Bob Taylor disses Tenors!

[delsbrother]

IIRC, member Joel Eckhaus sells bolt on tenor necks for solidbody guitars and I believe he adds two little filler strips to cover up the "scar" - perhaps one could do something like that for the Taylor. I would think if you just left off the two outside bridge pins you could convert back and forth from 4 to 6 strings fairly easily.

[Gary Hedrick]

Why should Taylor make a tenor when there are so many really good ones available at Bananna's and on Ebayfpr really reasonable prices..... The profit margine just isn't there.......(spoken by an owner of a '29 Gibson TG1 and a '40 Martin 0-18T)

[Bob DeVellis]

Shawn Colvin, Rabon Delmore, Eddie Condon (from time to time), and Chuck Berry (his first guitar) are others.

[JeffD]

The mandolin market must be huge in comparison to to the tenor guitar market, and Taylor doesn't even make mandolins.

What it tells you is that the guitar market is incomprehensibly huge compared to all that we discuss here, and if you are geared up to make money selling those kinds of numbers, its hard to make money selling fewer.

[Fretbear]

No disrespect, but I wouldn't even want a Taylor that had six-strings.

[Mike Snyder]

Ouch! Wouldn't see how that might be construed as disrespect. It's a "modern" sound, and the builds seem a little soul-less and sterile in their perfection, but the buisness model works and they sound good. Not a D-28 sound, but not bad either.

[mrmando]

Jimmy Dodd plays an ordinary Regal tenor in some other Mickey Mouse Club clips.

I checked out the deluxe edition of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea from the library recently, and in the bonus features there's a short B&W promo that includes a better look at Kirk Douglas' tenor guitar ... before he hands it off to the prop master. There's another feature about the music which includes a photo of what looks like the recording session for "Whale of a Tale," and the guitarist is playing a standard guitar. So the tenor was, in the end, just a prop.

If the list of tenor players is to include dead people, then we should mention John Mills Jr., the original guitarist/bass vocalist with the Mills Bros. He died of pneumonia in 1936, eight years into the group's existence and before many of their big hits. There's also Ken Trietsch of the Hoosier Hot Shots. And Daryl Hall of Hall & Oates is known to collect and play tenors.

Anyway, all you tenor nuts should consider coming out to Astoria, Oregon, first weekend in June for the Tenor Guitar Gathering.

[MikeEdgerton]

No disrespect, but I wouldn't even want a Taylor that had six-strings.

To each his own. I have a Taylor that I bought in the 80's that is going back to the factory for a neck reset. It's a wonderful instrument and my Martins and Breedlove will have to do while it's down but I will miss it.

[Ed Goist]

...snip...the guitar market is incomprehensibly huge compared to all that we discuss here...snip...

So true. So true.
Consider the following (and think about it in terms of some of the things we discuss here on the Cafe).
If you live in the US (and you do not live out in the middle of nowhere), you are almost certainly within 120 miles or less of:
* A brick-and-mortar store that has several dozen guitars (acoustic and electric) you can demo.
* A very good guitar technician.
* A very good guitar instructor.
* Several fantastic guitar players...I mean folks that will just blow you away with their chops.
* Several regular jams and song circles that will welcome guitar players with open arms regardless of the style of music they play and their skill level.
Guitarist just take this stuff for granted.

[Charles E.]

I too think that the Taylor Mini would make a nice tenor guitar. Taylor produces an 8 string Baritone guitar, how many of those things are they selling? I will not hold my breath for a tenor from them.

[SternART]

I've seen Barry Mitterhoff playing one recently......with Hot Tuna.

[MikeEdgerton]

Here's your chance to get even with Bob. Buy a Martin instead. NFI.

[Ed Goist]

Here's your chance to get even with Bob. Buy a Martin instead. NFI.

Of course, this ad kind of reinforces Bob Taylor's point...
How many tenor guitar buyers looking to spend $1,300 would choose a new tenor guitar (from any producer) over this one?
Very few methinks. (NFI)

[Charles E.]

Those old Martins are hard to beat.

[Seonachan]

Having seen unknown numbers of tenor banjos converted to 5-string by unbolting one neck and bolting on another, it seems a strange twist of fate that a guitar might be converted to tenor by bolting on another neck...
I suppose it could be done, as long as the scale length stays the same. there may be a "scar" on the body to the sides of the narrower neck where it bolts on, and there would be two extra bridge pin holes in the bridge (assuming a pin bridge) and bridge plate. That would work fine, but a new bridge would complete the transition.

I have a hybrid tenor like this - a hollow electric body with a tenor banjo neck bolted on. The gap was filled in, with what I don't know.

[mrmando]

Let's go bark up the Collings tree ... they seem a little more willing to take some risks over there.

[JeffD]

Jimmy Dodd plays an ordinary Regal tenor in some other Mickey Mouse Club clips. .

Would this be the Regal?

[mrmando]

That be the one. That is to say, it certainly looks like a Regal headstock decal to me.

Cubby doesn't look too happy...

[delsbrother]

Let's go bark up the Collings tree ... they seem a little more willing to take some risks over there.

Would seem like a good fit, what with the Texas Fiddle backup tradition of tenor guitar playing. Actually, come to think of it, I'd MUCH rather fantasize about a Collings O-18T vs. a tenor Taylor.

[Steve L]

I think every manufacturer you point to that's currently producing tenors is another reason Taylor thinks he should not.

[JeffD]

For Taylor its not a risk, its a loss leader pet project, or total charity.

As for Collings: I recently read this in a review:

"Luthier Bill Collings began building guitars in the 1970s, and today, his Austin, Texas - based Collings Guitars is known all over the world for making high quality instruments. Although the company now has a large and diverse catalog that includes electric guitars, mandolins, and ukuleles, most player thik forst of the company's core line of falttop guitars."

The point is that mandolins are niche instrument, relegated to the "although they also make" and the "diverse catalog". Tenor guitars are to mandolins, what mandolins are to guitars. I can't see tenors being made by any large guitar manufacturer until Madonna plays one at the Super Bowl, which will be the Super Bowl the Bills win.

[PJ Doland]

Didn't Breedlove stop making their tenor model because it wasn't selling?

[multidon]

I can't see tenors being made by any large guitar manufacturer until Madonna plays one at the Super Bowl,

This is a good point. The music industry is subject to fads and crazes. Look at ukuleles. They were all but dead and very difficult to find in mainstream music stores (stores like Elderly never abandoned them, and they still had their hard core fans) UNTIL Train hit it big with "Hey Soul Sister" and all these teen agers wanted to know what that funny little guitar was. Turned out it was a baritone uke and then everybody wanted one. Go to a Guitar Center or Sam Ash now. I just cant believe how much display space they devote to every conceivable type of uke now. Soprano, concert, tenor, pineapples, baritones, cheap ones, expensive ones, even one that looks like a Les Paul guitar. Even a uke bass, for pete's sake! You were lucky to find one or two ten years ago. Maybe the same thing will happen to tenors someday. If it does we will have choices beyond our wildest dreams!

[Markus]

I've seen Barry Mitterhoff playing one recently......with Hot Tuna.

Barry had one as well during that Bromberg/Jorma tour they did a couple years ago.

He played a lot of instruments incredibly well that show, did a great job of changing the character of different songs when in duo/trio setting.

[JeffD]

Barry Mitterhoff is pretty amazing.