NAMM Wrap-Up 2016

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February, 2016 Greta and I attended the NAMM (National Association of Music Merchants) trade show at the Anaheim Convention Center in mid-January, 2016. It was the usual cacophonous, end-all, music merchandise extravaganza, attended by 90,000 people per day over four days, right across the street from Disneyland. It’s quite a scene. All of the major music manufacturers have booths, displaying instruments of every persuasion (acoustic, electric, digital), publications, accessories, recording gear, electronic and computer gizmos, and much more. Attendees are music industry professionals: company reps and designers, demo artists, and a ton of retail store owners and employees scouring the […]

Meeting John Denver

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How John Denver Dealt with Traveling on a Commercial Flight with His Guitar (at least once!) by Mark Hanson The only time I met John Denver was in the Minneapolis/St. Paul airport at Christmastime, 1971. I was at the gate (at that time, of course, we could meet travelers as they departed the plane) to greet my brother Eric, who was returning from New York. When he came off the plane, he suggested we wait a few minutes and we might be able to talk with the increasingly famous John Denver as he deplaned. When John emerged from the jetway, […]

Mark Plays for the President of the United States!

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Greta and I are back from our sojourn to San Francisco. We flew there Thursday morning, October 15, 2009, to play at a reception/dinner for President Obama. The event took place at the St. Francis Hotel on Union Square in downtown San Francisco. About 175 people attended. I played guitar solos for about two hours, the last 45 minutes of which the president was in the room greeting people in a receiving line. I made sure to play some tunes that were appropriate for him, including Stevie Wonder’s “Isn’t She Lovely” (the Obamas are Stevie Wonder fans), the Beatles’ “Michelle” […]

Grammy Winners!

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Portland, Oregon, acoustic guitarists Mark Hanson and Doug Smith and ten other great players won a Grammy in February, 2005, in the Pop Instrumental Album category for their contributions to the Henry Mancini Pink Guitar CD. This is Mark’s firsthand account of the experience. To win a Grammy is a lifetime goal of everyone in the recording industry. For some of us older winners it is a validation of a lifetime of work. For some of the younger winners it is the excitement of striking a rich cultural vein at the right time. For all of us it is one […]