Taylor Guitars Introduces Its First Electric Solid Body Guitar

Press release
Source: Taylor Guitars

“When is Taylor going to make a solid body electric guitar?” It’s a question that players have been asking Taylor Guitars president/co-founder Bob Taylor ever since the early ‘70s. Taylor is renowned for such innovations as the NT (New Technology) neck design, which creates a more playable, stable and easily-adjustable acoustic guitar neck; the Expression System® pickup, for unprecedented high-fidelity amplified acoustic sound; and the award-winning electric/acoustic hybrid T5, which allows a player to go from pure acoustic tones to electric twang and crunch, at the flick of a five-way switch.

The next logical step was for Taylor Guitars to introduce a solid body electric guitar.

New Taylor Electric Guitar

“Our new solid body electrics are a completely original design,” Bob Taylor enthuses. “I could never justify building a guitar that was an imitation of another brand’s model. That’s not what we do. About a year ago, we were working on some humbuckers for a new T5. These pickups sounded so great, we looked up and said, ‘Hey, we’re in the electric guitar business now!’ And instead of keeping them for the T5, we began designing an entirely new guitar, full of touches that are purely Taylor.

“The neck and body shape are all our own," Bob elaborates. “Our aluminum bridge is just beautiful — it feels like a luxury watch band; it’s invisible to the player, yet it’s fully adjustable and loaded with performance features. We developed a new concept of insetting the top with exotic woods, which gives us the look of a bound guitar, with the comfort of a contoured body.

“We literally designed every part of this guitar ourselves, right down to the knobs!”

Fans of the group Styx got a first look at the Taylor solid body electric when guitarist Tommy Shaw got his hands on a prototype during a video shoot for Guitar World magazine. Shaw took the guitar with him when he left, and ended up playing it at a Styx gig the next night. He then posted several performance and casual shots of himself with the new guitar, along with a rave “review” on his blog (www.tommyshaw.com/notes/notes_eng.htm).

The Taylor solid body electric will be available in three models: Classic, Standard and Custom. Each guitar has the new Taylor Humbuckers (there will be a choice of two styles, full or 3/4-size).

The public can see, hear and play the Taylor electric solid body during Taylor Road Shows being held at select dealerships in September and October. A limited number of pre-production models will be for sale this fall, with the major launch in January, 2008.

For additional information contact Taylor Guitars at 1980 Gillespie Way, El Cajon, CA, 92020-1096, (619) 258-6957. For the Taylor Road Show schedule, visit www.taylorguitars.com and click on the Road Show icon at the bottom of the homepage.