Paul Reed Smith Dragon®
The Paul Reed Smith Dragon,
with its beautiful inlays innovative design, is considered
one of today's modern classics.
Paul Reed Smith introduced
its first solidbodied electric guitar back in 1984,
and it was called the Paul Reed Smith Custom. Paul Reed
Smith guitars eared early recognition when they were
played by Carlos Santana, Al Di Meola and many others.
Smith built this guitar with the influence of famous
guitars, namely Stratocasters and Les Pauls.
Smith used to build about
one guitar a month, and one day he decided to design
something that both Fender and Gibson players could
appreciate and associate with. He went through many
versions of tremolos, headstocks and bodies to get the
right mix, and finally, the PRS Custom was born. The
guitar was extremely sophisticated or as some might
say, high-tech, yet rather traditional in its appearance.
The Custom's patented tremolo system
had one clear advantage: a player can bend its strings
as much as he wanted, and yet the guitar would always
stay in tune. The PRS Dragon was introduced in 1992,
a limited-edition model that sold for more or less $16,000(whew!..).
The beautiful dragon inlay covers almost the entire
neck, a product of Smith's dream of making a guitar
with a dragon on it.
To make the Dragon sound even
more like the Les Paul, Smith gave it a bigger
neck and a simple aluminum bridge with no tremolo,
as well as a sacrificing some of PRS's friction-relieving
headstock angle.
A Paul Reed Smith guitar can be
found at the Smithsonian Institution's National
Museum of American History, where it resides
beside other modern classics like Stromberg
and Martin.
