This year's winter NAMM show was one of the most exciting shows yet for us. We introduced our Lite guitar capos in four vibrant new colors, along with our new Lite capo for ukulele, also in the same colors. That had our booth hopping nonstop each day. It looks like the colors will be a big success.
The booth was staffed by veterans Gary Mobley, Raul Reynoso, Mike Phelan, and myself, and guitarist Richard Gilewitz in just his second show as an exhibitor.
Also joining us at the booth were some of our favorite performers: SONiA, Roger Espinoza, Tim May (who played a set with Richard Gilewitz), Luis Villegas, and joining us for the first time was bluegrass singer Susie Glaze.
I think SONiA looks great with her new hairdo. She played a couple of sets for us at the booth, and that's always a pleasure.
She and her manager, Terry, are like family to us, and seeing them is a highlight of any show.
Luis Villegas joined us again with his trio, bringing their own style of Latin jazz to spark up our Sunday.
Luis Villegas, Pete Korpela, Jose Garcia
Tim May played a set with Richard Gilewitz
That's me with new Shubb endorsing artist Rebecca Sullivan,
proudly displaying her new violet capo.
Susie Glaze and her group, the Hilonesome Trio joined us at the booth on Saturday.
Raul Reynoso borrowed her guitar to join in and add a few hot licks of his own.
Raul Reynoso, Steve Rankin, Gary Mobley, Susie Glaze, Rob Carlson
Also on hand Saturday, Latin-style guitar master Roger Espinoza and his trio.
Roger Espinoza, Dexter Espinoza, Joe Calderon
I played a set at our Friday night show with Saga's group,
the Tora Bora Boys
He has a strong, clear voice and a good feel for bluegrass.
We were glad to have New West on hand for a set on our Friday night show...
Headlining our Friday night show again was the incredible
John Jorgenson Quintet.
They were spectacular as always, and this time a particular highlight was a guest appearance by guitarist Robin Nolan.
Robin joined John for a couple of duets, notably a beautiful version of Django Reinhardt's Nuages, then the whole group played Robin's Mediterranean Blues.
We hope to have pictures from this set, and maybe video, coming soon.
Musikmesse 2012
(Frankfurt, Mar. 21-24)
It was our pleasure to again present dynamic singer-songwriter SONiA on Musikmesse's Acoustic Stage.
Here's guitar monster Doyle Dykes with our guy Gary Mobley.
The big buzz around Doyle was that after years of being closely associated with Taylor guitars, he's now playing a Guild and sometimes a Fender. Happily, he has not changed capos, though, and remains solidly a Shubb man!
It was the fourth year at our booth for Tina Steigerwald, who has now become quite an expert on our product line and a very valuable member of our team.
Richard Gilewitz on the Acoustic Stage
International star Julian Dawson played a couple of great sets at our booth
It always brightens up the day whenever SONiA comes to the booth
Richard and Tina... in flight refuelling.
(thanks to Facebook fan Yvonne Desrosiers for the caption)
Here's Gary with our new distributors just signed at this show...
Jorge Oliveira and son from Portugal
John and Matthew Wei from Taiwan
Gary Mobley and Brian McKenzie
Richard Gilewitz, Gary Mobley, Jessica Munn
Jessica is a very promising young guitarist in many styles; she's the protègè of Raul Reynoso.
Phil Madeira and Rick Shubb
Gary Mobley with Jilian Kohr
This year NAMM added an acoustic stage with scheduled performances running most of each day. It was a good idea in theory, providing a venue for performances to demo products and replacing some of the performances at the booths. The problem was that the sound level in the room made it a less than ideal performing situation. Maybe next time they will consider isolating it, as they do at Musikmesse, to make a more concert-like atmosphere and better audibility.
We sponsored three acts on the Acoustic Stage: Grant Austin Tayor and Aria Summer (above), who call their duo Austin Summer, SONiA (below left) and Summer Hullender (below right).
I joined Saga's Tora Bora Boys for their set on the Acoustic Stage, along with other guests Barbara Lamb on fiddle and Isaac Moore (hidden behind Barbara here) on guitar and lead vocals.
On Thursday night it was once again our pleasure to present the John Jorgenson Quintet
in concert at the grand ballroom of the Hermitage Hotel.
John and his band were spectacular, as they always are. Their sense of style and incredible muscianship are a combination that is rarely found anywhere, and we are proud to present them to the NAMM show audience.
There were some guest appearances on this night; shown here, J.D. Souther with John Jorgenson.
The Pudong region of Shanghai, where Music China is located
Jessie Zhao helped us at the booth.
It was her first show, and she did a good job.
Rain Chen of Guitarcube, Gary Mobley.
