OH Taxonomy
Ervin Somogyi began his career as a instrument repairman, which is how he learned the important elements of a guitar. He studied what went wrong with guitars, their weaknesses, and what he could do in designing and building his own guitars that would make them unique and stronger. He developed his...
Gary Leunberger opened a music store in San Francisco during the 1980s that soon specialized in electronic keyboards and synthesizers. Being a top seller of Yamaha instruments led the company to hire Gary to help program their products. Gary created the voice presets for the DX7, among others,...
Fred Catero was the "go to" engineer at Columbia Studios in New York before teaming with Bill Graham to form Fillmore Studios in San Francisco. Over the years, Fred engineered or mastered thousands of recordings ranging from Mel Tormé to Santana. He worked on several special projects including...
George Edwards is the General Manager for Sound Image Productions, a division of Sound Image that is located in the San Francisco Bay Area. His career has included working every live sound position from FOH in small clubs to full production of large scale musical events with some of the biggest...
Jerry Goldman's father, Harry, opened a wholesale piano business inside Marshall Field's Department store in Chicago with his brother back in 1947. Just over a decade later, Harry and his wife, Rita, moved out to California to open their own piano store while kept his roots from the department...
Gordon McNelly is the Manager for Fields Piano in Santa Ana, California. Fields Piano is the local authorized Steinway dealer, which is a perfect home for Gordon who has been involved with Steinway for most of his professional career. After operating his own piano service/sales business in New...
Bill Sapsis has been rigging for theater and live events since the early 1970s. He was a welder and helped with set designs in both Philadelphia and New York and in 1981, he formed Sapsis Rigging to provide specialized support for opera and musical productions. He realized the need for safety...
Rand Cook recalls his mother taking him into the Candyman Strings & Things music store when he was three years old. He was quickly disappointed at that young age that the store when he realized they did not have any candy. With his parents support and playing the clarinet in school band, Rand...
Joseph Prelorentzos sat next to his brother, Kostas, as they became the first people to be interviewed from Greece for the NAMM Oral History Program. The interview took place in Anaheim at the 2018 NAMM Show and covered the history of their music store, from its beginnings to today. Joseph pointed...
Rodrigo Garcia recalls the day his father bought him his first bass. It changed his life. He later went on the road to play professionally and toured with Alexander Silver throughout Chile. Rodrigo can be seen and heard playing on the 2005 Alejandro Silva Live DVD, which was recorded on one of...