical instruments, especially violins. Fukuda-San soon expanded the company to become the exclusive supplier of many brands in Japan...
Betty Lee co-founded Tom Lee Music in Hong Kong with her husband in the early 1950s. In the beginning, Thomas Lee kept his full time work as an English secretary at a textile company while Betty Lee looked after the day to day administration of the small trading company which was to become Tom Lee...
Tom Lee is one of the most famous names in the Asian market of music retail. With Tom Lee Music stores all around Hong Kong and parts of China, his name has been synonymous with music since the early 1950s. In addition to the stores that he established with his wife Betty, the Lees also formed a...
Keith Chen joined the Tom Lee Music Company in Hong Kong as a guitar salesman. The large store had a small guitar department when Keith first joined the company and he took great pride in watching the department grow and develop. During that time he also served in several areas within the guitar...
Bob Kane was born and raised in Elkhart, Indiana, known as the band instrument capitol of the world. He played cornet in school and in fact it was his high school band director who told Bob of an opening at Buescher Band Instrument Company. Bob began working in the customer service department but...