Full Interview
Christy Coobatis is a college music professor whose amazing musical journey includes playing professionally before he was a teenager, beta testing guitars for Leo Fender, and helping to create a guitar synthesizer for Allan Holdsworth! Christy’s latest and longest tenure as a teacher has been at...
Gregory Farmer is an enthusiastic, talented, self-taught synthesist, multi-instrumentalist, composer, performer, and producer. He has collected and plays a wide range of electronic and acoustic instruments, and they’re all set up and ready to play in his excellent home studio. Greg’s wife Claudia...
Clark Hagan is a Grammy-winning recording engineer whose passion for music and sound can be heard in each of his projects. Working with an impressive list of artists, Clark has stretched beyond engineering to the producer role, allowing him to work with an equally impressive list of studio owners...
Syndenn Sweet was the first woman hired as a luthier at Bookmans Entertainment Exchange in Tucson, Arizona. This distinction is one she makes with pride, especially considering her father was a luthier as well. After earning her business degree, serving on the board of the Tucson Folk Festival, and...
Joyce Moore has been encouraged by many friends and family members for years to write a book. After her NAMM interview, we concluded the same thing. Joyce was there when Jackie Wilson recorded “Higher and Higher.” She had an onboard tour of the very plane that crashed two months later, killing Otis...
Denny Mack has been surrounded by music his entire life! His father was a Vaudeville performer and it seems all Denny ever wanted to do was be involved with music. He played drums at sock-hops when he was in school and continued to be in rock trios throughout college. Along the way he developed a...
Michael Campion has attended the NAMM Show since the late 1970s, first as a wide-eyed musician, then as a retailer and finally as an exhibitor. Tracing his evolving roles at the show mirrors his fascinating career in the music industry. Playing in garage bands led to his involvement with...
Joel Silverman, the sales and marketing guy behind several innovative pro audio products and the founder of Silverfish Audio, has had quite a musical journey! As a kid he played clarinet, drums and guitar in school and looks back fondly on his high school band director and the day the Beatles...
Kelly Wheeler and her husband Dorsey run a music retail business in Idaho with several locations. Dorsey Music was established in 1969 and just three years later Kelly walked through the doors looking to buy a guitar. She soon began working in the store before they were married a few years later....
Mark Altekruse, like so many passionate members of the music industry, specifically remembers the lessons he learned from one of his earliest and most influential music instructors. Trombonist Bugs Beddow was a local musician in Detroit who served as a musical mentor to young Mark, who went on to...