Women in the Music Industry
Meredith Hamlin is the general manager of the Kyser Music Product Company in Canton, Texas. She is proud of the company her uncle formed in 1975, and the fact that all of their products are made in the United States. Her uncle, Milton Kyser, designed the company’s quick change capo, its first...
Wendy Kephart remembers her father bringing her to Kephart’s Music Center when she was a young girl. While she did study music, she recalled it was because her father was a working musician that they often would visit the store. Years later, after she married the store founder’s son, she...
Ida Eleck worked alongside her husband who was a big band musician and band director who had the idea of opening a music store. Ida was thrilled with the idea as it gave her more time to be with her husband. They called it Royalton Music Center, which is located in North Royalton, Ohio. She soon...
Ellen Warmoth and her husband, William, created a true “Mom and Pop” music store when they opened Artisan Guitars in Franklin, Tennessee, not far from Nashville. The store has a wonderful family feeling in both the layout and their attention to details, which may explain why so many Nashville...
Lauren Vogel Weiss was playing in the high school band but struggling to find the accessories she needed. This program gave her and her father, Harvey, an idea. Together they formed Lone Star Percussion and worked hard to fill the need of providing instruments and accessories to students and...
Dolores Crooks remembered her husband working in the garage at all hours of the night on a new sound he was after. He tooled his own guitar amplifier and took it down to country dances to show it off to the musicians. Before long performers such as Chet Atkins and Speedy West were not only buying...
Katie Wheeler was an early volunteer of the NAMM Foundation’s Museum of Making Music in the NAMM headquarters in Carlsbad, California. Her docent experience with the museum gave Katie the opportunity to work across the lobby in the NAMM Resource Center. Her personal interest in documentation and...
Janet Gratsch began working at Willis Music when she was 17 years old in the Choral Department. She remained with the store until she retired and even after her retirement she would be called by the staff and hummed a song for her to name, and she would. Janet was hired in 1940 and recalled with...
Maudie Moore was hired by Gibson Guitars in 1962 to do small piece work and soon branched out to engraving, which became a specialty for her over the next several decades. In fact, she opened her own shop called Moore’s Engraving in Kalamazoo in 1972, which allowed her to work with several other...
Jeanne Dukoff married the swing saxophonist and mouthpiece maker Bobby Dukoff. Bobby suffered a stroke just before his scheduled NAMM Oral History interview and in true “Bobby Dukoff Spirit” Mrs. Dukoff rose to the occasion, sitting alongside her husband and answering the questions for him. Sadly...