With its wildly asymmetric body, Yamaha’s SG-7 earned the nickname Flying Samurai when it debuted in 1967.

BY DAVE HUNTER PHOTOGRAPHY BY RYAN McEWAN

FENDER AND GIBSON set the standard for arena-rock tones by the mid 1970s, but by then many players were aware that neither company was making them quite like they used to. Norlin-era Les Pauls were but a pale imitation of their late-1950s, PAF-loaded predecessors, and the CBS-owned Fender was at a similar nadir with respect to its ever-popular Stratocaster and Telecaster models.

Such lax quality set the stage for Japanese guitar makers to show American guitar players what they could do, with Yamaha chief among them. The company jumped into the fray and blew away all preconceptions of the cheap Asian import in 1976 with the SG2000, a doublecutaway Les Paul–inspired instrument with deluxe construction and appointments. Developed partly in consultation with Carlos Santana, the SG2000 received rave reviews and was used by not only Santana but also Be-Bop Deluxe’s Bill Nelson, Boz Skaggs, Stiff Little Fingers’ Jake Burns, and Stuart Adamson of the Skids and Big Country, among many others. The SG2000 showed off Yamaha as a maker of professional-quality electric guitars and helped erase the impression that Japanese guitars were cheap imports.