Recording King, from the Montgomery Ward catalog to St. Louis Music
Recording King began in 1929 as a house brand for Montgomery Ward, the Chicago mail-order giant, and the first instruments to wear the name were banjos built by Gibson. Flat-top guitars followed in the 1930 catalog, and through the decade Gibson built the top of the line while Kay, Regal and Gretsch supplied the less expensive models. Cowboy singer Ray Whitley and country songwriter Carson Robison both endorsed Recording King guitars, which is why the brand still carries a prewar, radio-era feel. The line ended in the early 1940s, and the name sat unused for more than sixty years.
The Music Link, a distributor in Hayward, California, revived Recording King in 2007 and brought in Greg Rich to design the banjos. Under Music Link the brand earned a reputation for spec-heavy instruments at low prices, and the Dirty 30's guitars, the RK-R20 Songster banjo, the Madison banjos and the Maxwell resonators all sold well here. The spec sheets were strong, but the finishes ran thick, the tops ran heavy and the setups were inconsistent, and we said so.
What changed in 2025
The Music Link closed in 2025 under the weight of tariffs and financial trouble, and for a few months it looked like Recording King might go with it. On August 1, 2025, St. Louis Music announced it had taken exclusive worldwide distribution rights for Recording King and The Loar, including sales, marketing and product development. Chris Meikle, St. Louis Music's executive vice president and chief operating officer, called them two of the most respected brands in traditional and vintage-inspired instruments.
That mattered to us because of what Chris had already done with Alvarez. Over the past decade he rebuilt that brand's finishes, setups and quality control while keeping the prices where they were, and Alvarez-Yairi went from a value line to a guitar we recommend without hesitation. We sat down with Chris for our podcast in August 2025 to talk through the history of St. Louis Music and Alvarez, and the conversation about Recording King's future was covered by Mandolin Cafe that September. Chris inspected the Recording King inventory already in the pipeline and would not ship what did not meet his standard, which is why the first new instruments did not appear until the fall of 2026. Our blog post from the week of the announcement has the full story.
The 2026 Standard Series
The Standard Series is the first full line of guitars built under the new ownership, and it is the line you can reserve above. Nine models cover a dreadnought (D60 and D70H), an orchestra model (OM60 and OM70H), three 12-fret 000s (00060, 00066 and 00070H) and the short-scale Bluesmaster 00 (BM60 and BM70). A 60 has solid African mahogany back and sides, a 70 has solid East Indian rosewood, and an H adds herringbone trim with squares-and-diamonds inlays. Every top is thermo-cured solid Sitka spruce except the all-mahogany 00066, and every guitar has a bone nut and saddle, a 1 3/4 inch nut, a dovetail neck joint, a low gloss finish and a gig bag, for $749.99 to $999.99. The Standard Series page compares them model by model, and the Recording King guitars page covers the resonators and older models as well.
Banjos and resonators
Banjos are where the Recording King name started, and the RK-R20 Songster, RK-R35 Madison, Dirty 30's and Elite models are still in the catalog under St. Louis Music, along with the Carl Jackson Lonesome Dove signature banjo. Recording King's own site says the company is working to bring back many of its past models. What we have on hand lives on the Recording King banjos page.
Buying a Recording King from The Acoustic Shoppe
Every Recording King instrument we sell ships after our 23-Point Professional Inspection, and the manufacturer's warranty now runs through St. Louis Music. Instruments at $1,000 and up, which includes the Madison and Lonesome Dove banjos, are covered by our Dread-Not Guarantee: a full year to trade one in for up to 90% of the pre-tax purchase price in credit, less round-trip shipping, plus a 30-day in-home trial. The Standard Series guitars sit under $1,000, so they fall under our 14-day evaluation period instead. Pre-order listings take a 25% deposit toward the next instrument we receive, and if you have questions about any of it, call us at 417-720-1223.
