Turn Back Time

Nobody took Japanese guitars seriously in the 60s, and it’s fair to say that Yamaha’s early solidbodies – such as the surf-style SG7 of 1966 – were an acquired taste. Production and development was halted in ’69 and resumed again in ’72 with the more mainstream direction of the bolt-on single-cut SG40, 60 and 80 with a distinctive sloping treble horn along with the set-neck, twin-humbucking SG45, 65 and 85. Like many other Japanese brands of the time, Yamaha also made copies, not least the Studio Lord (SL) and Lord Player (LP) during the 70s, something the brand chooses not to mention today.

The first rumblings of the symmetrical pointed-horn shape came with the bolt-on SG30 in 1973 and the set-neck SG50