Playback - Fall 2008 - (Page 12)

In Their Own Words Since the start of the decade, the NAMM Oral History Program Historian, Dan Del Fiorentino, has interviewed music retailers, suppliers, reps, craftsmen, musicians and more—each of whom has played an important role in shaping our industry. The result is an archive of 1,000 interviews representing more than 1,500 hours of video and audiotape footage. Quotes from the NAMM Oral Histories have been published in books, referenced by mainstream reporters and used in industry presentations. Here’s just a sprinkling of excerpts from a few of these fascinating movers and shakers… “The violin parts industry in India was started by a hippie who came on his holidays to India. Around about the end of the 1970s, beginning of the ’80s he was in Kolkata, a small village, and lived in a mud hut for three months without electricity with all the mosquitoes biting him. And he taught all the craftsmen in this village how to make violin parts like pegs fingerboards, tail pieces. And he went back after six months, lives in Marin County outside of San Francisco. The fact that the 14 companies here in this show today are selling violin parts out of India is due to this one American hippie. His name is Larry Cass.” VIjAy tALWAR Founder and President oF talwar Brothers interviewed aPril 4, 2004 “I was born in 1912. And those times were different from what it is today. My father was not a comrade or a friend, but a person to respect. What he conveyed to me is love for nature. I thought, ‘When I finish school I’ll be a landscaping architect, doing gardens.’ But then, in 1931—that was the time of the economic depression in Germany. So what I did was my second field of interest: I went into studying electrical engineering.” FRItz SENNHEISER Founder oF sennheiser interviewed July 14, 2005 “When the New York World’s Fair came along in 1939, I was a messenger boy, and I had a lot of fun going out to the fair. We had eight or nine special pianos and special exhibits out there. Each time I went out there I found myself loading and unloading pianos that were sold at the fair. It was marvelous.” HENRy StEINWAy Past President oF steinway & sons interviewed novemBer 14, 2001 (See Tribute on page 39) “Like most guitar players, I copped licks off of vinyl records and went to live bands and watched what they did and had to pick things up really casually. When I was actually already somewhat good, I went to Eastman’s School of Music and took some professional lessons and actually taught guitar for a short time.” HENRy juSzkIEWICz President oF GiBson Guitars interviewed July 20, 2002 “I was 15. I’m pretty sure it was 1977 at the Disneyland Hotel. So it [the NAMM Show] hadn’t expanded into the Convention Center yet. So somehow I managed to talk my way in without having quite the right credentials. And I think that was the show that Dave Smith was showing the first Prophet-5. That changed everything. From that point I had to have a polyphonic synthesizer, had to figure that out somehow.” MARCuS RyLE CoFounder oF line 6 interviewed July 28, 2007 “In the 1960s it was the big boom. It was the Beatles! So busy was the factory that we worked all hours. And my father was really excited about the business, and Pearl was really doing a very great business at that time. Actually, the golden age.” MASANI yANAGISAWA President oF Pearl drums interviewed January 20, 2008

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Playback - Fall 2008

Playback - Fall 2008 Contents From the President NAMM Events Music in the News Voices of Our Past, Present and Future: NAMM Oral History Program Celebrates a Major Milestone Commercial Retail Reps in the Field NAMM@AARP New Domestic Members Washington Watch International NAMM Foundation Music Notes Resources Viewpoint

Playback - Fall 2008

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