Guild Guitar Company

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The Guild Guitar Company is a USA-based guitar manufacturer founded in 1952 by Alfred Dronge. The first Guild workshop was located in New York City and produced exclusively crafted guitars from carefully chosen woods, hand wound pickups and fine lacquers.[1]

Incorporating and merging the needs of both the jazz and rock and roll musician, the Guild company produces well made, warm tone electric and acoustic guitars. For some time this production took place in the hallowed Westerly, Rhode Island workshops. Acquired in 1995 by the Fender Musical Instruments Corporation, all Guild production was eventually moved to the Corona, CA factory. In 2004, FMIC acquired the assets of Washington-based Tacoma Guitar Company and all American Guild acoustic production has since been moved to Tacoma, WA. The 42,000 square-foot Tacoma facility is now one of the largest volume manufacturers of acoustic guitars in the United States.(At the same time, production of Guild electrics was discontinued.)

For a short time reissues of 1960s and 1970s Guild instruments were manufactured in Korea under the DeArmond brand name. Models included the Starfire, Bluesbird and Pilot Bass Series. These instruments display the DeArmond inlay on the headstock while the truss rod cover shows the Guild name and logo. In 2005, Fender introduced the Chinese-built Guild GAD series acoustic guitars.

The company is probably most well noted for its acoustic guitars. In particular, the F50 and D50 models are very highly regarded. Musicians such as Stevie Ray Vaughan, Nick Drake, Martha Wainwright, John Denver, Nanci Griffith, Brian May, Paul Collins, Kim Thayil, Roger Hodgson, Slash, and Eric Clapton have utilised various acoustic Guild guitars. Guild also has produced a series of solid and hollow body electric guitars, and its electric guitars have also seen considerable fame. Arguably the most popular of these electric guitars, the Guild Starfire (and its subsequent editions) became a trademark product, being used by such notables as Dave Davies of British rock group The Kinks, Buddy Guy and Tom Fogerty of American band Creedence Clearwater Revival. A battered blond Guild has been used by Tom Waits since his early days (he could be seen playing a Guild throughout his recent Real Gone Tour). Paul Collins' Beat features Guild acoustic guitars on the cover art to their Live In Spain CD. More recently Guild also created several replicas of Brian May's Red Special handmade guitars throughout the 1980s and 90's, and was known in the grunge era for creating the S-100, the trademark guitar of Soundgarden's Kim Thayil.

The Guild Starfire bass was used by Jefferson Airplane/Hot Tuna bassist Jack Casady (albeit heavily modified), Teton Brown bassists Doug "Clawfinger" Hatcher and John Geltmeyer, and Grateful Dead bassist Phil Lesh. Casady was to later use a custom built Guild Flying V Bass during the mid 1970s.

The distinctive Guild S-200 Thunderbird was used by Muddy Waters in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and can be seen on the back cover of his "Electric Mud" album. The late Zal Yanovsky of The Lovin' Spoonful is pictured playing one quite often back during the band's heyday. It is/was also used by Fred Cole, the guitarist in the now-defunct punk band, Dead Moon. Interestingly, Starfires can be seen on the covers of both The Kink Kontroversy and the Creedence album Cosmo's Factory, and a Guild M-20 acoustic guitar can be seen held on the cover of Nick Drake's Bryter Layter.

Guild entered the solid-body fashion in the 1980s with a series of superstrat-style solid bodies including models such as the Flyer, Aviator, Liberator and Detonator, the Tele-style T-200 and T-250 (endorsed by Roy Buchanan) as well as the famous Pilot Bass, available in fretted, fretless, 4 and 5-string versions. These guitars were the first Guild instruments to bear slim pointed headstocks, sometimes called "pointy droopy", "duck foot" and "cake knife" for their dinstinctive shape. Pilot basses were revived by DeArmond in the 1990s (including a 6-string through-neck version with fancy exotic woods) and discontinued after the brand was gone in the early 21st century.

[edit] Users of Guild Guitars

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[edit] References

  1. ^ Owner's Manual and Warranty, p.2 (PDF). Guild Guitars (2002). Retrieved on 2006-10-11.
  2. ^ Moust, H. (1995). The Guild Guitar Book. GuitArchives, 82, 137. ISBN 0-634-00966-4. . The photograph of Benson accompanying an interview with him in the Guitar Player Book, published in the 1970s, shows him holding a Guild Artist Award with its strings removed.

Hans Moust (1995) The Guild Guitar Book. Hal Leonard Corporation.

[edit] External links