Guitars
Fred Greene enjoys running the C.F. Martin & Company factory in Nazareth, Pennsylvania, in fact you could say it is his dream job. As a guitarist he has passion to the tenth degree when it comes to sound and quality. As a former factory manager for Gibson, he has a love of working with...
Joe Beard doesn't remember a time when he didn't have a guitar. He grew up near Ashland, Mississippi becoming friends with locals Syl and Jimmy Johnson and Floyd and Matt Murphy. In Memphis he met B.B. King and Howlin’ Wolf. Later in the 1960s in Chicago, he played with Buddy Guy, Junior Wells,...
Chuck Campbell revolutionized the "Sacred Steel" style of gospel music by adding electric guitar effect pedals to his amplified pedal steel guitar. Campbell—a member of the Keith Dominion of the House of God Church—was born in 1958 and learned from the founders of the movement, including Willie...
Bob Riskin started working for McCabe’s Guitar Shop in Santa Monica just a few years after it opened in 1958. Before long the shop was abuzz with the folk music boom and later played an equally important role in the folk-rock craze that expanded the shop to include electric guitars for the first...
Ray Brooks grew up playing the blues in juke joints and small clubs all across the United States even before he was of age to drink. He toured with Freddie King and Gene Alison (among others) and developed his own style of playing that seemed to echo his roots while adding new colors and flavors...
Bryan Eagle developed a love for the blues at an early age, which ran as a thread throughout his life, first as a kid listening to early R&B records to college working for a concert production company. When he was approached to help direct the St. Blues Company, Bryan jumped at the chance to...
Roland Janes! There were musicians/engineers/producers and then there was Roland Janes! The man nearly single-handedly invented many of the engineering methods used in modern recordings, from microphone placement and cabling to board and tape deck tricks. Yet, what he seemed most fond of was his...
Ron Bienstock was playing gigs by night and the editor for the International Musicians & Recording World when he was hired by Hoshino to serve as their General Counsel. It was at that time when Ron realized he could combine his two loves, music and the law. In 1987 he opened Bienstock &...
Jack Pearson grew up listening to the Allman Brothers not knowing that one day he would join the band and tour the world playing the songs he loved. His talents on the guitar developed as a teenager playing along to his musical heroes like Duane Allman on records and the radio, but he cut his...
Arnie Lazarus invented what is largely regarded as the first three dimensional transducer for musical instruments in 1969. That same year he established a company that echoed the name of his product, FRAP. FRAP, or flat response audio pickup, was created for use on acoustic instruments. He also...