Music Retail
Michael Sagun, while attending the University of Portland, began working for a couple of local music stores. He worked as a part time shipping clerk at Barker Lynns Sheet Music Service of Portland, which he would later purchase and run until his retirement from the industry several decades later...
Mike Newman adds a special approach to repair and guitar set-ups at Jimmy Gravity Guitars in St. Louis, Missouri. Having been a professional musician since he was a teenager and member of touring bands, Mike knows the needs of stage musicians and applies that knowledge to each guitar he repairs...
Elliott Wessel likes to point out the fact that he has had five different positions at Schmitt Music at five different times during his career. He also conveys, as many others have, that Schmitt Music employees are much like a family. While Elliott worked at a time for Guitar Center in Dallas and...
Don Koller cut his teeth in the print music business at Wingert-Jones working for Frank Fendorf. While there, Don oversaw and controlled the inventory, picked the material for many of the store's well-received reading sessions and mailed choral music packets to some 50,000 Methodist churches at one...
Mike Fazio opened a small retail shop in St. Louis called Fazio's Frets & Friends. The year was 1978. Within a few months it was clear that he found his niche and before long the store became a lifeblood for area musicians as well as traveling performers. Mike was educated in retail business...
Bill Jones is the founder of Bill Jones Music in Knoxville Tennessee. The retailer started in 1973 with a focus on piano and organs, which was during the height of the organ boom. Over the years the store has developed to fit the changing needs of its customers and has become a full line music...
Tristann Rieck’s first instrument was the song flute, which was an introduction to the band program in grade school, which she joined the very next year. She later took up the alto horn and still later the French horn, which has remained her main instrument. With her father operating the...
Glendower Jones loves to unearth vocal music that is out of print yet sought after by a singer or choral group. With a vast collection it's likely he already has what you are looking for and if so he takes pride creating a clean and easy to read edition. He grew up in Louisiana, where his father...
Don Langlie had a wonderful experience for ten years as a band director, mostly in North Dakota, which he enjoyed very much. When he applied for a job at Popplers Music in Grand Forks, Don took with him his interest in teaching, which has served him well as a music retailer. Don worked in the...
Tom Wittrock remembers the very moment he decided to dedicate his career to the guitar: when he purchased his first Les Paul sunburst in the mid-1970s. Many of his friends thought he was crazy when he paid more for a used instrument instead of getting a new one cheaper, but Tom knew just what he...