NAMM launches music industry history podcasts

Readers looking for something more entertaining and relevant than endless radio phone-ins may well find what they are looking for in a new series of podcasts just launched by NAMM’s Oral History programme – The Music History Project.
From music product innovators and creators to influential music store retailers and performing artists, the podcast: ‘…connect listeners with luminaries across the musical spectrum. The podcast is led by the NAMM Oral History Resource Center team and designed to feature the people and products that define our audible experience’ NAMM says,
‘In the last seventeen years, we’ve captured over 3,000 fascinating stories from all parts of the industry, says Dan Del Fiorentino, NAMM Music Historian and podcast host. ‘And the one thing that all the interviews have in common is an undeniable passion for music. Through the format of this podcast, we’re able to showcase the stories of these living legends in their entirety and further preserve them for generations to come.’
The podcast taps the Resource Center’s vast interview archives of 3,000 and counting, as well as new interviews to create both thematic and long-format interviews which brings the vibrant history of music making and music products together for music fans to be inspired by the first-person stories from industry legends. The Project will feature a new podcast every two weeks on Thursday.
The Project’s first podcast episode tells the story of Sun Records in Memphis, Tennessee. The two-part series covers the efforts of Sun’s founder Sam Phillips to capture and record the ‘Memphis sound’ with artists such as Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis, Roy Orbison and more. Featured guests include Sun Records engineer, Matt Ross-Spang; Sun house drummer, J.M. VanEaton; Sun house guitarist, Roland James; drummer, W.S. Holland; lead sheet writer, Vernon Drane; Echoplex inventor, Mike Battle; and artists Sonny Burgess, Carl Mann, Scotty Moore and Ike Turner.
The Download can be found here: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/ep-1-sun-records-part-1/id1243807880?i=1000386053553&mt=2
Future podcasts will feature Les Paul and stories from those who worked closely beside him; a conversation with two-time Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame-inductee Graham Nash; and The History of the DJ, discussing the birth of turntablism featuring pioneering DJs including DJ Afrika Bambaataa; DJ Grand Wizzard Theodore; DJ Jazzy Joyce; DJ Grand Master Caz; and DJ Jazzy Jay. The podcast will be available on both iTunes and Soundcloud.
Info: www.namm.org