John's Bio

I was born in Omaha Nebraska in 1947. My father was a World War II Navy veteran working as a electrician in the post war construction boom. At the age of eight our family moved to Tucson Arizona where my father worked as a maintenance electrician for Hughes Aircraft. My musical interest started in the 4th grade when I began playing Trombone in the school band. I continued my music into high school where my career focus was heading toward working in the trades.

I enjoyed shop classes and was seriously thinking about becoming a machinist. In the spring of my sophomore year I had to take my trombone in for repairs. I did not know it at the time, but this event was to change my life forever.

Charles Unruh ran a wind instrument repair shop out of his home in Tucson. Charley was a retired line foreman from the Selmer Instrument Company in Elkhart Indiana. He had worked as a lead man in the early days of development of the Mark VI saxophone. When I went to his shop I felt like a kid in a candy store with a great sense of wonder as to the kind of work he was doing. It fascinated me because it seemed like such a wonderful combination of the two things I loved most, which were music and working with my hands. Charley must of sensed my enthusiasm because about two weeks later he called me and asked if I would be interested in starting as an apprentice to help him with his summer school repairs. After I had peeled myself off the ceiling I ran over and worked out a work schedule for after school and Saturdays.

I could not have asked for a better mentor. Charley had integrity, an incredible knowledge of his craft and the patience to work with a clumsy kid who messed up a lot. This man knew wind instruments like few people ever have and I was truly blessed to have learned from him. I loved the work and after only two weeks on the job I knew what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. I worked for Charley my last two years of high school and then full time after I graduated. In the spring of 1967, I was offered a job at the Benge trumpet company in Burbank, CA. I was just shy of 20 when I moved to California. I was a green kid from a small town moving to LA at the peak of the Beetles music & the hippie revolution. What a time to come to LA.

I worked at Benge for four years. The foreman was Louis Duda and once again I was blessed with a patient teacher who taught me a great deal about the production of brass instruments. I worked in all departments except bell making but spent most of my time as what is called a "mounter". My job was to take all the component parts and assemble the frame of the instrument. When I started the company was still building "hand made" horns & I seem to remember I assembled about 12 frames a week. About a year after I started at Benge, I met Earl Williams of the Williams Trombone Company. Earl took a liking to me and I began to work my day off at his factory. Earl was an innovative designer and developed many production methods that were way ahead of his time.

I married my first wife in 1970. About this same time the trumpet company was on its way to being sold. I had been wanting to get back to instrument repair and in 1971, I obtained the repair contract for the Burbank Unified School District. I left the trumpet company and went into business full time as a repairman. These were hard times and it took a few years to get the business going. However, I soon had other school accounts and was doing work for several music stores. In 1980, I took over an instrument rental business from a Burbank couple who were retiring and then business started to look promising. Unfortunately, my wife divorced me that year and the costs nearly wiped me out. Looking for additional revenue to help me through the lean times, I took a job in 1983 teaching wind instrument repair at Pasadena City College. I taught for 3 years but even with this additional money I was near bankruptcy in 1985. Once again, I was blessed to keep working in the trade I love. In 1985, I went to work at the Los Angeles Unified Schools musical instrument repair shop. I continued to run my business on the side while working for the district.

Working in the LA schools shop expanded my skills as a repairman. I was able to learn from the experience of 22 other technicians and they were a great bunch of guys to work with. My outside business began to rebuild with instrument rentals leading the way. I remarried in 1989 and my 2nd wife (Nedra) came to work at the business in the fall of 2000. She promoted the business in ways I never had the time for. We started to get so busy I could no longer work both jobs. I retired from LA Unified in 2002 and we now both work full time at the store.

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