Free Republic

For many Southern California music fans, the most anticipated moment of the new year is getting the Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival line-up, but for nearly 120,000 music merchants, industry insiders and musicians, the annual NAMM Show at the Anaheim Convention Center is where the real excitement is. The National Association of Music Merchants has gathered every January in Anaheim since 1976 to show off new innovations in the industry. With thousands of exhibitors from around the world, the NAMM Show is one of the longest-running and largest music product trade shows in the world. This event is all...

Gloria Gaynor will be honored at the 2020 She Rocks Awards at House of Blues Anaheim on Friday, Jan. 17...during the NAMM Show. ... The honorees include: Gloria Gaynor, Grammy Award-winning “I Will Survive” singer and Grammy Hall of Fame inductee Linda Perry, acclaimed singer-songwriter and producer Lzzy Hale, Grammy Award-winning Halestorm frontwoman Suzi Quatro, pioneering bassist, singer-songwriter and actress Beatie Wolfe, singer-songwriter Tal Wilkenfeld, singer-songwriter and bassist Suzanne D’Addario Brouder, executive director of the D’Addario Foundation ... Gaynor, who celebrated her 70th birthday in 2019, is best known for her 1978 disco anthem “I Will Survive.” All these years...

Over the last few years, guitars and a sort of obscure law against illegal logging have come into conflict. Environmental activists are in Anaheim today, at the National Association of Music Merchants trade show, to do a raising awareness song-and-dance about this. Literally: they've got a musician with them. The guitars are Gibsons, and the law is the Lacey Act. An NPR colleague reported on this issue from Tennessee last year. Gibson is just a flash point: federal law enforcement officials have investigated the company on the suspicion that it broke laws in India and Madagascar. The Lacey Act makes...