Paul Reed Smith knocked on backstage doors until Santana bought his guitar
As a college student, Paul Reed Smith earned four credits for a guitar judged professional quality. He dropped out, built instruments by hand and hauled them to concerts, knocking on backstage doors. Carlos Santana and Peter Frampton became customers, and by 2024 PRS was the third best-selling guitar brand after Fender and Gibson.
Smith, born in 1956, built his first instrument, an electric bass, in 1972 at Bowie High School and completed his first electric guitar at 19 while at St. Mary's College of Maryland. His Annapolis repair shop turned out roughly one guitar a month. In 1976 he made one for Frampton; Ted Nugent bought an early model, and after the guitarist Howard Leese acquired Smith's first maple-topped design, the Golden Eagle, Santana asked for something similar, delivered in 1980.
By late 1984 the recognisable PRS look was settled: a body shape often described as a cross between a Stratocaster and a Les Paul, a distinctive headstock, inlays of birds in flight along the fretboard, and twin humbucking pickups with a rotary switch. Smith unveiled the Custom at the 1985 NAMM trade show, then toured East Coast shops collecting enough advance orders to open a factory in Annapolis that same year. The company built its 1,000th guitar in June 1986.
Pricing caused friction. When a friend told Smith he was undercharging, he launched a pricier Signature series, which sold well but drew jibes about guitars only doctors and dentists could afford. Cheaper lines followed, including Fender-style bolt-on models from 1988. The 1992 Dragon, limited to 50 guitars at $8,000 each with a dragon inlay winding down the neck, sounded so good that its design fed a mass-market model, the Custom 22. The McCarty of 1994 honoured former Gibson president Ted McCarty, a friend and mentor, and Santana became the first formal endorser in 1995.
In 1996 the firm moved to Stevensville on Maryland's Kent Island. For decades every guitar was made in Maryland, until the imported SE line arrived in 2000, built first in Korea and since 2019 in Indonesia and China. PRS added acoustic guitars in 2008, cheaper American-made S2 models in 2014, and signature instruments for players such as Mark Tremonti and John Mayer.
Source: PRS Guitars
