The big news in the bluegrass instrument field this past week is the closing down of The Music Link Company (https://themusiclink.com/), producers of Recording King guitars and banjos along with Loar mandolins. While this news has not been covered in regular news, and not even much in the music industry news, it has been widely discussed on bluegrass-related chat groups and podcasts.
The company employees were handed their termination papers on July 7, with only a few office staff remaining to clean things up. One of those employees, Greg Rich, helped establish The Music Link in the US while working with instruments coming out of China through the AXL factory. He currently owns the trademark names of Recording King and Loar, and at this time, there is no word on if these brands will continue to be produced.
Recording King and Loar had proved to be quality instruments at generally affordable prices, especially for bluegrass jammers looking for something that can hold up better than beginner acoustic guitars, banjos, and mandolins. I have a Loar Honey Creek F-style mandolin I purchased about a year or so back (https://luegra.design.blog/2024/01/20/so-why-did-i-buy-another-mandolin/) that I totally love because of its warm bite when playing chords. I have played Recording King acoustic guitars and have been impressed for the price going, especially the Dirty 30s line. Basically, these brands were in direct competition with the Blueridge/Bristol guitars and Kentucky mandolins marketed in the US by Saga Music.
While the current tariff war going on between the US and other countries, particularly China, may seem like the main reason for this closing, Rich has stated that it was only the final straw, as poor management through the past decade is mostly to blame. And while tariffs can be to blame for the rising cost of guitars in recent times, it is hardly the main reason, as prices have been rising over the past few years and tariff laws have not fully gone into effect, if at all.
Over the past few years, plenty of brick-and-mortar music stores have closed down for good. Sam Ash is probably the most well-known of this dilemma, with hundreds of mom-and-pop independent stores also closing across the US. There are a lot of factors. During the COVID shutdown earlier in the decade, stores were forced to shutter by local health ordinances, while people being shut in their houses were looking for something to do. Thus, they ordered instruments from the internet, and companies like Wal-Mart and Amazon, as well as music-specific online companies like Sweetwater, flourished. Fender and Gibson soon got into the online-order business (that is how I purchased by Fender Meteora a few months back [https://luegra.design.blog/2025/06/07/the-fender-meteora-has-arrived/]) and have continued this sales process with success, even with the pandemic scare long over. Adding to that, a lot of those sales during COVID are probably being sold on Craigslist or at garage sales because now people are back outside and have lost interest in learning to play a guitar, so the used market is a bit saturated.
Bigger music stores like Guitar Center have had to revamp their sales strategies (https://luegra.design.blog/2025/03/16/guitar-center-times-they-are-a-changin/), and the only smaller music stores to continue tend to be ones that have a great reputation with customer service and repair history. Online companies like Glarry have risen their prices gradually even before the COVID pandemic. When I purchased the GT502 acoustic guitar about five years ago, it was $45.00. Today, the guitar sells for $90.00. All of the company’s products have gone up drastically over the past few years. When I purchased the guitar, the internet was filled with positive reviews of the Glarry products for the price. Now, I rarely see any mention of Glarry in any musical instrument chat groups.
So far, products from Saga Music have not seen too much of a rise in price since the end of the pandemic. That is not to say that they have not become more expensive. I have seen the price of Blueridge acoustic guitars nearly double in the past decade. For example, I purchased a Blueridge BR40 about eight years back new for around $225.00. Today I did a search online, and the cheapest price I could find was $399.00. The more expensive models have seen a similar jump in price. This is most likely why Saga brought in the Bristol brand to try and get the beginner customers.
As for the DIY kits that I have taken an interest in recently, there has been little change in price, although there have been a very slight increase. Moreover, I do not see the big discounts in brands like Glarry and Ktaxon instruments on Amazon that I saw about a year ago. Also, a recent search on Wish.com for “electric bass guitar” produced about one-fourth the results that were there a year ago, and prices jumped about 25%.
So will the tariffs have a big impact in the near future on foreign-made instruments in the near future? Only time will tell. I believe that there will For a feature interview with Rich, go to https://bluegrasstoday.com/greg-rich-talks-banjos-and-the-demise-of-the-music-link/.
Chew on it and comment.
Luegra 