The product of a collaboration in 1966 between the Alvarez guitar brand and Kazuo Yairi, a second-generation luthier who designed and supervised some of the most respected and innovative acoustic guitars to come out of Japan.

Yairi’s models appeared in the US under two brand names: Alvarez-Yairi (for those that he personally supervised and signed) and Alvarez by Yairi (for those built by his workers).

He typically used the K. Yairi brand on models marketed outside the US.
Yairi created a wide variety of steel-string and classical models, including this small-bodied steel-string AR300, with such distinctive features as a cedar top, rounded headstock and moustache-shaped bridge.