Ted McCarty’s name was legendary by the 1980s as the man who led Gibson through a golden age of electric guitar innovation in the 1950s. As president of the company from 1948-66, he brought Les Paul to Gibson and was personally responsible for the invention of the semi-hollowbody guitar (Gibson’s ES-335).

Paul Reed Smith’s guitars, introduced in 1985, were inspired in part by the solidbody Gibsons of the McCarty era, and in 1986 Smith contacted McCarty for advice on production issues. McCarty became a friend and mentor, as well as a PRS consultant, and Smith thanked him by creating a PRS McCarty line in 1994.

The first McCarty models were solid, but appropriate to McCarty’s history with the company that invented the archtop guitar, Smith introduced PRS’s first hollow models under the McCarty name.

The McCarty Hollowbody of 1998 wasn’t fully hollow; the routed mahogany back came up to meet the top under the bridge – an important feature that negated the need for a trapeze tailpiece as well as any tendancy for the guitar to feed back.