OH Taxonomy
Jeff Radke followed in the footsteps of his father, who was a saxophonist in the big bands. Jeff played sax in school and studied music and business in college. He attended his first NAMM Show in 1984, the year MIDI was introduced, which is a lasting memory for Jeff. While working at West LA Music...
David Stewart remembers making a choice to go from playing music professionally to the technological side of touring and working as a sound engineer. He toured during the 1980s, working live sound for a company that worked with several performers such as The Coasters and Chubby Checker, among...
Nick Bowcott is a founding member of the British heavy metal band, Grim Reaper. Nick put the band together in 1979 and by 1985 had gained commercial success namely due to Nick’s guitar skills and the band’s lead vocals by Steve Grimmett. While still with the band, Nick began writing about the gear...
Nick D’Virgilio grew up in the Los Angeles area and was exposed to music at a very young age. He was given his first drum set when he was 5 years old and was in a band by the time he was a teenager. As his career developed as a working musician, Nick played drums for several high-profile bands...
Jerry Hauer grew up in a very musical home. His father was a big band leader with a noted radio show, Michael Hauer and His Band of the Hour! When Michael was off the road with his band, he provided music lessons in the Dayton, Ohio area, where he established Hauer Music in 1937. Jerry joined the...
Jim Hauer has many fond memories of his grandfather, Michael Hauer, a noted big band leader who opened their family’s music store in 1937. Jim recalls his grandfather providing music lessons when he was in his 90s and enjoying every minute of it. Those same feelings and passion for music were...
Ray Stacy began working for the O.S. Kelly Company in 1978 and has a true sense of pride in the work they do in creating piano plates. Located in Springfield, Ohio, the foundry was established by Oliver Kelly in 1852 to make steam traction engines and farm equipment. They soon began making the sand...
Jim Kincaid has fond memories of his father singing and playing his guitar. Jim’s father was the folk singer and publisher, Bradley Kincaid, who helped pioneer folk music on the radio in the 1920s and 30s, throughout the Midwest and the New England area. His father retired from his music career at...
Dan Del Fiorentino is the Music Historian for NAMM who heads the industry's Oral History program. Dan began this special project in March 2000, after having served as the first curator of the NAMM Foundation’s Museum of Making Music. Since that time, the collection of video interviews has grown to...
Linda (Wert) Young asked her parents, when she was twenty, to assist her in the upstart of a music store after realizing her passion for helping children identify their interest and abilities in playing music. Her dad mortgaged the family farm, which lead to the opening of Wert Music in 1973. With...