Multiple Interviews
Lowell Simpson spent his entire life in music. As a child he played music as well as sang and in fact, continued to sing over the decades even after working as a sales manager for several industry manufacturers. From 1965 until 1978 he served as a sales rep for the Wurlitzer Company. He traveled to...
Bob Popyk knows enough about the music industry to write about it! Bob had several music retail stores before selling them in 1979 to form a sales and marketing strategies business. Since that time he has been active writing columns for Music Trades magazine and providing sessions at several NAMM...
Pete LaPlaca is a well respected industry leader who has added his great musical passion to the creation, development and marketing of musical products going back to the 1960s. Pete was a leading sales manager for a number of companies during his career, among them G. Leblanc, F. E. Olds and Gibson...
Walter Carter along with his wife, Christie, formed Nashville's "friendliest guitar store" when they opened Carter Vintage Guitars. With a last name so well known in country music, you can understand why a beautiful painting of Mother Maybelle Carter adorns the outside wall of the building. The...
Billy Everitt grew up in the music industry beginning with weekend jobs at his father’s retail business in Dallas. Billy attended his first TMEA (Texas Music Educators Association) annual meeting in 1969 and ever one since. He became president of Brook Mays, the music retail chain formed in 1901....
Laurence Juber, like so many kids in the 1960s, began playing guitar soon after hearing the Beatles for the first time. He couldn’t dream that one day his talents as a guitarist would allow him to play along side Paul McCartney as a member of Wings, the band Paul formed a year after the Beatles...
Steve West took over his father’s store and went on to become an industry leader who served as president of the NAMM Board. Steve recalls the days as a boy running around West Music as his father, Pearl, sold instruments and gave lessons. With the expansion of the store in the 1970s, Steve saw the...
Del Casher has an impressive scrapbook full of photographs from his career as a professional guitarist and inventor of music products, such as the early guitar effects called the Echo-Phonic. Among those photos is one of Del testing the Roland mini guitar and even one of Del performing alongside...
Robert Saied took great inspiration from his father, James. Robert’s father formed the Saied Music Company in Tulsa, OK in 1946 after serving as a band director in various schools in the area. Robert helped expand the store to several locations as well as participate in music industry organizations...
Nick Peck’s entire face lights up whenever he talks about a great school music program! The son of a band director, the passion seems to be in his blood. After taking over the store his father started in Greenville, South Carolina, Nick joined the NAMM board in 1969. He rose to the top becoming...