Leo Fender

Leo Fender
Leo Fender
Born Clarence Leonidas Fender
August 10, 1909(1909-08-10)
Anaheim, California, United States
Died March 21, 1991(1991-03-21) (aged 81)
Ione, California, United States
Occupation Inventor

Clarence Leonidas "Leo" Fender (August 10, 1909 – March 21, 1991) was an American inventor who founded Fender Electric Instrument Manufacturing Company, now known as Fender Musical Instruments Corporation, and later founded MusicMan and G&L Musical Products (G&L Guitars). His guitar, bass, and amplifier designs from the 1940s continue to dominate popular music more than half a century later. Marshall, Mesa Boogie, most boutique amplifier companies and many other guitar amplifier production companies have used Fender instruments as the foundation of their products.

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Contents

Biography

Early life

Clarence Leonidas Fender was born on August 10, 1909, to Clarence Monte Fender and Harriet Elvira Wood, owners of a successful orange grove located between Anaheim and Fullerton, California.

From an early age, Leo showed an interest in tinkering with electronics. When he was 13 years old, his uncle, who ran an automotive-electric shop, sent him a box filled with discarded car radio parts, and a battery. The following year, Leo visited his uncle's shop in Santa Maria, California, and was fascinated by a radio his uncle had built from spare parts and placed on display in the front of the shop. Leo later claimed that the loud music coming from the speaker of that radio made a lasting impression on him. Soon thereafter, Leo began repairing radios in a small shop in his parents' home.

In the spring of 1928, Leo graduated from Fullerton Union High School, and entered Fullerton Junior College that fall, as an accounting major. While he was studying to be an accountant, he continued to teach himself electronics, and tinker with radios and other electrical items. He never took any kind of electronics course while in college.

After college, Fender took a job as a deliveryman for Consolidated Ice and Cold Storage Company in Anaheim, where he later was made the bookkeeper. It was around this time that a local band leader approached Leo, asking him if he could build a public address system for use by the band at dances in Hollywood. Fender was contracted to build six of these PA systems.

In 1933, Fender met Esther Klosky, and they were married in 1934. About that time, Leo took a job as an accountant for the California Highway Department in San Luis Obispo. In a depression government change-up, Leo's job was eliminated, and he then took a job in the accounting department of a tire company. After working there six months, Leo lost his job along with the other accountants in the company.

Fender Radio Service

In 1938, with $600 he borrowed, Leo and Esther returned to Fullerton, and Leo started his own radio repair shop, known as "Fender Radio Service." Soon thereafter, musicians and band leaders began coming to Leo for PA systems, which he began building, selling and renting, and for amplification for the amplified acoustic guitars that were beginning to show up in the southern California music scene, in big band and jazz music, and for the electric "Hawaiian" or "lap steel" guitars becoming popular in country music.

Early Guitar Making

During WWII, Leo met Clayton Orr "Doc" Kauffman, an inventor and lap steel player, who had worked for Rickenbacker Guitars, a company that had been building and selling lap steel guitars for a decade. While with Rickenbacker, Kauffman had invented the "Vibrola" tailpiece, a precursor to the later vibrato or "tremolo" tailpiece. Leo convinced Doc that they should team up, and they started the "K & F Manufacturing Corporation," to design and build amplified Hawaiian guitars and amplifiers. In 1944, Leo and Doc patented a lap steel guitar, that had an electric pickup already patented by Fender. In 1945, they began selling the guitar, in a kit with an amplifier designed by Leo.

Personal life

In 1979, Leo's wife Esther died of cancer. He remarried in 1980.[1] Phyllis Fender is an Honorary Chairman of G&L.

Death

On March 21, 1991, Leo Fender was found passed out in his home, and died as he was being transported to hospital. For years, Fender had suffered from Parkinson's disease.

Fender and development of the electric guitar

As the Big Bands fell out of vogue toward the end of World War II, small combos playing boogie-woogie, rhythm and blues, western swing, and honky-tonk formed throughout the United States. Many of these outfits embraced the electric guitar because it could give a few players the power of an entire horn section. Pickup-equipped archtops were the guitars of choice in the dance bands of the late-'40s, but the increasing popularity of roadhouses and dance halls created a growing need for louder, cheaper, and more durable instruments. Players also needed faster necks and better intonation to play what the country players called "take-off lead guitar." Custom-made solidbodies such as Les Paul's home-made "Log" and the Bigsby Travis guitar made by Paul Bigsby for Merle Travis evolved from this need, but these were beyond the means of the average player.

Fender recognized the potential for an electric guitar that was easy to hold, easy to tune, and easy to play. He also recognized that players needed guitars that would not feed back at dance hall volumes as the typical arch top would. In addition, Fender sought a tone that would command attention on the bandstand and cut through the noise in a bar. By 1949, he had begun working in earnest on what became the first Telecaster (originally called the Broadcaster) at the Fender factory in Fullerton, California.

Although he never admitted it, Fender seemed to base his practical design on the Rickenbacker Bakelite.[2] One of the Rickenbacker's strong points—a detachable neck that made it easy to make and service—was not lost on Fender, who was a master at improving already established designs. Not surprisingly, his first prototype was a single-pickup guitar with a detachable hard rock maple neck and a pine body painted white.[2]

Esquire

Don Randall, who managed Fender's distributor, the Radio & Television Equipment Company, recognized the commercial possibilities of the new design and made plans to introduce the instrument as "The Esquire Model." Fender supported the Esquire name, saying that it "sounded regal and implied a certain distinction above other guitars."

In April 1950, Radio-Tel started promoting the Esquire—the first Fender 6-string officially introduced to the public. The company prepared its Catalog No. 2, picturing a black single-pickup Esquire with a tweed form-fit case. Another picture showed Jimmy Wyble of Spade Cooley's band holding a blond Esquire. These debut models, with a planned retail price of $154.95, exhibited the shape of thousands of Fender guitars to come.

Randall's primary marketing ploy was to establish the Esquire in music instruction studios, reasoning that the affordable, practical guitar would be a hot commodity in those circles. In addition, a healthy response for the one-pickup version would prime the market for the more expensive two-pickup model that Fender already had in mind.

Broadcaster

The factory went into full production in late 1950, initially producing only dual-pickup Esquires. Fender's decision compromised Radio-Tel's earlier marketing strategy, forcing Randall to hold orders for the single-pickup Esquire and come up with a new name for the two-pickup model, eventually naming it the Broadcaster. Dealers who insisted on Esquires had to wait until the single-pickup guitars went into full production in January 1951 and were delivered the following month.

Musical Merchandise magazine carried the first announcement for the Broadcaster in February 1951 with a full-page insert that described it in detail. The guitar was described as having a "modern cut-away body," a "modern styled head," and an "adjustable solo-lead pickup" that was "completely adjustable for tone-balance by means of three elevating screws."

"Broadcaster" becomes "Telecaster"

Fender sold 87 Broadcasters on the guitar's initial release in January 1951. Many people took note—including Gretsch, who claimed the Broadcaster name infringed on the company's trademark "Broadkaster," which was the name of a model lineup of drums. Reacting to this, Randall informed his salespeople on February 21 that Radio-Tel was abandoning the Broadcaster name and requesting suggestions for a new name. On February 24 he announced that the Broadcaster had been renamed the "Telecaster."

The Broadcaster-to-Telecaster name change cost Radio-Tel hundreds of dollars, and derailed the initial marketing effort. Brochures and envelope inserts were destroyed, and the word "Broadcaster" was clipped from hundreds of headstock decals. For several months, the new twin-pickup guitars were marked only with the word "Fender." These early-to-mid-'51 guitars were eventually called "No-casters" by guitar collectors.

Stratocaster

Leo Fender regularly sought feedback from his customers, and, in preparation for redesigning the Telecaster he asked his customers what new features they would want on the Telecaster. The large number of replies, along with the continued popularity of the Telecaster, caused him to leave the Telecaster as it was and to design a new, upscale solid body guitar to be sold alongside the basic Telecaster instead. Western swing guitarist Bill Carson was one of the chief critics of the Telecaster, stating that the new design should have individually adjustable bridge saddles, four or five pickups, a vibrato unit that could be used in either direction and return to proper tuning, and a contoured body for enhanced comfort over the slab-body Telecaster's harsh edges. Fender, assisted by draftsman Freddie Tavares, began designing a new guitar in late 1953 that addressed most of Carson's ideas. It included a rounder, less "club-like" neck (at least for the first year of issue) and a double cutaway for easier reach to the upper registers.[3]

Released in 1954, the Stratocaster (or "Strat") has been in continuous production ever since.

Other guitars

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, both soon became popular with Surf Rock musicians due to their clean, bright, warm tone. They became popular again, (to a much larger extent), in the early 90's due to their use by alternative rock artists such as Dinosaur Jr.'s and Sonic Youth's famous hoard of vintage Jazzmasters and Kurt Cobain's (of Nirvana) use of a heavily modified 1965 Jaguar.

Electric bass guitar

During this time, Fender also conceived an instrument that would play a major role in popular music. Until this time, bassists played acoustic 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 (although initially with one 15" speaker). Neither were firsts; Audiovox had begun advertising an "electric bass fiddle" in mid 1930s 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 the P-bass was the first bass to be fretted like a guitar. The P-Bass remains one of the most popular basses in music today. 1954 saw a redesign of the Precision Bass to coincide with the introduction of the Stratocaster. Incorporating the same body contours as the Stratocaster, the redesign also included a split single coil pickup and a gold anodized pickguard. In 1960, rosewood fingerboards, wider color selections and a three-ply pickguard became available for the P-Bass.

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 its 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.

1970 - Music Man and G&L

Some of Fender's most widely known and loved contributions to music were developed in the 1970s, after his sale to CBS of his eponymous brand in 1965.: he 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 2-band active equalizer, high output humbucking pickup and smooth satin finished neck went on to become a favorite of many influential bassists, including Louis Johnson, John Deacon and Flea. Later on a 3-band active equalizer was introduced. In 1979 he and old friends George Fullerton and Dale Hyatt started a new company called G&L (George & Leo)[4] 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 enhanced 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. An example of frugal living, Fender was once asked why he brought his lunch (egg salad sandwiches) to work every day instead of buying lunch from the local lunch truck. Fender replied, "With the money I save eating these sandwiches, I can buy a handful of resistors." He died March 21, 1991, in Fullerton from complications of Parkinson's disease, and is interred at Fairhaven Memorial Park in Santa Ana.[5] His pioneering contribution to the genre has been recognized by the Rockabilly Hall of Fame. The company which bears his name, Fender Musical Instruments Corporation, is now one of the largest musical instrument conglomerates in the world.

See also

References

  1. ^ http://www.freeinfosociety.com/site.php?postnum=808
  2. ^ a b (Smith, Richard (May 1998). History of the Fender Telecaster. )
  3. ^ Burrows, T. et al. "The Complete Book of the Guitar" p. 71-72 Carlton Books Limited, 1998 ISBN 1 85868 529X
  4. ^ http://www.glguitars.com/factorytour/index.asp
  5. ^ Leo Fender at Find a Grave

External links


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