Hoshino Gakki Mfg. Co. Ltd.
Orval Engling has become an expert on the Ibanez guitar brand, so much so that he helped write a book on the company’s history. Orval began collecting Ibanez guitars in the 1990s and has come to discover the many innovations the company created over the years. He has enjoyed learning stories from...
Don Morris is the founder and product engineer behind Electroplex Amplifiers, which includes their famous Rocket series. In 1993, Don sat down with Trev Wilkinson to design a new amplifier and the result was the Rocket 90! Don’s long and very interesting history in the music industry goes back to...
Bill Reim is the Founder of Reim, Graham & Associates. He was also the CEO of Hoshino USA, based in Pennsylvania. He can remember watching the Beatles on TV when he was in the second grade and later formed a rock band with some of his classmates while in high school. After studying graphic...
Gary Bennett entered the music products industry in 1964 working for Chesbro Music in Idaho. At the time of his NAMM Oral History interview, taped during the NAMM Show in January 2012, Gary was still proudly working for Chesbro. During the 1970s Gary played a vital role in their becoming the...
Yoshitada Hoshino is the president of Hoshino Gakki Company, a music company that has remained in his family since first opening in 1908 to sell sheet music in Japan. The distribution segment of the business began to grow throughout the next hundred years. Along the way the company developed the...
Vanetta Wilson was the fourth generation owner of her family’s music business. Chesbro Music began in 1911 as a music retailer and expanded over the years to become one of the largest music wholesalers in the country. Since taking on the Hoshino line of products in the 1970s, the company has...
Toshitsugu “Tom” Tanaka, the president of Hoshino Gakki. Ltd, recalled with a smile his early training in the industry under Harry Rosenbloom of Medley Music. That experience not only educated him on the American instrument market, it was also the foundation of his partnership with Mr. Rosenbloom....
Jeff Hasselberger has played a very important role in the development of music makers! His ideas of conveying statistical material to music educators to assist in saving school programs led to the widely successful Einstein Kit. Jeff’s eye for detail and understanding of the music industry has also...