Yahoo news story:
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20040910/ap_en_mu/obit_ball
Excerps:
His strings and instruments were used by music stars over the past four decades, from B.B. King to Metallica. Beginning with a small music shop in the San Fernando Valley, Ball built a business with annual sales of $40 million and a worldwide reputation. Along the way, he bucked traditional thinking in the music business.
In 1962, complaints from customers that they couldn’t find lighter-gauge, flexible strings for their rock ‘n’ roll instruments prompted Ball to create and sell sets of strings he called “Slinkys.”
