A NOTE ABOUT PARKER GUITARS (Flys, etc)

Many of you have written to ask about my work at Parker Guitars. I'm sorry that I can't answer your inquiries personally, but here I'll try to help with some of the more frequently asked questions.

Larry Fishman and I met in 1984 and began a playful but productive design partnership. We shared techniques and technologies, and tried to envision some new tools for guitar players. Long story short, we founded Parker Guitars in 1991 in order to realize the Fly Guitar project. We created tools to build the guitars, and established our factory in Massachusetts, where we produced about 30,000 guitars and basses. 

In 2003, US Music purchased Parker Guitars, and moved the production facilities to the greater Chicago area. Since that time, all of the new models produced by Parker, including any acoustic or semi hollow instruments, have been designed solely by Parker Guitars' design engineers. I have had no involvement with any of these new design projects.

Creating the Parker Fly, Nightfly, and the Fly Bass was a labor of love. I had a lot of fun designing them and then devising and building the production tooling to make them. These instruments have worn well, and the product line was expanded by the new owners. As of 2015, US Music’s Parker Guitars has gone out of business.


CONTACTS ABOUT OLDER FLYS AND OTHER OLDER PARKER GUITARS:

For a wealth of information about Parker Flys, I suggest you try The Fly Clone Project - a wonderful site put together by my friend V.J. Manzo. I contribute to this site as time permits, so for particularly thorny issues, take a look at my Ken’s Corner on the Fly Clone Project page.


PARKER FLY REPAIRS AND SETUPS:

If you need your Fly guitar repaired or professionally set up, I heartily recommend Flippin’ Guitars. Owner Chris Moran recently spent some time here in the shop going over the finer details of Fly construction and setup with me. He’s been making jacks for the original Flys as well as tools and other parts, and has become a go-to for professional Fly repairs. He knows his stuff and I suggest you contact him with your Fly repair needs by clicking on this link: Flippin’ Guitars