Music Manufacturing
Hugh Goldsmith was hired by the Mason-Risch Piano Company of Canada when he was still a teenager in 1937. Times were difficult during the depression era and into the war years when Hugh enlisted into the Canadian Air Force. After the war he returned to the industry and worked as a traveling sales...
William Locke worked for the Canadian division of the C.F. Martin & Company going back to the early 1970s. During that same time period, several suppliers came together to form the Musical Instrument Association of Canada (MIAC). William (Bill) joined the board of MIAC, including a term as...
O. P. Prahladka is the Chairman of Hitachi KK Manufacturing Company in Kolkata, India, and has played an important role in the development of the music products industry within his country. Hitachi provides handcrafted products made of jute, wood, horn, bone, shell, metal and other natural...
Brendan Callinan likes to say that everything he owns he obtained because of music. As a rock performer in the highly successful Australian group the Radiators, Brendan played and wrote several of the groups songs. After years on the road he was offered a job as a sales rep for Roland –beginning...
Bill Xavier was introduced into the music products industry while working with Hartley Peavey. Peavey became a strong mentor to Bill and was like a second father to him. Bill has often said that much of the passion he has for the music products industry was developed as a result of working with Mr...
Rick Kukulies helped design and develop the Kustom line of amplifiers in the 1970s. His electrical engineering background along with the advances in technology during that era resulted in the highly successful Kustom product line. When the Hanser Music Group purchased the Kustom line, Rick stayed...
Jack Hanser’s grandfather started a music retail store called Hanser Music. Jack’s father and uncle reshaped this business into a powerful music wholesaler in the late 1950s. In the 1980s, Jack and his brothers added the manufacturing of musical instruments to the company’s repertoire. Today,...
Ron Marquez formed Aquarian Accessories with jazz drummer Roy Burns back in 1980. Together they developed several successful products including a series of popular drumheads. Ron established his own powder coating company in 1974, which led to his introduction to Roy who was looking for some...
Bob Wiley’s father opened a small music store in Kansas in the mid 1930s and specialized in steel guitars. When the sales rep, Charlie Hayes, came into the store with electric guitars from a new company called Fender, Bob’s father was thrilled. In 1947, the store was one of the country’s first...
Marcus Ryle began his career in the industry as an engineer for Oberheim while he was still a teenager. In those pre MIDI days, Marcus designed a series of sound controllers as well as providing several modifications to the company’s synthesizers. He later co-founded Fast Forward in 1985 with...