We recently received the following message from NAMM’s Dan Del Fiorentino:
At the time of DW Caffey's NAMM Oral History interview in 2012, he had been tuning pianos for just over 72 years! This fact is made all the more amazing considering DW was blind.
He was very young when he found himself enamored with the piano. In 1940, when he was just fifteen years old, DW taught himself how to tune pianos. He read a book and asked an old time tuner a few questions and was soon hired by a music store. He worked for several piano stores in Mississippi during his long career including Allegrezza Pianos in Ridgeland, where he was interviewed. He never let his blindness limit him and in fact he proudly taught others his craft at the Mississippi School for the Blind for over 32 years.
DW passed away in a Jackson, Mississippi area hospice on January 24, 2015, the Saturday of the NAMM Show.
