Taylor Guitars

Taylor Guitars

Company type	Private, employee-owned[1]
Industry	Musical instrument manufacturing
Founded	1974; 50 years ago (1974)
Founder	Bob Taylor and Kurt Listug
Headquarters	El Cajon, California , United States
Area served	Worldwide
Key people	Andy Powers (CEO)[2] Barbara Wight (CFO)[3]
Products	Acoustic, classical & electric guitars
Number of employees	750 worldwide
Website	taylorguitars.com

Taylor Guitars is an American guitar manufacturer based in El Cajon, California. The company was founded in 1974 by Bob Taylor and Kurt Listug and specializes in acoustic guitars and semi-hollow electric guitars. It is one of the largest manufacturers of acoustic guitars in the United States^[4] and sells guitars in 65 countries around the world.^[5]

In 1972, at age 18, Bob Taylor began working at a guitar-making shop owned by Sam Radding called American Dream, where Kurt Listug was already an employee. When Radding sold the business in 1974, Taylor,^[6] Listug, and a third employee, Steve Schemmer, bought American Dream and renamed it the Westland Music Company.^[7]

Needing a more compact logo suitable for the guitars' headstock, the founders decided to change the name to Taylor as it sounded more American than Listug. Kurt Listug said, "Bob was the real guitar-maker."^[8] Listug became the partnership's businessman while Taylor handled design and production. In 1976, the company began to sell their guitars through retailers. In 1981, facing financial difficulties, Taylor Guitars took out a bank loan to purchase equipment.^[9][10]

As of 2012, Taylor Guitars had more than 700 employees in two factories in El Cajon, California and in Tecate, Mexico, where the company makes their lower-priced models and guitar cases. In early 2011, the company opened a Taylor distribution warehouse in the Netherlands to serve the European market.^[3] In January 2014, the U.S. State Department honored Taylor Guitars with an Award for Corporate Excellence (ACE)^[11] citing Taylor's commitment to responsible practices in obtaining ebony for its instruments, which notably included purchasing their own sustainable ebony mill and increasing its usable timber from 10% to 100%.

As of January 1, 2021, the company became fully employee-owned.^[1] In May 2022, Andy Powers was named the new CEO, President, and Chief Guitar Designer of the company.^[2]

In 1995, Bob Taylor was interested in finding out if using exotic tonewoods in quality guitars was more important than luthier techniques and good design. He built a dreadnought guitar's back and sides with oak from shipping pallets he found at the factory, used a nondescript piece of 2x4 timber for its top, and made of neck out of pallet oak. The fretboard's Formica-and-pearl inlay depicted a fork lift. He named the resulting instrument the "Pallet Guitar", and in 2000 a limited edition of 25 Grand Auditorium-bodied Pallet Guitars were made, with aluminum inlay included to accentuate the original nail holes in the wood. These guitars were sold to collectors, but the first Pallet Guitar remains on display at the Taylor Guitars factory in El Cajon, California.^[12]

Taylor acoustic models

Fltr: 914, 01A, Richie Sambora signature

In January 1999, Taylor began making guitars with a patented, bolt-on neck called the NT (new technology) neck. This differed from conventional guitar necks in using one continuous piece of wood from the headstock to the 19th fret to support the fretboard.^[13] The usual practice in guitar neck construction was to support the fretboard up to the fourteenth fret and glue the unsupported remaining length to the soundboard. The NT neck fitted into a slot on top of the guitar body, achieving the desired angle with small shims. Guitars sometimes require neck angle realignment (neck reset), and the NT system achieved this by changing shims. Prior to 1999, Taylor Guitars had a simple bolt-on neck design which could be adjusted without the complex process of ungluing the neck joint.^[14][15]

Taylor factory

Fltr: interior view, machines, bodies in process, ready for delivery

The Taylor company uses its own pickup, the "Expression System", which is a humbucking induction pickup mounted in the neck and a pair of dynamic soundboard transducers wired to an onboard preamplifier designed by Rupert Neve.^[16] The entry-level 100 and 200 series has an externally similar system known as ES-T, which uses a single under-saddle pickup and no soundboard transducers. The first-generation ES system was introduced in 2004. It had two transducers, one mounted to the bridge and the other on the lower bout of the sound board, with a small, single-coil pickup mounted in the neck joint, all wired to the onboard preamp, which had three knobs for volume, tone and blend. This early ES system was available on the higher-end 500 series and above as well as the 30th-anniversary limited-edition series, starting in the fall of 2004. It was a custom order for the 300 and 400 series, and could be retrofitted to some older Taylor guitars with the NT neck design.

Taylor's 145,000-square-foot manufacturing facility is located in El Cajon, California, about 20 miles east of downtown San Diego. A free guided tour of the Taylor Guitars factory is open to the public at 1:00 p.m., Monday through Friday except some holidays.^[17] Premier Guitars published a four-part tour of the Taylor Factory, narrated by Bob Taylor, in 2008.^[18]

• Taylor Guitars 30 Years of a New American Classic, Michael John Simmons

PPV Medien; Hardcover edition (January 10, 2005) ISBN 978-3932275449

• Guitar Lessons: A Life's Journey Turning Passion into Business, Bob Taylor

Wiley; Hardcover 1st edition (January 25, 2011) ISBN 978-0470937877

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Taylor Guitars.

• Official website
• Bob Taylor Interview at NAMM Oral History Collection