JOE KNAGGS KNAGGS GUITARS

Few guitar makers have jumped straight into the boutique market after such extensive experience with a major manufacturer so confidently as Joe Knaggs, or have received such immediate kudos for having done so. After 25 years with Paul Reed Smith Guitars – the majority of them as production manager – Knaggs departed the legendary Maryland-based company in 2009 to set up his own operation, alongside former PRS colleague Peter Wolf, who is now VP of global sales and marketing at Knaggs Guitars.

Stepping out from under an umbrella as broad as PRS’s can’t have been easy, but the flipside of that transition carries the vast experience in both guitar-making and customer relations – including a significant network of star artists – that Knaggs and Wolf took with them in doing so. And if it’s never easy launching a new business in the competitive high-end guitar market, Knaggs certainly made it look like a natural and even inevitable move. Stylistically distinctive and original, display-case-worthy yet eminently playable, Knaggs guitars have ably cut their own path these 10 years