Guitars
Kerry King has become a regular artist that NAMM member retailers could meet during the trade shows. His career as a guitarist led to a number of product endorsements and several opportunities to provide feedback and design ideas for amps, guitars and accessories over the years. In 1981, Kerry and...
Thomas Weilbier is the President of No. 1 Guitar Center GmbH, which is located in the musical hub of Hamburg, Germany. Thomas related some of the strong rock and roll history of the city and how his guitar shop was placed at the perfect location to grow over the decades as vintage instruments grew...
Mac Yasuda played country music at an early age and fell in love with the style. He organized a band in Japan dedicated to country music. As his audiences grew, Mac was being asked more and more about where they too could get the type of guitars he was playing. He soon began dealing in musical...
Bucky Pizzarelli was a jazz guitarist who helped bring the sounds of the electric guitar into jazz and into popular music, beginning in the 1940s. As a stage performer and later a studio musician, Bucky's guitar can be heard on countless recordings both by other artists as well as on his own. He...
Mary Lou Hoogenboom was a factory worker for the Gibson Guitar Company when it was located in Kalamazoo, Michigan. She was hired in 1951 and began working in the sanding department, but found that she worked in every department before she retired in 1985. Her retirement occurred the same year the...
Joyce Shelven was a factory worker for the Gibson Guitar Company when it was located in Kalamazoon, Michigan. She was hired in 1947 just after the war and began working in the sanding department. Joyce worked both the belt sanders as well as the hand sanders before she left the company in 1964. ...
Mike Korpak enjoyed his work in the factory at Gibson Guitars beginning back in the 1960s in Kalamazoo, Michigan. During his career at Gibson, Mike was able to grow into management and ran the parts department for years before his retirement. In fact, Mike was the last employee of Gibson in the...
Ren Wall proudly followed his father's footsteps and worked in the Gibson Guitar Company in Kalamazoo, Michigan. He began working for the company in 1960 and continued until 1982. A few years later he returned to the very same factory to work for Heritage Guitar Company, which was formed by...
Hubert Friar was hired by the Gibson Guitar Company in Kalamazoo in 1959. Hubert worked for the company over 25 years. He worked at the end of the line, doing fret work. Hubert grew up playing guitar and knew Ren Wall and his father as a kid. When he was older he was recommended by Ren's father...
Dean Zelinsky wanted to bring cool guitars to the market place and when he set out to do just that he was still in high school! The year after graduating, he opened Dean Guitars and attended his first NAMM Show the year after that, which was 1977. Dean pioneered several aspects of the industry...