Guitars
Earl Remaley began working for the C.F. Martin & Company before World War II. His long career with the company included nearly every phase of production and assembly. During the 1950s Earl worked on the Martin ukulele products and he later worked his way up to plant manager. Following in his...
Lester Wagner began in the woodworking and sanding department of the C.F. Martin & Company before World War II. He moved from the North Street Plant in 1964 to the bigger manufacturing plant in the current location on Sycamore Street in Nazareth, PA. Lester was assigned to the ukulele...
Marcellus Trach recalls with a smile the many rules a wood worker had to follow in the C.F. Martin & Company when he was first hired after World War II. He also expressed the pride so many of his co-workers felt over the years towards the world-class musical instruments they were making each...
Larry Robinson's career as a luthier began in 1972 as an unpaid apprentice for three years before working for Alembic, Turner Guitars and with Modulus Graphite, a San Francisco company making graphite-necked guitars and basses. In 1984 Larry went out on his own and focused his attention to the...
Johnny Thompson had the distinction of being the very first music student of a young steel guitar player named Ernie ball. Back in the early 1950s, before he established a string company, Ernie was a well-known country player in and around the Los Angeles area and taught a few students for extra...
Warren Price’s father started a small Canadian music retail store when Warren was just 17 years old. Soon after Warren purchased his first drum kit and discovered he wanted to join his father in the music business. A few years later, with his father’s blessing, Warren started a drum shop and a...
Fred Kalisky became enamored with the maracas on his very first trip to Mexico City and realized it was an instrument that could be successful in the Canadian market (his home since relocating from his native Poland after World War II). The same year, 1957, he formed his wholesale business and...
Rick Kukulies helped design and develop the Kustom line of amplifiers in the 1970s. His electrical engineering background along with the advances in technology during that era resulted in the highly successful Kustom product line. When the Hanser Music Group purchased the Kustom line, Rick stayed...
Jack Hanser’s grandfather started a music retail store called Hanser Music. Jack’s father and uncle reshaped this business into a powerful music wholesaler in the late 1950s. In the 1980s, Jack and his brothers added the manufacturing of musical instruments to the company’s repertoire. Today,...
Bob Wiley’s father opened a small music store in Kansas in the mid 1930s and specialized in steel guitars. When the sales rep, Charlie Hayes, came into the store with electric guitars from a new company called Fender, Bob’s father was thrilled. In 1947, the store was one of the country’s first...