EL CAJON, Calif. — Earth Day 2023 is Saturday, April 22nd. The nation's biggest acoustic guitar manufacturer is celebrating its Urban Wood Initiative. In this Zevely Zone, I met a legend in El Cajon.
It was a day I had looked forward to for my entire career. A day when I finally had the pleasure of meeting the Taylor in Taylor Guitars. A bucket list interview with Bob Taylor, the co-founder of Taylor Guitars. "Very nice to meet you," said Bob as we sat down to chat in a room filled with his guitars.
In 1974, Bob Taylor co-founded Taylor Guitars and millions of his legendary instruments followed.
Bob who grew up in San Diego, used to make three guitars a month. Taylor Guitars is now crafting 750 guitars a day. "I mean excuse me. That is a lot of guitars," laughed Bob who is 68 years old.
Every Earth Day, he thinks about our planet's forests while asking himself this question. "What kind of wood user are we? Are we a user? Or are we an abuser? You know? We don't want to be the abuser," said Bob.
Taylor Guitars partners with a California company called West Coast Arborists that has ties to 300 municipalities. The company is responsible for millions of trees. "Millions of trees!" exclaimed Bob who is passionate about sustainable wood. Instead of cutting down a healthy tree in the forest to make a guitar, when a city tree reaches the end of its life cycle the precious wood is upcycled into a work of art that can be played for a century or more.
Taylor Guitars’ historic Urban Wood Initiative uses beautiful tonewoods such as Urban Ash and Urban Ironbark sourced from California city trees that need to be removed instead of removing mahogany and other woods from important forests worldwide. Taylor’s unique partnership with professional arborists allows them to “hunt down” trees that are damaged or in danger of falling and convert them into beautiful guitars.
"I want you to see the Shamel Ash or the Urban Ash as we like to call it," said Bob who showed me another type of urban wood. "Yes, this is Red Iron Bark Tree that is a Eucalyptus it grows all over San Diego there are millions of them in Los Angeles," said Bob. Wood that that used to go to the landfill or turned into mulch arrives at Taylor Guitars as part of their Urban Wood Initiative.I asked Bob how many guitars he thinks they've made from wood that would have been wasted. "Of this urban wood? Tens of thousands," said Bob. "It is a great gift on Earth Day."
With every tree lost, the initiative aims to plant ten more in its place. "I am standing on the threshold of how it used to be with trees and how it's going to be, and I got to walk through that door," said Bob.
Taylor Guitars have been the instrument of choice for many artists including U2, Zac Brown, Jason Mraz and Taylor Swift. For more information about their effort to fight deforestation by looking to its own backyard for guitar wood, click here.
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