Randolph Herr: NYC Metro Area Celebrity & Longtime Friend

Randolph traveled the New York city metro area, with his 65/88-note
Pianola and his foot-pedaled Steinway grand, entertaining and
educating the public about automatic music.  Randolph would perform
at venues such as library and school auditoriums and concert halls and
he once performed at the legendary Carnegie Hall.  The reason I say
"celebrity" is because Randolph and his performances garnered so much
media attention.  When Randolph was on TV there was a big article in
the New York Times that featured him.

I had the privilege of attending one of Randolph's performances.
I enjoyed myself; he was knowledgeable, the performance was so well put
together, so lively and so much fun.  He had me laughing hysterically
with that wonderful, intelligent, offbeat sense of humor that he was so
well-known for.

Randolph had been an AMICA member since the 1970s and would regularly
attend local AMICA chapter meetings.  He was known to most members as
a Duo-Art expert but he worked on other automatic instruments as well.
He was very knowledgeable about the music for automatic instruments.
Randolph and fellow AMICAN Keith Bigger got to interview the late great
Dr. Clarence Hickman, the inventor of the Ampico B system, at Hickman's
home; they took pictures and published an article in the AMICA Bulletin.

I had the great pleasure of knowing Randolph for many years of being
friends.  Randolph was more knowledgeable on Duo-Art systems than I am.
When I had problems on the infamous Duo-Art cross-valve action stacks,
he would always help me.  He would fix the problems and show me how to
do it.

We collaborated on several jobs over the years and I would usually
work on the piano and he the player system (although Randolph was a
very good piano technician in his own right).  We worked together at
the Enrico Caruso Museum for Randolph's good friend, curator Aldo
Mancusi.

The owner of Sweet'N Low, Marvin Eisenstadt, was an AMICAn and
a good friend of Randolph's.  We had both done work on his player
piano, a several-year project involving several AMICA chapter members.
The player piano and Marvin's home were sadly destroyed by super storm
Sandy.

Marvin bought another player piano to replace the one destroyed by
Sandy and Marvin called Randolph to do the work.  I talked to Randolph
just a week before he died about collaborating together to restore
this piano.  We were going to meet there and discus the job.  His death
is very sad and shocking news to me.

Bill Maguire