The History of Bill Lawrence Guitars

Bill Lawrence was a German-born pioneer in electric guitar pickup design, and the modern form and function of the electric guitar pickup owe much to his innovations and engineering insight.

Bill Lawrence guitars were produced by Moridaira Musical Instruments Co., Ltd. in Japan. The company used Bill Lawrence’s name as a brand for guitars equipped with his pickup designs, though there was no direct business partnership between Bill Lawrence himself and Moridaira beyond the licensing of his name.

Moridaira is also renowned for its Morris brand of acoustic guitars and for the H.S. Anderson brand—particularly the distinctive Telecaster-style “Mad Cat”, famously used by the late Prince.

Initially, the company sold its standard models under the Bill Lawrence name. Later, more affordable versions without Bill Lawrence pickups were released under the Bill’s Brothers brand. However, due to licensing and trademark issues, Moridaira eventually lost the right to use the Bill Lawrence name, and only Bill’s Brothers guitars continued in production for a time. The final Bill Lawrence-branded models appear to date from around 1996, though this has not been definitively confirmed.

In the Bill Lawrence model lineup, the first two letters of each model number indicate the series, followed by Roman numerals—though for convenience, Arabic numerals are used on this site.

Company Timeline (from Wikipedia)

• April 1965: Company founded by Toshio Morihei; incorporated in July. The first Morris guitars are introduced.

• 1968: Begins import and export operations.

• 1973: Launches the H.S. Anderson brand of electric guitars.

• Mid-1980s: Introduces the Bill Lawrence brand of electric guitars (exact year unknown).

• 1989: Toshio Morihei becomes Chairman of the Board; Yoichi Minagawa becomes President.

• 1997: Moridaira Musical Instruments and Morris Musical Instruments Manufacturing adopt a unified corporate identity (CI), featuring a logo that combines the letter “M” with the head of an eagle.

• 2000: Yoichi Minagawa becomes President of Morris Musical Instruments Manufacturing (a related company); Tamio Minagawa becomes President of Moridaira Musical Instruments.