So...I usually tell the story over a beer...it might not be as exciting as you are hoping for...but this is the solid body side of the tale of the Brazilians.
I first noticed the PRS dragons while working in Texas in the early 90s. There was a decent music store not too far from work that I would visit to try out new guitars. The first time I noticed a PRS was a Dragon. The workmanship was amazing. It was the first guitar I’d ever seen in a store that I was reluctant to try. I was not going to be the one who did it any harm. I surprised myself by actually thinking about buying it, but fiscal prudence won out. I had just bought our first house and with a mortgage rate of over 12%, by far the best use of spare cash was to pay down the mortgage.
That Dragon, and the Dragon II that followed stuck in my mind and they bumped PRS to the top of my list of desirable electric guitars. When I traveled, I searched out PRS dealers and tried them out so I would know what I wanted when the day came that I could afford one. It was a very special day in the mid 90s when I walked into a store in Chicago and they had a copy of all 3 Dragons. They were willing to part with one of them for $10,000. I noticed at the time that I would have done all right if I had bought one of the ones I’d seen in Dallas a few years earlier. I was also very aware later on how quickly that $10,000 would have proven to be an excellent investment. That said, I have a strict personal rule about not tricking myself into believing a personal possession is an investment. I buy things because I believe I am going to get value out of them.
By 1999, I had what I considered to be a pretty comprehensive inventory of guitars: a bass, a classical, a steel string acoustic, a Telecaster, a Les Paul, and 4 PRS – which at the time I considered to be one of each. On the way home from a vacation, as we were approaching the DC area well ahead of schedule, I asked my wife if she was interested in visiting the PRS factory. She said yes and we detoured over to Stevensville. When we arrived, we were advised that random guests were not normally entertained. I said that was OK, we had just stopped by because I had a few of their guitars and thought it might be fun to visit, and I might as well pick up some spares of the 3 string gauges I used. As this was happening, in walked a fellow who offered to give us a tour. I believe it was Paul Miles, but can’t honestly swear to it.
The tour was quite interesting: the woods, the drying room, the various work stations, and of course guitars everywhere in various stages of completion. The highlight of the tour came in the paint drying room: a red Dragon 2000. Even unfinished, this guitar was jaw dropping. It struck me that a person who had this would find it very difficult to get interested in any other guitar. I started watching for these guitars to actually become available and made inquiries in some of the locations I traveled to and pestered Brent at The Guitar Shop a bit to see if he would or could get one.
I hadn’t really contemplated the reality of paying for it if I found one, but sometimes the chase is all that matters. Then a funny thing happened. An associate of mine got funding for a dot com and felt quite strongly that he needed me to deal with technology issues. I was doing reasonably well and had a good work arrangement where I was, so offered to help him out a bit in my spare time while he worked with the head hunters to find someone to hire. While that is an interesting story in itself, it has nothing to do with guitars, so I’ll jump past it to the part where my signing bonus would be a Dragon 2000. Now I made some calls in earnest to find one. A shop in Atlanta that I’d dealt with before directed me to their sister store in Cincinnati. I made arrangements to visit their blonde Dragon 2000 on Saturday and made the 10 hour drive with my wife Friday. I was put in private room with the guitar and given plenty of space and time. The guitar was amazing: beautiful looking & beautiful sounding. We walked out for a bit to catch our breath and I gave Brent one last call to see if there was any chance he could get one, but PRS hadn’t made any available to the international market. This would have to be the one, though that needn’t preclude negotiating a good price.
I got the guitar without caring about the fact that it had a Brazilian rosewood neck. All that mattered was that it looked and sounded amazing. The tone of that neck is unlike anything else. It is most notably rich in the lower harmonics; it is very earthy and rings forever. You really have to hear it to appreciate it. The feel of the unfinished neck makes it impossible for the left hand not to bond very closely with the instrument. If you touch it, you will have to play it, and once you start playing it, it is very hard to put down. I’ve owned this guitar for 20 years now, and my feelings for this guitar haven’t changed. For what it is worth, I’ve only ever played original music on this. It is too good an instrument to be bound by the confines of someone else’s music. It is amazing. And there is something poetic about having a Dragon from the Year of the Dragon.
