Music Retail
Marcia Stearns is a regular attendee at the annual RPMDA conventions and can often be found volunteering to introduce a speaker or tallying the session surveys. Her passion for the business is clear in all that she does, including running her own sheet music and gift shop called Bookmark Music. ...
Eric Strouse's NAMM Oral History interview had several special moments, such as his reflection on the mentorship his father provided him during his own career running the family sheet music store. Yet, one meaningful element of the interview was that it took place just hours before Eric received...
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...
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...
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...
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...