Guitars
Ray Scherr was hired by Wayne Mitchell, the founder of Guitar Center, to help strengthen and develop the small store. Ray added the culture and helped drive the growth of the company from the one location to the largest music store chain in the world. His passion for the music industry began when...
Jimmy Gravity was setting up a newly made electric guitar as he talked with several of his customers gathered around his work bench. Holding court comes easy to Jimmy because he views his customers and co-workers as friends coming over to hang out. The topics range from baseball to politics and...
Mike Newman adds a special approach to repair and guitar set-ups at Jimmy Gravity Guitars in St. Louis, Missouri. Having been a professional musician since he was a teenager and member of touring bands, Mike knows the needs of stage musicians and applies that knowledge to each guitar he repairs...
Mike Fazio opened a small retail shop in St. Louis called Fazio's Frets & Friends. The year was 1978. Within a few months it was clear that he found his niche and before long the store became a lifeblood for area musicians as well as traveling performers. Mike was educated in retail business...
Tom Wittrock remembers the very moment he decided to dedicate his career to the guitar: when he purchased his first Les Paul sunburst in the mid-1970s. Many of his friends thought he was crazy when he paid more for a used instrument instead of getting a new one cheaper, but Tom knew just what he...
Ed Seelig opened a small guitar shop when he was a teenager, having already made connections within the concert circuit selling used gear to traveling musicians. The store, Silver Strings Music and Repair in St. Louis, Missouri opened in the early 1970s. He organized one of the very first vintage...
Richard Gellis remembers the early days of the vintage guitar movement when greater value was being placed on "used instruments." As his small store grew in Santa Cruz, California, so did his reputation for knowledge and customer services that helped make Union Grove Music the go-to place for...
Tom Steuckert is a veteran of the music industry having served as store manager at Union Grove Music in Santa Cruz, a road rep and sales manager. His career began when he helped assemble synthesizers for Dave Smith at Sequential Circuits in the early 1980s. Tom later owned his own store in Half...
Jason Berg is a guitar tech at Union Grove Music in Santa Cruz, where he was interviewed for the NAMM Oral History program to discuss his involvement with the Supro Guitar line as well as other parts of his career in the industry. As a repairman for Union Grove Music, Jason rents a space in the...
Fat Dog is the founder of Subway Guitars in Berkeley, California. Since the 1960s, the store has become a hub for musicians to gather to discuss everything from politics and human rights concerns as well as music and poetry. The level of social awareness that Subway had was in Fat Dog's...