Music Historians
Orval Engling has become an expert on the Ibanez guitar brand, so much so that he helped write a book on the company’s history. Orval began collecting Ibanez guitars in the 1990s and has come to discover the many innovations the company created over the years. He has enjoyed learning stories from...
Dan Del Fiorentino is the Music Historian for NAMM who heads the industry's Oral History program. Dan began this special project in March 2000, after having served as the first curator of the NAMM Foundation’s Museum of Making Music. Since that time, the collection of video interviews has grown to...
Denny Tedesco archived his father’s career as a noted studio musician in Los Angeles in the award winning documentary, The Wrecking Crew. Tommy Tedesco, along with other top rated studio musicians in LA in the 1960s and 70s, have been called The Wrecking Crew, which Denny used as the title of his...
Bill Gardner grew up in Los Angeles surrounded by music. His mother worked at a local record store where he heard the music that would forever shape his life. Years later, Bill went on the air for his first radio show to honor those early musical pioneers. Bill's most recent program, Rhapsody In...
Sharon De Lorto truly discovered her passion for music upon marrying her husband, Greg, and was introduced to the culture behind Heritage Guitars, Gibson, and the iconic factory at 225 Parsons St. With a desire to understand the history and preserve the legacy of Orville Gibson, Sharon has...
Jim Merod is the founder of BluePort Sound recording studio and BluePort Jazz, his record label. Since the early 1990s, Jim has recorded a long list of legendary jazz, blues, and latin musicians including Herbie Hancock, Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan, Kenny Barron, Clark Terry, and Wayne Shorter,...
Ivor Davis was working as the foreign correspondent for the London Daily Express when he was assigned to travel with the Beatles. He joined the Fab Four during the summer of 1964 in San Francisco and traveled with them as they toured the United States making their way to New York. His 2014 book, "...
Kevin Mitchell wrote the MMR cover story in 2009 dedicated to the NAMM Oral History program and has been a strong advocate and supporter ever since! His background in music (he played the piano as a child and would graduate from UMKC’s Conservatory of Music) and his love of journalism (he feels his...
Bob Carlin got interested in rock and roll when he was just 12 years old. As a kid, he would go into Manny’s Music in New York just to see the guitars and how the industry operated. Later in life, Bob became fascinated with the vintage instrument market and how the music products industry became...
Jim Washburn took on a writing assignment as a journalist for a newspaper about the electric guitar, which led to a series of books and articles that has documented a significant chapter of the music products industry. While writing these stories, Jim was able to meet and interview a long list of...