Pianos
Buzz Tarpley grew up in the music business. His grandmother was selling pianos as early as 1917 in West Texas. The Tarpley family officially opened a music store in 1927 in Pampa, Texas. Buzz recalled growing up in the late 1930s and 40s and the many radio sets his father would sell. He also...
David Tarpley remembered crawling around in the ceiling of his current church as a child, hauling the wires for the Allen Organ his father and uncle were installing. As a member of the Tarpley family, you worked in the family business, which for David meant sweeping the music store, moving pianos...
Mike Wofford has enjoyed a long and acclaimed career in music. As a jazz pianist, Mike has performed with many legends including Ella Fitzgerald, Benny Carter, Quincy Jones, Shelly Manne, Zoot Sims and Sassy Sarah Vaughan. He pays remarkable attention to details and understands the role as an...
John W. Ward began working in the music industry as a piano salesman in the late 1950s, before working for the Sherman Clay store chain in 1961. After earning a position as one of the company’s top salesman, John was asked to help sell home organs, which were just coming into popularity. Years...
Tom Lagomarsino has served as marketing director and Executive Vice President of PianoDisc since the company was established in 1988. Tom was there when the very first unit was shipped and helped create the marketing approach that has been of great success for the company and its products. The...
Gary Burgett and his brother Kirk established PianoDisc out of their piano retail store in Sacramento, California in the late 1970s. Gary was a pianist and music teacher with a successful studio of his own, and Kirk was a skilled piano technician and rebuilder. The store, Burgett Pianos, sold a...
George Duke built his musical career on innovative styles and sounds. His reputation for creative and influential performances cross over jazz, pop and rock music and have since his early recordings in the 1960s. The dozen albums he recorded with Frank Zappa included George’s use of synthesizers in...
Jimmie Smith designed and built the Trumann, Arkansas, Baldwin Piano factory in the early 1980s after working in the company’s Greenwood, Mississippi, plant for several years. The Trumann plant was state of the art for the time and included many automated processes fairly new to the piano industry...
Joe Seawright was a piano designer and engineer for the Baldwin Piano factory in Greenwood, Mississippi, beginning in the early 1970s. Joe created several improvements to the workflow of the operations as well as designing new features to the piano line of products. When the Greenwood factory was...
Bob Sowell had a long run as a Baldwin employee, beginning in 1969 in the Greenwood, Mississippi, factory and running until 2010 in Trumann, Arkansas, when the Gibson Guitar Company owned the company. Bob specialized in safety and helped create many of the Baldwin plants operational manuals as they...