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...
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...
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,...
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...
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...
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...
Cindy Cook married long-time music retailer, Rand Cook, in 1998. Ten years later, the couple had the opportunity to purchase the very store Rand had worked in for nearly 20 years. Together, the couple transformed the store into a welcoming music hub and education center serving people from all...
Norman Whitfield Jr grew up surrounded by music. His father was the noted songwriter, Norman Whitfield, who penned such classic hits as “I Heard It Through the Grapevine”, “Just My Imagination”, “Papa Was a Rollin’ Stone”, and the disco era hit “Car Wash”. Norman Whitfield Jr followed in his father...
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...