Leo Fender
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Leo Fender working on a guitar |
Clarence Leonidas Fender (
August 10,
1909 -
March 21,
1991) was an
American luthier who founded
Fender Electric Instrument Manufacturing Company, now known as
Fender Musical Instruments Corporation, and later founded G&L Musical Products (
G&L Guitars). His guitar, bass, and amplifier designs from the 1950s continue to dominate popular music more than half a century later. Marshall and many other amplifier companies have used Fender amps as the foundation of their products. Fender and inventor
Les Paul are often cited as the two most influential figures in the development of electric instruments in the 20th century.
In 1950, Fender and George Fullerton introduced first the
Esquire and then the
Broadcaster, the first standard "spanish style" electric guitars produced by the
Fender Electric Instrument Manufacturing Company. Due to a trademark conflict with another musical instrument company (the
Gretsch Broadkaster line of drums), the Broadcaster's name was quickly changed to
Telecaster and one of the most enduring electric guitars ever was born. While not the first electric guitars;
Gibson had been manufacturing electrified semi-acoustic guitars for some time, and
Rickenbacker had produced the first solid body electric guitar (known as the "frying pan") in the early 1940's, the Telecaster and Esquire were the first widely produced solid body electric guitars. The innovation in this lie in Fender's concept for the guitar's construction. Rather than construct guitars one at a time, Fender opted to construct the components individually, and put them together on an assembly line. Innovations like a
bolt on neck and a routed control cavity that would serve to house the tone and volume controls and pickups allowed Fender to produce more Telecasters and Esquires than any electric guitar had ever been produced before.
During this time, Fender also conceived an instrument that would prove to be essential to the evolution of popular music. Up until this time, bassists had been relegated to playing acoustically resonating
double basses, also known as "upright basses". As the size of bands and orchestras grew, bassists found themselves increasingly fighting for volume and presence in the sound spectrum. Apart from their sonic disadvantages, double basses were also large, bulky, and difficult to transport. With the
Precision Bass (or "P-Bass"), released in 1951, Leo Fender addressed both of these issues. Unlike double basses, the Telecaster-based Precision Bass was small and portable, and its solid body construction and four magnet, single coil electronic pickup allowed it to be amplified at higher volumes without the feedback issues normally associated with acoustic instruments. Along with the Precision Bass (so named because its fretted neck allowed bassists to play with "precision"), Fender introduced a bass amplifier, the
Fender Bassman; a 45 watt amplifier with four 10" speakers. Neither were firsts;
Audiovox had begun advertising an "electric bass fiddle" in mid 1930's catalogs, and
Ampeg had introduced a 12 watt "Bassamp" in 1949, but the P-Bass and its accompanying amplifier were the first widely-produced of their kind, and arguably, the P-Bass remains one of the most popular basses in music today.
Both the Precision Bass and Telecaster were revolutionary, and their introduction contributed to the birth of something now commonplace: the "musical group". Live performances up to that point had largely relied upon large bands and orchestras to fill concert halls. Now, armed with the proper instruments, bands or groups consisting of only 3 or 4 musicians could perform large venues. The "Big Band" era began to fade as musicians began to discover the electric guitar and Fender bass. However, Leo Fender's most widely known and loved contribution to music had yet to be developed.
Though the Telecaster had remained popular, criticisms of its design and aesthetics had gotten back around to Leo Fender, and in late 1953 he began designing an all new, solid body electric guitar to be sold alongside the Telecaster. It would have a contoured body for enhanced comfort over the slab-body Telecaster's harsh edges. It would have 3 pickups, a rounder, less "club-like" neck (at least for the first year of issue), a double cutaway for easier reach to the upper registers, and a revolutionary vibrato or "tremolo" unit that would allow players to bend strings as they played by wiggling the tremolo arm, or "
whammy bar". Released in 1954, Fender named his new creation the
Stratocaster to invoke images of the high flying, supersonic jets filling America's skies in the 1950's. The Stratocaster (or "Strat") has been in continuous production ever since, and, along with the Telecaster and the
Gibson Les Paul, has helped define the sound of generations of rock, blues, and funk musicians.
1960 saw the release of the
Jazz Bass, a sleeker, updated bass with a slimmer neck, and offset waist body and two single coil pickups (as opposed to the Precision Bass and its split-humbucking pickup that had been introduced in 1957). Like it's predecessor, the Jazz Bass (or simply "J-Bass") was an instant hit and has remained popular to this day, and early models are highly sought after by collectors. Other significant developments of this period include the
Jazzmaster and
Jaguar, significant departures from the Strat and Tele in their introduction of complex pickup selection switches and volume controls. Although unsuccessful at their introduction (compared to previous Fender guitars), both would become popular with
Surf Rock musicians due to their clean, bright, and warm tone.
In the 1970s, Leo Fender designed guitars, basses and amplifiers for the
Music Man corporation, and in 1976 designed and released another innovative instrument, the
StingRay. Though the body design borrowed heavily from the Precision Bass, the StingRay is largely considered to be the first production bass with active electronics. The StingRay's 3-band active equalizer, high output humbucking pickup and smooth satin finished neck went on to become a favorite of many influential bassists, including
John Deacon,
Tim Commerford and
Flea. In 1979 he and old friends
George Fullerton and Dale Hyatt started a new company called
G&L (
George &
Leo, later
Guitars by
Leo) Musical Products. G&L guitar designs tended to lean heavily upon the looks of Fender's original guitars such as the Stratocaster and Telecaster, but incorporated innovations such as enhaced tremolo systems and electronics. Despite suffering several minor
strokes, Leo Fender continued to produce guitars and basses. While he continued to refine the fundamental designs he had created decades earlier, he also earned many new patents for innovative designs in
magnetic pickups, vibrato systems, neck construction, and other areas. Nevertheless, he never learned how to play the guitar.
A friendly, modest and unassuming man (his "coffee mug" was a styrofoam cup with the word "Leo" inked on it), he had the lifelong admiration and devotion of his employees, many of whom have remarked that the best working years of their lives were spent under Leo Fender. He died in
1991 from complications of
Parkinson's disease. His pioneering contribution to the genre has been recognized by the
Rockabilly Hall of Fame. The company which bears his name,
Fender Musical Instrument Corporation, is now one of the largest musical instrument conglomerates in the world.
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Gibson*
Fender*
G&L*
Stratocaster*
Telecaster*
Precision Bass*
Jazz Bass*
MusicMan StingRay*
Fender Musical Instruments website*
G&L Guitars website*
Leo Fender Bio
