It is with great sadness that Korg USA shares the news that longtime industry veteran and former colleague Joe Bredau passed away on January 13 at the age of 82.
Over his more than 50-year career in the MI industry, Bredau held a variety of executive positions at companies including M. Hohner, Raki International, and Korg USA. In 2009 he founded Marketing for Industry (MFI), a consulting organization dedicated to providing guidance in all aspects of executive communications to personnel, clients, and trade.
During his time as vice president of marketing/sales for Korg USA (1989-2008), Bredau spearheaded numerous innovative PR campaigns, developed key account teams to serve the company’s largest customers, pioneered an ongoing performance review program that identified strengths and weaknesses within development programs, and served a key role on a corporate management team responsible for driving record sales figures with improved profits for the company.
“He loved family and friends so deeply and cared deeply about them,” says his daughter Shelly. “He was always in a good mood, truly. I know that sounds impossible, but he just was a happy human being.” An avid golfer, Bredau was forever keen to share his love of the sport with any and all. Shelly adds that her father’s professional life lined up perfectly with his true passion: “Music was his life! Long car rides were insufferable at times because he would be jamming away on the steering wheel while listening to Dave Brubeck, Steely Dan, Stan Getz and other greats. But he easily gave us our music time as well.”
“Joe Bredau joined the company at a critical time in Korg USA’s history,” says CEO Joe Castronovo. “His contributions to the organization to promote the brands that we represented cannot be put into words. He spent the majority of his career in the music product industry and should be remembered as a hard-driving sales and marketing executive. It was my pleasure to work with him during his time with Korg and we have great
Bluegrass torchbearer Molly Tuttle mourns the passing of one of the genre’s most formidable giants.
Like so many guitar players and music fans around the world, I have spent the last 48 hours mourning the loss of a man who inspired us by reaching for the outer limits—on his instrument and within himself. Tony Rice played guitar in a way no one had heard before, and in the process inspired people of all ages around the globe to pick up a dreadnought and a flatpick. Some of us, myself included, have built our lives around this inspiration and the trail Tony blazed on the instrument.
My own journey started when I was 8 years old and begged my parents for a guitar after unsuccessfully trying to learn piano. Finally, one day my dad brought home the tiniest guitar he could find, a Baby Taylor, from the music store in Palo Alto where he taught lessons. He showed me simple chords and melodies, and after the initial learning curve (and callous building) I was hooked. I played for hours every day.
My dad was a huge Tony Rice fan and I gradually realized many of the songs and licks he taught me were based on things he had heard Tony play. In fact, one of the reasons my dad moved to Silicon Valley from the farm in Illinois where he grew up was that he loved the David Grisman Quintet and knew they regularly performed around the Bay Area. He got to see Tony play with them many times. When I got older and discovered Tony’s music for myself, it was like a light bulb went off: I realized his playing and singing were already ingrained in my own. He became my first true guitar hero as well as a big influence on my singing. I never got to meet Tony but almost felt like I knew him through the countless hours I spent sitting on my bedroom floor with my guitar—listening to his records and trying to learn his solos, note for note, from my Tony Rice guitar tab book.
David Anthony Rice was born in Virginia in 1951 but spent most of his childhood in Los Angeles. It was there that he met guitar legend Clarence White, who was playing guitar in the Kentucky Colonels at the time. Clarence had pioneered a new style of highly technical and improvisational bluegrass guitar playing and became both a mentor to and main influence on Tony. Clarence was tragically struck and killed by a drunk driver in 1973, but his Martin D-28 was eventually acquired by Tony—an event that cemented that instrument as the holy grail of bluegrass guitars and proved something of a symbolic passing of the torch. Tony took the style of lead-guitar playing that Clarence developed and pushed it in new directions by refining his technical abilities and incorporating jazz-influenced phrasing and note choices. Tony studied great bluegrass players like Doc Watson and Clarence White, but like his heroes before him, he had a voice on the instrument that was truly his own. He created a signature sound that struck a rare balance of being incredibly clean and complex while staying musical and full of heart.
In 1974 Tony made his first big splash with J.D. Crowe & the New South, recording one of the all-time classic bluegrass albums with their eponymous 1975 LP for Rounder Records. At that point, guitar solos were still uncommon in bluegrass, and Tony’s virtuosic solos (and singing) captured the attention of bluegrass fans far and wide. Shortly after, Tony met mandolinist David Grisman, who was forming a band around instrumental compositions that fused bluegrass and jazz. Tony joined Grisman’s band that same year and moved to the San Francisco Bay Area, where he recorded the landmark 1977 David Grisman Quintet album on Kaleidoscope Records. This iconic album had a huge impact on the acoustic music scene and influenced string musicians across many genres. While touring and recording with the highly successful Grisman Quintet, Tony also recorded a string of stellar albums under his own name and with his band the Tony Rice Unit—including his 1979 masterpiece Manzanita, which many regard as his most distinctive solo album. It’s truly mind-blowing to think about the amount of music he recorded in the mid ’70s and early ’80s—as well as how many lives these albums continue to touch. In 1985, Tony left California for Florida and continued to record and perform with his own band, as well as with the Rice Brothers, Peter Rowan, and many others.
Tony is not only one of my favorite guitar players, but I also believe he was one of the greatest singers of all time. I fell in love with his signature baritone voice at a young age, when my favorite record was Skaggs & Rice—the duet record he did with Ricky Skaggs in 1980. I used to listen to their version of “Bury Me Beneath the Willow” on repeat, and it made me want to learn how to harmonize with others and accompany vocals on guitar. Unfortunately, by the time I was born, he had all but stopped singing live due to vocal dysphonia, so I only ever heard him sing on recordings. However, I did get to see him play guitar live on a few unforgettable occasions. Tony was no longer living in California by the early 2000s, but he flew out to the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass festival in San Francisco in 2005 to play with Peter Rowan. My dad and I staked out a good spot, hours in advance, to beat the massive Golden Gate Park crowd. His solos cut through the San Francisco fog and I remember how each note seemed to sparkle. The crystal-clear tone he got out of a guitar is still the thing that blows me away each time I hear his playing. Many of us have spent countless hours learning his licks note for note, but you can tell instantly when you hear them played by Tony himself. His love for the instrument oozes out of each note.
As I reflect on the life and legacy of Tony Rice, I feel inspired by the way he built upon those who came before him, while giving so much of his own spirit to the world. I think about my friends, like Billy Strings, David Grier, Bryan Sutton, Trey Hensley, Jake Workman, and many more, who love Tony and continue to carry the torch by finding new exciting ways to express themselves on the instrument. Even though I’m heartbroken by Tony’s passing, it’s comforting to think about all the ways his music continues to live on and will continue to be celebrated for generations to come.
A lifelong friend and student of EVH grieves the loss of a once-in-a-lifetime artist who fused musicality, precision, and groove with an architect’s vision.
An electric guitar is made of wood, wires, metal bits, and magnets, all inert and lacking biological response. However, we know that certain mysterious combinations can unlock the powers of sapient creatures, like Arthur pulling the sword from the stone. For most of us, the guitar is cruel, incapable of ever being played fully in tune, and causes its suitors to shed layers of skin on their fingertips while trying to tame it. It taunts all of us as if to say, “You’re adorable, I like what you’re trying to do.” Many of us humbly quit and curse the very existence of the instrument, lamenting that we do not possess the skill required to make the guitar obey our commands.
But every so often a guitarist comes along who does something so unexpected, even the guitar itself has no choice but to surrender. Edward Lodewijk Van Halen was such a guitarist, and arguably, he inspired more people to play guitar than anyone in history. A perennial rule-breaker with a name mightier than most mythical beasts, he commanded the instrument to perform as a pure extension of his unbridled creativity all while smiling wider than the Grand Canyon. It was as if he space-docked himself to the guitar prior to launching into the “ZONE,” where he was able to effortlessly summon otherworldly riffs.
Music was changed forever when Edward Van Halen was introduced to the world and now it’s forever changed by his early departure from our world. To this day, there isn’t a more original guitar intro than “Mean Street.” It’s as perplexing now as it was 39 years ago when it forced all of us to ask ourselves, “How is he doing that?” Which, by the way, he had all of us asking that question since the first Van Halen album, when we heard “Eruption.” Because he was such an innovator, we may never stop asking that question.
For those of us old enough to remember living in an analog world where we listened deep and hard and caught all the nuances on every recording because we didn’t have search engines to offer us ubiquitous visual references yet, take a moment to cherish that feeling of being so completely blown away by EVH’s contributions to music. We lined up at record stores to pay for as much music as we could afford and camped out in the snow in long lines with other worshipers to buy tickets for concerts we couldn’t imagine missing. We took binoculars with us hoping to catch a fleeting glimpse of EVH demonstrating what in the actual fuck he was doing. We couldn’t get enough and couldn’t wait to see what he would come up with next. He changed our lives.
Edward Van Halen fueled a desire for music in millions of fans through his guitar playing and his signature sound. The geometric patterns he designed for his instruments became iconic as well. The abstract nature of his guitar artwork bolstered the originality of his music, causing players to not only imitate his playing but his actual artwork as well. There aren’t many musical artists who can be recognized within seconds the way EVH can. We know him from a single note or a single glance at his guitar. He was the architect behind it all.
He often simplified the complexities of his music, explaining, “I just want my guitar playing to make people feel something.” He accomplished that beyond his wildest dreams. For all of his incredible skills, he remained humble, even a bit insecure. That made his music even more likable because he remained human, even though we all idolized him as a superhero. His influence can already be measured over 40 years, and without question he will inspire many future generations.
Edward Van Halen himself was lightning in a bottle, and he could transfer that energy to arenas and stadiums like nobody before or since. Van Halen as a band left audiences feeling like they were floating above the ground for weeks after seeing them perform. The band described it as playing for 10,000 of their closest friends and, at their apex, there was nothing that could compete with the almighty Van Halen.
Even though he had the physical capability to display his prowess, EVH had the maturity and restraint to know what was right for the song in every sense. He was a brilliant arranger, opening all our minds to the utilization of interstitial structures to lead us back to the massive hooks he composed. When it came to soloing, his opening phrases were the stuff of legend. He was natural, he flowed seamlessly from improvisation to calculated and sophisticated syncopations. Edward’s impeccable inner pulse was his greatest asset and the very thing that made his playing so unique. To even get close to imitating his actual playing would take a lifetime. If you ever did get there, you would be confronted with the realization that Edward would’ve climbed his own mountain instead.
As athletic as his playing could be, it was never flash over substance. He epitomized the fusion of technical precision and musicality. His intense rhythmic bond with his brother, Alex, fueled their music in a way that can’t be accurately described in words but can most definitely be felt emotionally. It was glorious to watch the virtuoso Van Halen brothers doing what they do best, and when Wolfgang joined the mix, the DNA trifecta was one of Edward’s proudest moments. He loved playing music with them and we should all take a moment to recognize that the Van Halen family loss is deep. If “Unchained” used to fire you up, it might make you cry your eyes out now.
We are the benefactors of Edward Van Halen’s groundbreaking and timeless music, innovations, and design. We are the awestruck bystanders who witnessed a once-in-a-lifetime culmination of groove from the soul, harmonic complexity, and wicked tone wrapped up in a childlike grin. Edward Van Halen didn’t play the electric guitar like us: The guitar was filtered through him and his deft guidance. He made it look easy—we know it wasn’t. For many, he will always be the King. Long live the King!