PRS Santana II®
Ever since he was 19,
all Paul Reed Smith could think about was making
a guitar for his idol, Carlos Santana.
Paul started making custom guitars
in Annapolis around 1976. By 1980, his local reputaion
as a guitar luthier had grown enourmously. Paul
was also the first to start using highly figured
maple tops for his guitars. At fist he got these
from a friend's dresser. Even by the 1980's, Paul's
clientele included Ted Nugent, Al DiMeola and Howard
Leese. But he had yet to realize his dream of making
a guitar for Carlos.
Paul managed to show one of his
guitars to Carlos one day. It was his own guitar,
P90s, mahogany with dragon inlays. Carlos liked
the feedback that the guitar was producing, and
asked if he could use it for the show later that
night. After looking at Paul's scrapbook of guitars,
he choose the curly maple-topped Howard Leese guitar
and ordered one.
The
deal between Paul and Carlos was that if Carlos
didn't immediately fall in love with his guitar,
he wouldn't have to buy it.
So Carlos went on stage with Paul's
guitar. Unfortunately, it didn't perform as he expected
it to, plus the setup problem that Carlos was experiencing,
gave him a bad impression of the PRS guitar.
Paul however insisted that the problem
was with the pickups, and eventually Carlos agreed
to try another guitar.
Paul sent one of Howard Leese's
single-coil guitar (which was on its way for maintenence)
to Carlos. he fell in love with the guitar and wanted
it, but Paul suggested that he ordered a new one.
Carlos wanted an original tremolo system that would
stay in tune.
Paul agreed to do it, even though
he had no idea how to. Paul used roller nuts, Stars
Guitars brass bridge, drilled the block, put screw
locks on the tuners and used Seymour Duncan pickups.
It was sent to Carlos, and after a few months, Carlos
sent back Howard Leese's guitar. Paul received a
$2000 cheque and the respect of a great guitarist.
Carlos
said that the first guitar was 'an accident of God'.
Paul built him a second one, and he said it was
an accident of God too. By the time Paul made him
a third one and even a double-neck, Carlos Santana
finally accepted him as a master luthier.
Later on Paul introduced the first
commercial colidbody, the PRS Custom, and PRS guitars
became a 'must have' for every guitarists.
