Charles and Ron Sanches ran a player piano / organ restoration shop out of Monrovia, CA. Charles composed 2 of the 3 outstanding reproducing rollographies for us (Duo-Art and Welte) out of this shop. While on a business trip, I connected with Rob Rhodes and we visited with Charles and Ron several times. Charles was (rightfully) very proud of all the work he put into the rollographies, especially the Welte book where he sifted through some very complicated and scattered information to tell us the stories of the German & American Welte companies. He also put a lot of work into the roll artist biographies, which made his book a high watermark in the field.
Charles had a heart condition for a number of years and was in very fragile health for his last few. Richard Howe provided a bounty of original materials to assist Charles on the project, and encouraged Charles to continue with his Welte project, and kept it going when Charles was beginning to be too weak to continue.
Seger Ellis was a pianist and singer, who recorded Texas Wail Blues on U.S. Music (also issued as QRS 101061 with very minor changes made to the intro. and ending). He also recorded one of the very first electrically-recorded Victor records ever (piano solos Prairie Blues / Sentimental Blues on Victor 19755), managed the Mills Brothers, and later ran a bar in the Houston area. I had the pleasure of meeting Seger and his wife Pam in Houston, and got his autograph on my copy of the U.S. Music piano roll! The Houston PBS station made a very interesting hour-long documentary on Seger, which we watched. I later got a copy of the tape, through the Houston PBS station with Seger's permission. It is very interesting and very well done! Record auctioner Kurt Nauck lives in the Houston area, and was very good friends with Seger and Pam.
