NAMM Oral History Library

The NAMM Oral History Program is a collection of one-on-one interviews with people involved in the music products industry, including music instrument retailers, instrument and product creators, suppliers and sales representatives, music educators and advocates, publishers, live sound and recording pioneers, innovators, founders, and artists. The mission of the program is to preserve the history of the music products industry, including industry innovations, the evolution of musical instruments and music retail, as well as improving music education worldwide. The Oral History Program was established by the National Association of Music Merchants ( NAMM) in 2000. The collection continues to grow thanks to the many supporters who provide recommendations and other assistance.

History

The NAMM Oral History program seeks to capture one-on-one interviews with those involved with the music products industry to cover innovative creations, the evolution of musical instruments, and the ever-changing world of music retail, for the purpose of improving music education around the globe. Among those interviewed as part of this collection include but are not limited to music retailers, manufacturers, arrangers, and composers, individuals who design, make, market, and sell music products, as well as music publishers, engineers, and artists closely associated with the industry. Oral History participants have come from over 80 different countries and all 50 U.S. states who have been born between 1903 and 2001.

Daniel Del Fiorentino has been the heart and the lead interviewer of the program since 2000. He has worked at NAMM since 1998. He was the first curator of the NAMM Foundations Museum of Making Music and is now the Music Historian. With thousands of interviews, he has conducted, he has traveled to 49 states of the United States of America and has traveled to many countries on 4 different continents to interview many people with different careers and musical backgrounds. Overall the Oral History Program has interviewed people from about 86 countries.

The NAMM Resource Center, which curates the program, was approved by the NAMM Board of Directors in 1996, five years before the association's 100th anniversary. The first NAMM Oral History was conducted on March 5, 2000, with professional harmonica player, Bill Walden, who attended the grand opening of The NAMM Foundation's Museum of Making Music. Just a few weeks later, a more formal interview was captured with former Gibson Guitar president Ted McCarty. McCarty was responsible for signing Les Paul on to Gibson in the 1950s in order to lend his name to the now famous Gibson Les Paul Guitar. Les Paul was also interviewed as part of the NAMM Oral History program back in 2008.

The collection also includes the stories of those who have inspired others to make music. As a result, interviews with innovators such as Hartley Peavey and Remo Belli have been captured. In addition, the stories of these and similar companies have their histories archived through the use of those associated with the companies including person(s) in roles such as musicians, composers, method book authors, factory workers and salesman.

Music industry pioneers that have been interviewed for the NAMM Oral History Collection include Bob Moog, Don Buchla, Henry Z. Steinway, Bob Taylor and Ray Kurzweil.

The Collection also includes music retailers and the history of such store chains as Sam Ash and Guitar Center, as well as independent music stores around the world such as Daynes Music and Andertons Music Co. The first music retailer interviewed for the Collection was Chip Averwater of Amro Music in 2000.

Musicians interviewed for the Collection are those who designed an instrument, endorsed a product or wrote a method book that has inspired others to make music. These include B. B. King, Roy Clark, Joe Morello, Herbie Hancock and original member of the Beatles, Pete Best. Folk artists who have encouraged music making over their careers have also been interviewed including Sam Hinton, Ella Jenkins, and Pete Seeger. The first interview to be donated to the collection was conducted in 1996 with jazzman Jonah Jones. Jones spoke of his relationship with King Musical Instruments as a product tester and endorser. He later played an F. E. Olds trumpet, which was featured on many recordings during his long career.

Over the years the scope of the Collection has expanded to include Live sound mixing and Pro Audio pioneers, whose involvement with professional audio equipment and recording studios has helped the industry grow. Trailblazing loudspeaker and microphone creator, Al Kahn, who established his company Electro-Voice in 1927, was interviewed in the Summer of 2002. Audio pioneer Bill Hanley known as the “father of festival sound” was interviewed on September 26, 2021. Other audio engineers interviewed over the years include Karrie Keyes, Al Schmitt, George Massenburg, Fred Catero, and Bruce Swedien. Bruce had a long and successful career with Quincy Jones, who was also interviewed. Covering the roadies and stagehands of Live Sound events has also been a focus, which has been aided over the years by the support of the members and leadership of Roadies For Color United, The Parnelli Awards, and the TEC Awards.

Among the noted music educators and advocates captured for this collection is former US Secretary of Education Richard Riley, the “father of recreational music making” Karl Bruhn, jazz pianist and music educator Billy Taylor, music advocate Felice Mancini, “the piano guy” Scott Houston and former conductor of the US Air Force Band Colonel Arnald Gabriel.

The Oral History Collection Milestones

The NAMM Oral History Collection was also proud to add the first female to the collection in 2001 with the addition of music retailer, Luella Derwin. The first international interview occurred in 2001 and was with  Ikutaro Kakehashi, who sat down multiple times throughout his life for follow-up interviews. Later, the depth of the international collection was expanded with the addition of interviews with Mr. and Mrs. Tom Lee of Tom Lee Music in  Hong Kong. These interviews expanded the Collection into a diverse, global representation of the music products industry, which now includes over a thousand music makers and industry leaders from around the world. These include Tommy Roe, Clifford Cooper, founder of the Orange Music Electronic Company, Hirotaka Kawai, a key figure in the Kawai Musical Instruments Manufacturing Company, Vera May, who is associated with Maton, Emily Achieng Akuno, an IMC President for the International Music Council, Mehmet Tamdeger, who is associated with Istanbul cymbals, Tsutomu Katoh, co-founder of Korg, Ursula Seiler, who has a connection to Seiler Pianofortefabrik GmbH, Kazuo Kashio, who is associated with Casio, Gerhilde Benker, a worker for Höfner, and Elianne Schiedmayer, who is connected through her family to Schiedmayer. Others included are Ravi Shankar, Malcolm Cecil, Peter Asher, Mohini Dey, Denis Wick, Jim Marshall, Isao Tomita, AR Rahman, and Paolo Fazioli among others.

*1st: Bill Walden, professional harmonica player was interviewed in March 2000

*100th: Seymour Duncan, Seymour Duncan Founder was interviewed in July 2002

*500th: Danny Rocks, music publisher was interviewed in July 2005

*1,000th: Dennis Houlihan, Roland Corp. Past President was interviewed in June 2008

*2,000th: Tom Schmitt, Schmitt Music President was interviewed in January 2013

*3,000th: Chick Corea, jazz musician and music advocate was interviewed in August 2016

*4,000th: Helen Meyer, Meyer Sound Laboratories Co-Founder was interviewed in August 2019

The NAMM Oral History Service Award

The NAMM Oral History Service Award was established in 2011 and recognizes the major contributions of those who have been interviewed themselves and who have strongly supported the program by providing historical context and suggesting others to be included. The award is presented at the  NAMM Show each year by the NAMM CEO and the NAMM Music Historian. Here is a list of the winners:

*2011: George Gruhn
*2012: Keith Mardak
*2013: Dennis Houlihan
*2014: Jim Funada
*2015: Madeline Crouch
*2016: Ernie Lansford
*2017: Craig Smith
*2018: Bernie Capicchiano
*2019: Harold “Hap” Kuffner
*2020: Robert Wilson
*2021: Gerhard Meinl
*2022: Larry Morton

The NAMM In Memoriam Industry Tribute

The NAMM Annual Industry Tribute was established by NAMM and the Resource Center in 2002 when the inaugural tribute was shown at The NAMM Show in Anaheim, California. The program provides NAMM Show attendees and their family and friends with an opportunity to collectively pause, reflect and honor members and industry icons who have died in the prior year, many of which were interviewed as part of the NAMM Oral History Collection. The program runs on the Thursday evening during The NAMM Show and is hosted immediately after on the NAMM website. Since the COVID pandemic, the program has also been available online.

The Music History Project

The Resource Center debuted The Music History Project podcast in the summer of 2017. NAMM’s resident Music Historian, Dan Del Fiorentino, and his current co-hosts, Alex Rossner and Suzanne Del Fiorentino, examine a wide variety of musical topics by using segments of the NAMM Oral History collection. Popular topics over the years include Sun Records (Ep 1 and 2), Women in the Music Industry (ep. 18), Industry Heroes: Guitar Amp Innovators (Ep. 21), The Banjo: Makers (Ep. 63) and a look at the band Earth Wind & Fire (Ep 108). Throughout the run of this now monthly podcast, the team has played full oral history interviews by some of the music industry’s innovators and leaders such as Lenise Bent, Robert Moog, Henry Z. Steinway, Suzanne Ciani, Bob See, Paul Hamer, Allee Willis, Marcus Ryle, William F. Ludwig, Mary Jo Papich, Richard Sherman, Buford Jones, Gail Davies, Don Lewis, Dr. George Shaw and Sylvia Massy.

See the link below in References for the full list of episodes.

References

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Further reading

Article on The Music History ProjectPAS on the Music History Project

External links

NAMM Oral History ProgramThe Music History ProjectNAMM In Memoriam Industry TributeNAMM Oral History Program Interviews of Piano Technicians

Oral history
Music history