Alvarez Yairi Guitars?

In the late 1960s, St. Louis Music's founder, Gene Kornblum, met Kazuo Yairi, a Master Luthier in Japan who produced handmade concert classical guitars. Together, St. Louis Music and the Yairi factory started to design and develop steel string acoustic guitars and imported them into the United States. The guitars took the brand name of St. Louis Music's Spanish guitar line “Alvarez”.From 2005 to 2009, the brand was owned by LOUD Technologies, which also owns Mackie, Ampeg, Crate and other music-related brands. In 2009, Mark Ragin (owner of US Band & Orchestra and St. Louis Music) brought the management and distribution of the guitars back to St. Louis Music.Alvarez Yairi guitars are a handmade flagship series, crafted in the Yairi factory in Kani, Japan. Alvarez Yairi have been the guitar of choice for many professional touring musicians including Jerry Garcia, Bob Wier, Ani DiFranco, and Joe Bonamassa Alvarez Yairi take the name of master luthier Kazuo Yairi(1932-2014) who partnered with St. Louis Music in the late 1960s to bring Alvarez Guitars to the market Kazuo Yairi inspired many innovations that are still used in Alvarez guitars today, including the Direct Coupled Bridge, careful selection of tonewoods, and manual carving; a practice that he referred to as "listening with your hands".In 2017 the Alvarez team discovered a lost cache of Honduran Mahogany that Kazuo Yairi had purchased and stored on a plot of land near his factory in the mid 1970s Tonewood that has been naturally seasoning for this amount of time is coveted by luthiers around the world, and this discovery led to the release of the Yairi Honduran line of guitars which debuted in 2018. The Alvarez Yairi Guitar Series consists of several variants. In this article, we will talk about the following series: Standard Series, Masterworks Series,Stage Series. Standard Series Classical Guitar.The Yairi factory is in the small town of Kani, in the hills north of Nagoya, Japan. Here they have been making guitars for 80 years. The late Kazuo Yairi was one of the finest and most successful luthiers of our time and helped design and make Alvarez-Yairi guitars for nearly 50 years.The pride within the factory is immediately evident. Floors are made of mahogany, some walls are rosewood tongue and groove, and furniture is hand carved by the luthiers. The amount of naturally seasoned tone wood is legendary and the production line marries time honored handmade craftsmanship with modern day design and processes.