Oral History - all
Tom Steuckert is a veteran of the music industry having served as store manager at Union Grove Music in Santa Cruz, a road rep and sales manager. His career began when he helped assemble synthesizers for Dave Smith at Sequential Circuits in the early 1980s. Tom later owned his own store in Half... more
Richard Gellis remembers the early days of the vintage guitar movement when greater value was being placed on "used instruments." As his small store grew in Santa Cruz, California, so did his reputation for knowledge and customer services that helped make Union Grove Music the go-to place for... more
Fat Dog is the founder of Subway Guitars in Berkeley, California. Since the 1960s, the store has become a hub for musicians to gather to discuss everything from politics and human rights concerns as well as music and poetry. The level of social awareness that Subway had was in Fat Dog's... more
Jason Berg is a guitar tech at Union Grove Music in Santa Cruz, where he was interviewed for the NAMM Oral History program to discuss his involvement with the Supro Guitar line as well as other parts of his career in the industry. As a repairman for Union Grove Music, Jason rents a space in the... more
Accordions make a sound when the bellows are expanded or compressed with air, while pressing keys causing the pallets to open. The air moves across the strips of reeds, allowing them to vibrate. Often people associate the accordion with polka-type music, but really they can be heard in a variety... more
The harmonica is a free wind instrument used in several genres of music worldwide. The reeds are pre-tuned to individual pitches, which can be done by changing the length or stiffness of the reed. Bending, tongue blocking, over bending, and lip pursing (among several others) are different... more
Ann Patrick Green is the founder of Patrick Music School in Fullerton, California and the music teacher who provided training lessons during the NAMM Shows. Her passion has always been centered around teaching, so when she had the opportunity to open a music school she jumped at the chance. For... more
Dick Nash was a first call trombone player in the Los Angeles studios for several decades. He played for over two thousand movies and TV programs and with a list of artists ranging from Ella Fitzgerald to Art Pepper. Henry Mancini often used Dick on his movie projects including Peter Gunn and Mr... more
Birth Date: January 26, 1924
Deceased Date: June 21, 2018
Bob Bain played with a number of the big bands during the golden era of swing before he became the iconic studio session player in Los Angeles. His session playing is well known for a wide range of famous gigs, such as playing for Audrey Hepburn as she sang "Moon River" in the movie "Breakfast at... more
Birth Date: July 9, 1934
Deceased Date: September 21, 2021
Colin Bailey famously played brushes on the song “Linus and Lucy” by Vince Guaraldi, which was made popular thanks to the Peanuts cartoon television specials. His long career included gigs with Miles Davis, Clare Fischer, Benny Goodman, Frank Sinatra and George Shearing. He also often filled in for... more
Birth Date: November 2, 1924
Deceased Date: August 25, 2016
Rudy Van Gelder was the recording engineer for countless jazz records beginning in the 1940s. To say he was a pioneer seems like an understatement when you take into consideration not only the classic recordings he was involved with, but also the techniques and the studios he built that redefine... more
Joe Veillette took a luthier class, a class by Michael Gurian back in 1971 and never looked back! He became so interested in guitar building that he teamed up with Harvey Citron and formed Veillette-Citron in 1976. The two luthiers collaborated with John Sebastian to develop and market the first... more
Birth Date: January 9, 1937
Deceased Date: March 28, 2021
Malcolm Cecil was the engineer and product designer behind the famous synthesizer known as TONTO! TONTO is the acronym for "The Original New Timbral Orchestra," the first, and still the largest, multitimbral polyphonic analog synthesizer in the world, designed and constructed over several years.... more
Sara Faust may be the only music retailer who has won both the Chopin Piano Competition's first prize as well as the Concert Artists Guild's first place award! In 1996, after her career as a professional classical pianist, Sara and her husband formed Faust Harrison Pianos in New York. In addition... more
Birth Date: May 30, 1932
Deceased Date: November 25, 2016
Pauline Oliveros pioneered composing music using electronic instruments. She recorded both with the Moog and Buchla synthesizers as well as the Expanded Instrument System, an electronic signal processing unit she designed. She was a founding member of the San Francisco Tape Music Center in the... more
Birth Date: September 14, 1929
Deceased Date: February 14, 2019
Harry Hirsch was the studio designer and audio engineer behind several important achievements in audio engineering. He built such studios as SoundMixers in the Brill Building in New York and MediaSound, which was designed in 1977. After a long and successful career, Harry created college curriculum... more
John Sebastian has a rather impressive and intriguing connection with the music products industry and has for several decades. Did you know he worked in a guitar shop in Manhattan in the 1960s sanding tops? That was before he soared to the top of the charts with the rock band the Lovin' Spoonful.... more
Birth Date: March 9, 1933
Deceased Date: May 3, 2021
Lloyd Price had no idea that his 1952 recording of "Lawdy Miss Clawdy" would become a cornerstone in the foundation of rock 'n' roll! Masterful piano playing by Fats Domino, perfectly timed drumming by Earl Palmer, as well as the musical arrangement by bandleader Dave Bartholomew helped launch his... more
Birth Date: April 24, 1924
Deceased Date: September 23, 2018
Vivian Majeski had just married John when she visited the NAMM Show for the first time. The year was 1951 and John, who would later follow in his father's footsteps as editor of The Music Trades magazine. He had returned from war just a few years earlier. Together the young couple attended the... more
Brian Majeski is the editor of The Music Trades Magazine and has lived and breathed the music business since the day he was born. His grandfather and father both ran the magazine, which was established in 1890. Brian, along with his brother Paul, have been able to expand the publication to include... more