Music Accessories
Milton Kyser was raised in a small, poor farming family in East, Texas. He grew up during the Great Depression and in fact as a boy told himself if he ever had a business of his own he would have all the work done by local employees so they could provide for their own families. After years as a...
Meredith Hamlin is the general manager of the Kyser Music Product Company in Canton, Texas. She is proud of the company her uncle formed in 1975, and the fact that all of their products are made in the United States. Her uncle, Milton Kyser, designed the company’s quick change capo, its first...
Rob Mazzella is the vice president of GMS Drum Company. As a teenager, Rob combined his love of drumming with this love of machine shop work and began creating small accessory items for local music stores. Rob established GMS, which stands for his series of products called Grand Master Series, in...
Charles Avsharian is the CEO of Shar Musical Products, which he established in 1962 along with his brother, Michael. The brothers toured for years as professional musicians and along with their father formed a small business to provide instruments and accessories to their friends and fellow...
Rosemary D’Andrea has always been interested in art and in fact had a series of galleries in and around Long Island, New York. So when her husband, the president of the D’Andrea Guitar Pick Company asked for her help in designing products and marketing materials, she was hooked! Rosemary had the...
Tony D’Andrea is the grandson of Luigi D’Andrea, the innovative founder of the famed pick company. After college, Tony joined the company and worked long and hard to expand the business over the years. Among his contributions to the guitar pick are the PRO-GRIP products he created to reduce the...
Elaine Taylor began working on the bench at Selmer in Elkhart in 1975, where she covered cases. Over the years she has worked in the cork and padding department for saxophones, also in the instrument cleaning department, in the office and then as a supervisor in the instrument accessory...
Abbott Buegeleisen and his late brother ran the music wholesaling business that his father formed in New York City. Abbott’s father and a friend, who soon after passed away, combined their names to form Buegeleisen & Jacobson. B&J became a strong force in the industry by providing...
Jim Hennessey was working for Kaman Aerospace when he was transferred to the Ovation Guitar division. Jim worked closely with Charlie Kaman on several projects and later worked in the advertising department for Ovation. Jim expanded his duties to run the endorsement program and helped sign over 300...
Evelyn Conrad is the president of Tone King, a company her parents started in the early 1950s. Her father was innovative in manufacturing guitar bags and a line of accessories. By the 1970s he had branched into distribution for eight major music companies and by 1976 he took on the Ernie Ball line...