Music Manufacturing
Lyndell Thompson was delighted when her two sons, Phil and James, came to her and her husband with a new idea for their Nashville-based leather company. The year was 1978. Until that point the company had made horse accessories, a market that was slowly decreasing. The boys suggested making...
Bruce Bolen has had a long and colorful career in the music industry spanning nearly 50 years and with two of the best-known guitar makers in the world. Mr. M.H. Berlin, the president of Chicago Musical Instruments (CMI), first hired Bruce into the industry. At the time, CMI owned Gibson Guitars...
Jay Valle began working in the organ industry in the 1950s and has witnessed some rather amazing changes. He was part of the organ boom of the 1960s and 70s that brought the instrument into shopping malls as an impulse item. Jay has watched the change in technology, which has greatly benefited the...
Phil Thompson enjoyed working in the leather company his grandfather formed in Nashville. As a teenager Phil made himself a leather guitar strap in the shop, although the business at the time was devoted to horse accessories. When Martin Guitars asked if the company could make a series of straps...
Tish Ciravolo played bass in rock and punk bands in the 1970s and 80s but felt there was always a disconnect between female performers and the instruments. With an idea stemming from her daughter’s drawing of a daisy, Tish launched a guitar company with the mission to help girls make music. The...
Hal Harrower designed his first double neck instrument in 1987, a 6-string guitar and a 4-string bass. Using the Steinberger system, that first instrument built by Hal not only looked different, it sounded different and gained a reputation for its clean sound. Hal developed a line of guitars, both...
Sheryl Laukat is passionate about the saxophone and the company she formed with her husband back in 1996. Tevis and Sheryl Laukat had the idea of creating a saxophone with acoustics that could be adjusted and modified even after the instrument was created. Their ideas and innovation led to the...
Tevis Laukat and his wife Sheryl formed Cannonball Musical Instruments in 1996 in Sandy, Utah, located just south of Salt Lake City. The couple set out to address some of the issues they and their musician friends were having with their instruments. As a touring performer with a host of jazz and...
Peter Paul Prier began playing the violin when he was 8 years old, growing up in Germany. He studied violin making while he was a teenager and in 1959 set out to America to open his own violin shop. Within five years he formed what is now the Peter Paul Prier Violin Shop in Salt Lake City. In 1972...
Jol Dantzig met Paul Hamer in college and played together in various bands before the two formed their own retail and teaching studio. They soon found themselves designing and building their own style of electric guitars and basses. With the help of two other friends, the Hamer Guitar Company was...