Interview Performance
Harry Bickel has been passionate about the folk songs and bluegrass music of Kentucky since he was a kid. While in college, he took banjo lessons from J.D. Crowe and learned how to repair banjos from Tom Haile, at Shackleton’s music store. When he purchased his home (The Bluegrass Hotel) in 1975,...
Stephen Bennett provided music lessons in two music stores in the late 1970s while gigging at night. It was the first time he quit his day job, at a department store, to focus on music full time. During the 1980s he was given his great grandfather’s harp guitar and soon incorporated the instrument...
Gary Leunberger opened a music store in San Francisco during the 1980s that soon specialized in electronic keyboards and synthesizers. Being a top seller of Yamaha instruments led the company to hire Gary to help program their products. Gary created the voice presets for the DX7, among others,...
Wallace Roney attended the Anaheim NAMM Show in 2018, playing his Kanstul trumpet and taking time to sit down for an Oral History interview. He spoke of his love of the trumpet and some of the players he learned from over the years including Dizzy Gillespie and Miles Davis, who became a personal...
Charley Pride was born one of 11 children in Sledge, Mississippi. Although he enjoyed music as child and learned to pick out songs on guitar by ear, Charley had a desire to be a professional baseball player. Charley played for the Memphis Red Sox in the Negro American League and was shopped around...
Bobby Bare Sr. began writing songs as a teenager and landed a hit record with the talking blues song "All American Boy" in 1958 when Bobby was just 18 years old. He followed that recording with several other hits including "Detroit City" and "500 Miles Away from Home." During his NAMM interview,...
James Hall saw his sister’s flute and wondered if he could make one out of glass. He bought a glass tube from his university’s science supply and used his brother’s blow torch to make finger holes in the tube. His first flute wasn't completely in tune, but James knew he was on to something new and...
Garth Hudson sat down at the piano and played several classical works as the NAMM Oral History crew set up the camera and lights. He began by playing, stopping every once in a while, to review his notes. Garth spoke about his love for music and his first teacher in Canada who impressed upon him the...
Peter Yarrow is the Peter in the wildly successful popular folk music trio Peter, Paul, and Mary. During his often musical NAMM Oral History interview, Peter spoke of the role music played during the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s, as well as the anti-war movement during the Vietnam War. The...
Betty Wright was three years old when she was placed on a pile of phone books in a studio in order to reach the microphone when her family recorded gospel music. She began writing songs very young, many of which were performed by her siblings. In the 1960s, Betty made the move to R&B music and...