OH Taxonomy
Bunny Kacher began volunteering at the NAMM Foundation’s Museum of Making Music in 2002 as part of the second docent training class (the museum opened in 2000). Her love of music is easy to detect when taking one of her tours at the museum and, in fact, that love of music goes back to her days as a...
Arturo Valdez is known around the world as the “guitar repairman to the stars.” With his shop located on Sunset Blvd. in Hollywood, California, Arturo has worked on thousands of guitars, many legendary in the history of rock and roll. He opened his shop in the early 1960s and soon had customers...
Mirek Jaromir Strizka opened a musical wholesale business in the early 1960s and named it European Craft. The company began as the young Czech immigrant established a business in Los Angeles, California, selling one instrument, the harmonica. He wore out his car traveling the country and...
Delores Rhoads began teaching music in 1939. Seventy years later when she was interviewed by NAMM, she was still teaching. After World War II Delores and her husband opened a small teaching studio and retail shop in North Hollywood, California, called Musonia. Over the decades she taught thousands...
Hal David followed in the footsteps of his older brother Mack, who penned several popular songs in the 1930s and 40s. Hal worked hard to learn the craft and spent many years in and around the Brill Building in New York, which was the hub of music publishing in America at the time. After a number of...
Howard Rumsey may have played the first electric bass to be recorded on a jazz recording. While performing with Stan Kenton’s first orchestra in the early fall of 1941, Howard was asked by the bandleader to experiment with a new electric bass. The instrument had no name on it and Howard was never...
Alfredo Flores was born in Mexico in 1908 and moved to San Antonio, Texas with his mother and grandmother when he was a small boy. He took several jobs as a young man including a position with the Thomas Goggan piano company. His experience with the piano company provided Mr. Flores with the idea...
This video is of our annual NAMM Tribute, created in honor of our members and music industry friends who passed away in 2008 and early 2009. This Tribute was shown for the first time at the NAMM Show in Anaheim, California in January 2009.
Sammy Ash was named after his grandfather, the founder of the Sam Ash Music Company in New York City. Like his grandfather, Sammy has a deep passion and understanding of the music business and although both men faced different challenges in different eras, they both felt customer service was the...
George Lemus opened a music store in his hometown of Guadalajara, Mexico in the late 1950s and named it M. Haus Lemus. He focused on building a family business with consistent and quality customer service. Over the years he helped increase the piano market within Mexico and became one of the...