With Taylor Guitars’ 50th Anniversary year only recently in the rearview mirror, MMR connected with the company’s editorial director, Jim Kirlin, to review a little of Taylor’s history, how they celebrated the recent milestone, and what’s on the immediate horizon for this beloved brand.
Can you talk about the formation of Taylor back in ’74? What was the catalyst behind Kurt and Bob deciding to go on this journey? How did both wind up at the American Dream and how did that set the stage for what became Taylor Guitars?
Tim Kirlin: In high school, Bob loved music and wanted a guitar but couldn’t afford to buy one, so he figured out how to build an acoustic 12-string in eleventh grade and then built two more acoustics his senior year. It sparked a passion to pursue it as a career. That continued when he started working at the American Dream at age 18 after he graduated. That’s where he met Kurt, who also loved music and wanted to learn how to make guitars. The following year, the owner, Sam Radding, decided to sell the business. Bob had already shown that he was talented and focused, and Kurt borrowed money from his father to put toward the purchase of the shop – on the condition that he partner with the best builder there… Bob.
What was behind the decision to brand the business “Westland Music Company?”
They chose the name, as Kurt says, “because it sounded big, like a conglomerate.” The original vision was that they would not only build guitars but also sell guitar parts and do repairs.
Given that the brand/company was founded by both Bob Taylor and Kurt Listug, how did the two settle on going with solely “Taylor” when the business was renamed as “Taylor Guitars” in 1976?
The rights to the “American Dream” name hadn’t been included in the sale of the business to Bob and Kurt, so they weren’t able to use that. Bob was the more accomplished guitar maker, and they agreed that “Taylor” was a strong name for an American-built guitar and should go on the headstock. By 1976, Bob and Kurt agreed that it would be best for them to drop the guitar parts and repair side of the business and focus on building guitars and selling them to stores. That led them to change the name to Taylor Guitars.
Sticking with 1976, at that point how many full-time Taylor Guitars employees were there? How large were the HQ/facilities and where were they?
In 1976, it was still just the original three: Bob, Kurt, and their original third partner, Steve Schemmer. They worked out of the American Dream shop they had bought, about 1,500 square feet, located in Lemon Grove, California, in San Diego’s East County region.
Flipping the previous question on its head: How many employees are there today? How large are the facilities and where are they?
We currently have about 1,000 employees. Our headquarters are in El Cajon, California, with a campus that features eight buildings totaling nearly 180,000 square feet. This encompasses one of our manufacturing complexes, along with our other business operations. We also operate a second, sister factory in Tecate, Baja California, Mexico, located about 50 miles from our El Cajon location. That facility is roughly 119,000 square feet. Our two manufacturing operations are very closely integrated.
Taylor has been embraced by a number of high profile artists. How important were those associations and endorsements in establishing the brand on the national and international stage and consciousness?
Early on, when Taylor was first trying to get a foothold in the guitar world, we were fortunate to have our guitars embraced by certain dealers who provided helpful feedback on the quality of the guitars and put our guitars in the hands of some established artists. As a San Diego-based company, our proximity to Los Angeles was key. Thanks to dealers like Westwood Music and McCabe’s Guitar Shop, who were the musical influencers of their day, they exposed our guitars to artists like David Crosby, JD Souther and many others associated with the Laurel Canyon scene. Seeing Neil Young playing a Taylor 12-string in the concert film “Rust Never Sleeps” certainly helped us gain credibility as a young company. We’ll always be grateful to some of our early dealers, who gave us good feedback on what was appealing about our guitars – for example, our slim, easy-playing guitar necks and low action because acoustic guitars were often hard to play. In the ‘80s, Glen Wetterland from Podium Music in Minneapolis encouraged us to make a purple 12-string guitar for Prince, which ended up being featured in a music video. Our color-stained acoustic guitars attracted interest from other marquee artists, which was huge during a challenging time in the market for acoustic guitar makers. But while having a high-profile artist play a Taylor guitar was great, we didn’t really chase that. By focusing on improving the playability, reliability and all-around utility of acoustic guitars as musical tools, we were embraced organically by other types of pro guitarists, including session and side players, along with songwriters. That led to grassroots, word-of-mouth promotion in music-centric cities like Nashville.
Along the same lines, what moments in the past 50 years stick out as “milestone moments” that really define the Taylor brand: product introductions, artist endorsements, events, moves, hires, awards, business partnerships?
To this day, easy-playing necks remain a definitive Taylor trait that players at every level love. Our Grand Auditorium body style, introduced in 1994, was another important development for us, marrying playability with a distinctive type of Taylor acoustic voice: clear, balanced, musically useful acoustic sound that recording pros loved because our guitars got the job done. Bob’s pioneering embrace of modern technology and his innovative development of proprietary tooling created the perfect platform for Taylor to evolve – it brought more precision and consistency to guitar-making and fueled the company’s growth from a small shop to a sophisticated manufacturer, all the while improving the playing experience with acoustic guitars. Since you mention business partnerships, Bob and Kurt have both emphasized that the biggest key to Taylor’s success was their own partnership, with Bob overseeing the guitar-making side of the operation and Kurt focusing on the business operation. It’s been a remarkably complementary relationship with mutual trust between both. While Bob often rightly is credited for his guitar innovations, Kurt’s role in creating a brand identity that resonated with people is often underappreciated now that Taylor is established. As for hires, Bob and Kurt agree that one of our most important hires was Andy Powers, who is our chief guitar designer, president, and CEO.
Andy Powers has been a hugely important figure at Taylor beginning 15ish years ago, through to the present-day and his current position at the helm of the company. How did Powers first come to Taylor Guitars and can you describe the evolution of his position at the company?
Technically, we should thank Jason Mraz. Bob had met Andy many years earlier, but they became reacquainted in early 2010 when Andy performed with Jason on the Taylor stage at NAMM. It was around the time when Bob had begun thinking about finding a guitar design successor. In addition to being a pro player, Andy was an immensely talented, locally based guitar maker with his own successful business crafting custom guitars; he had an incredible knowledge of the history of instrument making; and he had considerable experience repairing all types of vintage guitars. Bob and Andy got to talking, Andy realized that Taylor would provide a robust platform for him to execute his design ideas and impact players on a much greater scale than he would as a solo builder, and the rest is history. For Bob, it was important to find the right person to carry forward Taylor’s culture of guitar innovation, which had been key to the company’s success, and both he and Kurt felt it would be vital to the continued success of the company beyond their tenure. Bob considers Andy not only a better guitar maker than he was, but one of the very best he’s ever met. After several years of working alongside Bob and Taylor’s Larry Breedlove, Andy redesigned Taylor’s flagship 800 Series for the company’s 40th anniversary in 2014 and became Taylor’s chief guitar designer. He became an ownership partner with Bob and Kurt in 2019, and in the wake of Taylor’s transition to employee ownership, Andy was also named President and CEO in 2022, with Bob and Kurt staying on as senior advisors.
Can you talk about any 50th anniversary events, initiatives, guitar models, et cetera that celebrate this significant milestone?
the course of 2024, we rolled out a series of commemorative 50th anniversary limited edition models (nearly 20 altogether) that spanned the entire Taylor line, from the GS Mini to our Presentation Series and Builder’s Edition Collection. They’ve been well received by dealers and players. On Taylor’s actual anniversary date (October 15), we capped off the milestone year with the debut of another special series of guitars called the Legacy Collection. These are reimagined versions of some classic guitar models from Bob Taylor, including a trio of rosewood/spruce Dreadnought and Jumbo guitars that hearken back to Bob’s early 800 Series, plus a pair of classic Grand Auditorium models (mahogany/cedar 514ce and rosewood/cedar 714ce). They’re not pure reissues but are reinterpretations with design specifications personally curated by Bob. These will remain in the Taylor line as a dedicated collection in 2025, with the potential for other models to be added. We also created some great historical content: a timeline of Taylor history and important milestones that lives on our website, along with a multi-part oral history podcast series (“American Dreamers: 50 Years of Taylor Guitars”) that features Bob and Kurt recounting stories that shaped the evolution of the company. That was a lot of fun and great to capture for posterity.
Looking back on the past half-century, do you feel Taylor Guitars has accomplished all you set out to achieve? What’s next for the brand?
It’s fair to say that Taylor’s success far exceeded any aspirations Bob and Kurt originally had when they began their journey in 1974. At the time, they hoped to create a viable business out of making guitars. Bob is proud of the innovations he brought to the guitar-making process, and Kurt is proud that Taylor was able to create a successful brand and business. They take great pride not only in producing guitars that have served and inspired many people around the world, but in creating a company that could turn guitar-making into a respectable and fulfilling career for others. As for what’s next, Andy Powers is leading the charge by continuing to move our instrument-making forward. He recently designed some new guitars that we’re excited to unveil for 2025. Our purpose as a company remains the same: to make instruments that inspire more people to make music because we feel the world is a better place with music. We’re also continuing to work on our environmental stewardship projects, which include successful planting initiatives with ebony in Cameroon and koa in Hawaii.
