Guitars
Ken Oda was hired by Yamaha in 1967 to run their retail store in San Francisco, California. He continued to work for the company until his retirement at which point he joined Fender Musical Instruments. While at Yamaha he met and worked with Bill Schultz who later hired Ken to help grow the Asian...
Adrian Emsley is the Technical Director at Orange Amps in London. The company’s founder, Cliff Cooper, hired Adrian to lead the teams that created several key products for Orange including the RockerVerb, the OR-50 and the AD series, which was introduced in 1998. Over the years, Adrian has become...
Clive Roberts has wonderful memories of his parent’s passion for music. His mother played piano and his father performed his own songs on the ukulele-banjo for the troops during World War II. Clive picked up on their love of making music and set off to do the same. While interested in playing...
Neville Marten has enjoyed a long career as editor of Guitar Techniques, one of the magazines represented by his firm Future Publishing. Prior to that, he was editor of Guitarist magazine for 14 years. As a blues based guitarist, he writes about what interests him the most as a player; pioneering...
Anthony Macari is the Managing Director of the music shop in London, England named by his father. Macari’s Musical Instruments first opened in 1958 and was established by Joe and Larry Macari. Anthony’s father, Joe, played a key role in the growth of the shop, which today has two locations (one...
Elvin Bishop was inspired to play the guitar because as an early teen he noticed that the girls at the dance seemed to always hang out with the guitarist! When he discovered the blues, he was hooked, as he had found the style of music he felt could best express his feelings. Over his long and...
John Primer was born in Camden, Mississippi, where he learned to play the guitar before moving to Chicago to play an important role in the city's blues culture. While recording Magic Slim, John was able to contribute several songs to the album. The success of his early recordings led to gigs with...
Kev Rones received his first instrument experience when a musician on his block recognized Kev’s passion and allowed him to use the Fender in his garage. That early influence really directed him towards music, which has been his life’s passion ever since. In fact, Kev is the Pied Piper of...
Robert Cray walked into his local music store as a kid and dreamed of owning his own Fender Stratocaster. After years of playing the blues, his career took off to the point that Fender approached him to create a Robert Cray model Stratocaster, which thrilled him to no end. He was also honored to...
Lane Zastrow was playing professionally and even teaching music as a teenager. His main instrument, the accordion! After years on the road, Lane made his way into the print world. In 1967, Lane joined Sight & Sound, which was owned by Zeb Billings. He later worked for the famed Chicago...