The devices won’t bear his identify on the headstock however, as a enterprise, Taylor Guitars is each bit as a lot Kurt Listug’s brainchild as it’s Bob Taylor’s. It’s one thing Bob Taylor is fast to acknowledge if you communicate with him – that the corporate they co-own, for all that it trades beneath Taylor’s identify, was the product of two minds: Bob Taylor the guitar designer and Kurt Listug, who went out on the highway and managed to show the merchandise of a pair of Californian hippies right into a model that shook the acoustic guitar tree so exhausting that even the venerable CF Martin, whose roots went deep all the way down to the very beginning of the steel-strung acoustic guitar within the USA, was severely jolted.
This was no small achievement. Since people started making their very own acoustic guitars – a development that didn’t actually get beneath manner till the Sixties – a shocking quantity have proved able to constructing generally good devices, generally distinctive ones. However most, in the event that they stayed in enterprise in any respect, remained so in a small manner. A number of have expanded into medium sized enterprises, inevitably on the boutique finish of the market, however none has achieved something like Taylor when it comes to the quantity {of professional} high quality guitars it produces.
The preliminary enchantment of Taylor’s guitars after they first appeared within the mid-Nineteen Seventies has been effectively documented. Not like Martins of the time, they had been straightforward to play, which appealed to electrical guitarists who wished to place down their light-and-low-strung Gibson or Fender electrical mid-set and choose up an acoustic that didn’t really feel like one thing they needed to wrestle with. They had been effectively constructed guitars, manufactured from wonderful woods, with distinctive design options, they usually produced an outstanding sound that shortly noticed them showing within the palms of high artists. It wasn’t Martin alone that felt the affect, as a result of Taylor quickly eclipsed Ovation – the model that had develop into the acoustic guitar you took on stage as a result of it may very well be comparatively simply amplified and wasn’t too in contrast to your electrical from a taking part in perspective. A Taylor may do all that and but had a tone that would rival a Gibson, Martin or Guild.
“We did actually inventive campaigns, telling a narrative that wasn’t concerning the guitar itself, it was about folks and the way the guitar fitted of their lives and gave them pleasure”
None of which suggests it was a simple promote for the 2 younger Californians – very removed from it, Listug remembers. At occasions it appeared like the corporate, which had adopted Bob Taylor’s identify as a result of they determined Listug on a headstock simply wouldn’t look proper, may barely pay their wages.
Explaining how Taylor guitars started, Listug says: “I began taking part in guitar within the 60s. I by no means acquired excellent at it however adequate to play together with Beatles songs and I preferred engaged on issues, though I’m not a Bob Taylor by any means. Whereas I used to be at school, a good friend of mine from highschool acquired a job at a little bit guitar store known as The American Dream, which was a co-op the place you’d get a bench and do some restore work or get a fee to make an instrument, When it was executed you get a part of the worth and the opposite a part of it might go to Sam Radding, who owned the store, to cowl the lease and such. I additionally acquired a job there, studying the way to do restore work.
“After I began, Greg Deering (later of Deering Banjo Firm fame) was additionally there and was he exhibiting me the way to do ending. At about the identical time a younger man known as Bob Taylor, who’d simply gotten out of highschool, dropped by and introduced in a guitar he’d made, to point out to Sam. Sam was impressed and supplied Bob a bench there too – that was within the Summer time of 1973.
“A 12 months later, Sam determined that he wished to promote The American Dream. He was a an actual proficient craftsman however a fairly happy-go-lucky man and it was extra accountability than he wished. He determined to go backpacking and left it as much as us who had been working there to work out who was going to purchase it off him – very seventies-era, very hippy ish!”
Hippy shake-up
Hippies or not, it was then that Listug’s business instincts first started to emerge. Bob Taylor and one other of the American Guitar Dream group determined they might kind a partnership to purchase the enterprise, whereas Kurt and his good friend, Steve Schemmer, had an analogous thought. Not like the opposite three, it was Kurt who visited the native small enterprise administration (a help scheme for folks beginning new ventures) and put collectively a marketing strategy. “It was greater than Bob and Jerry had executed as they had been extra centered on ‘we wish to make guitars,’” he says.
“None of us had any cash. I believe Sam’s value was $3,700 and that included all of the equipment, elements and so forth. Bob had requested his household to assist and I talked with my dad about lending me the cash to purchase it and he stated, ‘Are you aware the way to make guitars?’ I stated ‘Nicely, no, not likely’ and he stated ‘Nicely in case you’re going into the guitar enterprise you actually need to know the way to make guitars. Who’s the very best guitar maker there?’ I stated that might be Bob Taylor and he stated, ‘Nicely your mom and I might take into account loaning you some cash if you will get Bob Taylor to be your accomplice.’”
It should have known as for a little bit fancy footwork, as Listug needed to persuade Taylor to drop his proposed accomplice and group up with himself and Steve Schemmer, however the consequence was that the threesome shaped an alliance to purchase the enterprise – although not earlier than Listug had executed one thing which, looking back, was to show key to the enterprise’s success. He had discovered from his analysis that the partnership wanted a purchase/promote settlement, which meant that if anybody wished to tug out of the corporate at some later stage, these remaining had the proper to purchase the leaving accomplice’s share. In 1983, when Steve Schemmer wished out, having disagreed with Taylor and Listug the way to make a hit of their enterprise, it was a comparatively easy transaction that didn’t wreck the enterprise.
“It was actually a battle the entire time, with heavy payments as much as a few years late and never with the ability to pay ourselves”
“These first years, from October ’74, after we purchased out Sam, to early ’83 after we purchased out Steve, we struggled and struggled and weren’t in a position to develop very a lot. The American Dream was doing $30,000 a 12 months after we purchased it and eight or 9 years later we’d solely been in a position to develop that to round $130,000 a 12 months, so it was actually a battle the entire time, with heavy payments as much as a few years late and never with the ability to pay ourselves.”
The educational curve was steep. Early Taylors had been had been inbuilt batches as a result of it appeared logical for them to do issues that manner. Which, as they later discovered, was a mistake.
“We thought it might be best to make batches of guitars of 10 guitars, which might take a month however truly we’d begin a batch of 10 guitars, solely six would make it and they might take two months, so it was one in every of these datums that it’s extra environment friendly to make a batch since you unfold your set-up time over complete batch however it’s not truly not true. Bob discovered that just a few years later from Augi LoPrinzi (the famous US hand builder of guitars and ukuleles). Bob met him at a NAMM present. He requested Bob ‘Would you somewhat have one one guitar accomplished, or ten half executed guitars?’ So Augi taught Bob how he made guitars, which was one by one. If it takes three weeks to do all of the steps and also you begin one a day, you’ll have a guitar a day coming off the road three weeks later.”
Retail remedy
At first, like most small guitar makers, gross sales had been made to particular person clients. “We’d make guitars and dangle them on the wall and folks would are available in and purchase them. However as quickly as you begin making extra than simply an occasional instrument you’ve acquired extra guitars than you’ve acquired clients after which we realised we needed to go the music shops. Then we realised, ‘Wait a minute! We’re going to get so much much less cash promoting them to a music retailer, so we’re going to need to make extra guitars,’ and so we acquired into that complete vicious circle.
“Anyway, I loaded up a bunch of guitars and went to LA, having borrowed Bob’s van. I had acquired some leads from a good friend who’d stated ought to go and see Fred Walecki at Westwood Music and McCabe’s Guitar Store and some others. So I did simply that and I got here house with nothing however cheques!”
It was apparent from that second that even when they had been going to be incomes so much much less for every guitar, this was going to be the way in which ahead. However occasions had been nonetheless grindingly exhausting. Bob Taylor was residing along with his sister as a result of he was broke and neither of the companions was in a position to attract a wage. The issue that they had now was that though they might get to retailers in Los Angeles, how may they cowl the remainder of the nation?
The important thing to the prepared acceptance of these early Taylors had been noticed by the identical good friend who had instructed which shops Listug ought to go to. He’d additionally stated: “Your guitars are good. The issue with Martins is that they’ve such a baseball neck they usually’re exhausting to play.”
However the opposite enticing Taylor qualities – the modern bolt-on neck, the colourful tone and excessive construct high quality – it was the playability that attracted early adoptees. Listug is on document as having described the distinction between their guitars and Martins and others as by some means epitomising the distinction between the East and West coasts of the USA.
“I used to be speaking with Andy Powers about this lately. West Coast is extra informal – it’s extra snug. If you happen to had been to check electrical guitars, how snug is the Les Paul in comparison with Stratocaster? There’s an enormous distinction there. A Stratocaster is designed for consolation and folks within the West Coast gown extra for consolation so it’s only a totally different angle.”
Going electrical
One other characteristic that appealed was the relative ease with which a Taylor may very well be amplified. “After we began, going again to ’73, I don’t keep in mind any crossover between acoustic and electrical guitarists. Electrical guitarists again then simply wouldn’t play acoustic guitars and vice versa. Ovation modified that, Ovation designed a guitar that labored as an acoustic guitar and the pickup was the entire thing. It was for us, too. We began placing pickups in guitars – early Barcus Berrys and Scorching Dots and pickups from Lloyd Baggs. We used them for the longest time and we labored with Larry Fishman for a very long time too, then we developed our personal.
“With out our guitars having pickups we wouldn’t be anyplace close to as widespread as we’re. In a way we took over from Ovation however we made a respectable acoustic guitar out of wooden, it was straightforward to play, it had an excellent pickup that labored, it was extra snug, it had a little bit bit extra modern styling and that each one got here collectively to make us profitable.”
They nonetheless wanted extra shops to promote their rising manufacturing into, nonetheless, so the following step was discovering a distributor.
“You had Saturday Evening Fever, disco dancing and synthesisers and also you wouldn’t even hear a guitar in music for a interval there”
“Our largest problem was getting out and discovering extra shops as we didn’t have the time or the cash to journey. We had been actually caught in Southern California however as quickly as we began making extra guitars, Paul Rothchild [record producer for The Doors and others] and his brother got here all the way down to see us. That they had this concept of turning into a distributor for small guitar makers like Alembic, Larrivée and folks like that. That they had a warehouse if San Francisco they usually’d employed gross sales folks.
“They introduced the argument that your guitars are underpriced and we expect we will purchase guitars from you at just about the identical value as you’re getting from sellers. In fact, that didn’t work however the profit from that interval was that they had gross sales folks across the nation discovering music shops to promote Taylor guitars and so a distribution community across the US acquired constructed. We’d get registration playing cards from across the nation, telling us which shops had been promoting them, so when the time got here that we realised we had been simply digging ourselves right into a gap not making any cash and we determined we needed to exit on our personal, we had a begin.”
Onerous occasions
However even more durable occasions had been forward – not only for Taylor however for your entire guitar trade. Onerous although it could be to consider at present, the early Eighties noticed journal articles critically asking the query whether or not the guitar as a phenomenon in widespread music was lastly lifeless. The rise of disco music and tsunami of keyboard-dominated bands propelled by the launch of Yamaha‘s DX7 in 1983, noticed guitar bands pushed out of the limelight. If at present’s hip-hop dominated scene appears to be like troublesome, it was many occasions more durable within the Eighties and no guitar maker escaped unscathed.
“You had Saturday Evening Fever, disco dancing and synthesisers and also you wouldn’t even hear a guitar in music for a interval there,” Listug remembers. “That was the low for all of the guitar firms round ’82 and we tried various things, like we made the purple 12-string for Prince – we’d strive something to vary the picture of the acoustic guitar. Then by the mid-late 80s you’d begin listening to acoustic guitar on soundtracks once more and on the radio. Then there was a present in America known as The Marvel Years, which had Snuffy Walden taking part in our guitars, and some years later Eric Clapton did Unplugged and the guitar market began choosing up once more.
“Within the late 80s we lastly hit the purpose the place we had been making 4 guitars a day and two days every week we’d make 5 a day – that’s how small we nonetheless had been on the time! We thought if we may make a fifth guitar two days every week that might make the distinction between with the ability to pay ourselves that week or not. It took us from 1974 till ’86 or ’87 with the 22 guitars every week, that we had sufficient gross sales that they’d all be bought and, having our payments all paid, we may lastly pay ourselves each week.”
The enterprise was now beginning to develop. In 1988 Taylor generated a million {dollars} in gross sales for the primary time and by 2002 that had grown that determine to a formidable $50 million. How? Nicely, leaving apart developments within the devices themselves (that’s a narrative for an additional day) the reply was advertising and marketing – blisteringly good advertising and marketing: a type of sorcery that had begun to fascinate Listug.
“I believe there’s a superb probability that down the highway Andy shall be on the helm of the entire firm”
“I at all times thought a model was a curious factor. It’s like, I’m a Porsche man. I’ve had plenty of Porsches there are lots of people on the market that might love a Porsche although they’ve by no means pushed one, by no means even sat in a single, however they know they need one. How does that work? How does that occur? Having grown up with The Beatles – I used to be in sixth grade when I Need To Maintain Your Hand got here out in America they usually had been on with Ed Sullivan in that February of ’64. Look how that modified the world, the way in which that explosion modified the social developments and the music developments – man, how does that occur? Round 2000 I knew that I needed to make the model larger and extra widespread for us to develop and that I needed to discover those that understood the way to assist me do it.
“Bob and I had each purchased Harley-Davidsons by then and I had seen one advert that basically stood out for me. It was Harley-Davidson advert and it didn’t have motorbike in it. It had an image of a sky with a constellation and it stated ‘Have you ever ever appeared up and seen a ’57 Panhead?’ And I assumed that’s unimaginable as a result of it’s actually talking to not the product itself however what the product means to you and the pleasure of possession, dreaming concerning the product and position it performs in your life. If you happen to relate that to guitars it’s not concerning the fastidiously multi-laminated binding, it’s not about options in any respect – it’s nearly not even concerning the product – it’s about what does the product do for you in your life? That advert actually made an impression on me.”
Model consciousness
Because it occurred, that Harley advert was one of many examples dropped at them by a neighborhood promoting company that was pitching for Taylor’s enterprise. As quickly as Kurt noticed it he knew he’d discovered a like-minded group. The following few years had been to see guitar promoting prefer it hadn’t been executed earlier than. Purists may scoff, however hardly any guitarist may declare by no means to have been influenced by the magic that surrounds sure devices and types – and what Listug got down to do was apply it to his and Bob Taylor’s model as relative newcomers that couldn’t, for instance, declare to have been on the coated wagons that rolled throughout the plains, or have been on stage with Buddy Holly. The trick was to do it with sincerity.
“The primary advert marketing campaign we did used inventory images and we mainly talked about our love of bushes and the way bushes go into the making of an instrument. It’s a residing, respiratory factor that you simply make music on. We ran two-page adverts within the main American magazines and from there we ran a number of campaigns that had been all alternative ways of telling the identical story. After which the tales got here again from individuals who’d purchased our guitars – letters they despatched, feedback they’d made, like about how they’d found Taylor and their spouse had inspired them to purchase one. We ran a number of campaigns about loving making music in your Taylor. We did actually inventive campaigns, telling a narrative that wasn’t concerning the guitar itself, it was about folks and the way the guitar fitted of their lives and gave them pleasure. Loads of the adverts didn’t even have guitars in them. These adverts had been actually widespread and helped us make the model.”
What the corporate didn’t do, nonetheless, was tread the well-ploughed furrow of artist endorsements. Loads of well-known guitarists play Taylors and communicate of them reverentially, however Listug is sceptical whether or not artist endorsements promote acoustic guitars. As a substitute, the corporate has developed communication with its household of Taylor homeowners by way of its personal journal, Wooden & Metal. Having stated he doubts the impact of endorsements, nonetheless, he admits he and the remainder of the Taylor group had been lately thrilled by a problem of GQ which featured Paul McCartney extensively utilizing and enthusing over his personal Taylor. The irony is that they didn’t even know McCartney owned a Taylor (he had been given one by Richie Sambora, apparently) so if that counts as an endorsement it was a completely uncontrived one.
Inevitably, the era that noticed Bob Taylor and Kurt Listug discovered and develop an excellent enterprise is now attending to an age the place ideas about retirement and succession loom. Bob Taylor has been maybe most well-known within the trade for being open about this, nominating Taylor’s grasp guitar designer and now possession accomplice Andy Powers as his successor. How about Kurt Listug – has he earmarked somebody to take over his position because the enterprise guru of the group?
“Not likely,” says Kurt. “The enterprise grew as a result of Bob and I had totally different pursuits. We began collectively and divided them up so every did our personal factor that contributed to the corporate. However he wants a proficient particular person voice for instrument design. It may’t be executed by a gross sales and advertising and marketing committee deciding on set price-points and options. However for me, I’ve constructed a group of proficient people who find themselves all higher at their elements than I used to be – finance, gross sales, advertising and marketing. And these individuals are all complete professionals at what they do. I information and I mentor them however I believe the enterprise shall be totally different sooner or later. I believe we’ll have strong groups in these totally different departments and Andy is sensible and succesful sufficient. I’m educating him finance now and he’s very concerned in advertising and marketing, so I believe there’s a superb probability that down the highway Andy shall be on the helm of the entire firm.”
Don’t take that as a touch that Taylor is about to let up the strain. Listug reveals a five-year plan (sadly, he doesn’t go into element) which incorporates creating inroads into the electrical guitar market, new supplies, new devices and no let-up in Taylor’s quest for innovation. There’s not even a touch that he gained’t be there personally to supervise it, both.
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