Deceased
Grady Gaines jumped onto the piano during a gig with Little Richard and wailed on his saxophone back in the early 1950s. The photograph of that event has become iconic as it represents the rhythm and blues roots of rock and roll. Grady played his King saxophone with hundreds of artists over the...
Herb Remington was the steel guitarist for Bob Wills and the Texas Playboy who built his own line of guitars called Remington Steel. Among his fascinating history: being long time personal friends with Leo Fender. For a while, Fender made steel guitars and, in the beginning, Leo would often give...
Doug LaLonde was a professional musician before being drafted to serve in the US Army during the Korean War. He played percussion in the army and while stationed in San Francisco began his long and successful career with the Sherman Clay retail chain. Doug began in the MI department but soon...
Michael Paul, known as MP, always had an interest in the visual arts, especially those that could involve multiple formats. When he had the chance to create light and color programs for live musical acts in the 1960s, MP found his true passion! He worked on countless shows including those for the...
Dale Probst and his wife, Elizabeth Ward, formed Ward & Probst Piano & Organ Service Piano Tuning Service in Wichita Falls, Texas. They both have followed their life's dream to provide working instruments to assist their customers to make music! Dale was particularly active in the Piano...
Joe Swenson played trumpet in grade school and was influenced by his mother who played the piano and gave lessons. While earning his degree in trumpet performance in college, Joe worked in a local music store where his interest in piano tuning began. He befriended the store’s piano technician and...
Ben Cauley can be heard on hundreds of Stax Record hits including those with Otis Redding. Ben was a member of Otis's backup band called the Bar-Kays, which originated as the horn section at the Stax studio in Memphis beginning in the 1960s. Ben was the only survivor of the plane crash that took...
Quinton Claunch was a musical innovator who formed Hi Records in Memphis as well as the Goldwax label. He played guitar and bass professionally beginning in 1943 and can be heard on a number of recordings on the Sun label in the early to mid 1950s, including those by Carl Perkins and Wanda Jackson...
Rick Hall was born just down the country road from Sam Philips, the founder of Sun Records in Memphis. Perhaps there was something in the Florence River there near Muscle Shoals because Rick too went on to establish a famous recording studio, Fame! Rick entered the music publishing industry in...
Jimmy Johnson was a co-founder of the Muscle Shoals Sound Studio in Alabama along with fellow studio musicians Roger Hawkins, Barry Beckett and David Hood. The four musicians, known as the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section, started playing together in and around Jimmy’s hometown of Sheffield, Alabama,...