Leo Fender changed the guitar world forever – without even being a guitarist. We take a look at the life of the great pioneer.
Fender Stratocaster, Fender Telecaster (Broadcaster, Esquire, Nocaster), Fender Jaguar, Fender Jazzmaster, Fender Precision Bass, Fender Jazz Bass: All of these things are still state-of-the-art instruments decades later. The history of the electric guitar (and the electric bass) would not be the same without Leo Fender, his status is most comparable to that of Les Paul, which would actually have arrived before Leo Fender with the first solid body instrument if he were taken seriously taken – in the end Leo was the pioneer. Not to mention the great Fender amps.
Leo Fender: The beginnings
Leo Fender was born Clarence Leonidas Fender in Anaheim, California in 1909. His parents, Clarence Monte Fender and Harriet Elvira Wood, worked in agriculture. Leo was interested in technology from an early age. At first, however, they weren’t musical instruments, but rather radios, which he assembled and repaired as a hobby as a high school student.
He got his degree in accounting and started working in a radio shop. The store, located in Fullerton, California, also stocked musical instruments and records, and also offered a repair service. Leo’s interest went far beyond that, he was also interested in amplification and PA systems, which he built and rented out. In 1945, Leo Fender and Clayton Orr “Doc” Kauffman founded the K&F Manufacturing Corporation, which produced small quantities of Hawaiian guitars and amplifiers. The two also held a patent for a new pickup and an improved record changer. After Kauffman’s departure in 1946, Fender founded the Fender Electrical Instrument Co., which soon produced guitar amplifiers such as the Deluxe, Princeton and Professional; In 1947 he sold his radio business.
Amplifiers and instruments. Strat, Tele, Precision Bass.
The fact that Fender was soon building instruments was thanks to his curiosity. He disliked the fact that although he could repair parts of instruments, he couldn’t build any himself. He was thinking about a new guitar model; it should be a solid body guitar with a screw-on neck. Together with his partner George Fullerton, he presented the first model in 1950, the Fender Broadcaster or Esquire, which was soon renamed Telecaster. A revolution in the market. Up to now, electrically amplified guitars were mainly large hollow-body jazz guitars, which didn’t work well in a band context and always had feedback problems.
Stratocaster, Telecaster and much more
“The guitarist in the band without amplification was lost because you couldn’t turn up the volume on a guitar until you had so much feedback that you couldn’t play it anymore. With the solid body guitar, the guitarist could suddenly play as loudly as a drummer – he could blow the drummer away. It was just a matter of need to be in the market and see all these different things that we were doing that were contemporary and that we were taking advantage of,” recalled his former business partner Don Randall in an interview from 1992. Fender’s guitars were simple and effective – and had a lasting influence on pop and rock music.
The next big thing followed just a year later, the Fender Precision Bass. And then four years later, perhaps the most famous guitar shape in music history, the Fender Stratocaster. It would be pointless to list which famous guitarists in rock history played Stratocasters.
Just a few examples: Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix, Rory Gallagher, Hank Marvin, Mark Knopfler, David Gilmour, Jeff Beck, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Ritchie Blackmore, Yngwie Malmsteen, John Mayer, Buddy Guy, Bonnie Raitt, Robin Trower, Pete Townshend , Eric Johnson, Richie Sambora, Chris Rea, Buddy Holly, Ed King, Robert Cray, Billy Corgan, Tom Morello, The Edge, and John Frusciante. And Telecaster? Muddy Waters, Keith Richards, Bruce Springsteen, James Burton, Albert Collins, Danny Gatton, Roy Buchanan, Brad Paisley, Tom Morello, Joe Strummer, Prince, Andy Summers, Jeff Buckley, Jimmy Page (especially in the early Led Zeppelin days ), Steve Cropper, Vince Gill, Ritchie Kotzen, Pete Townshend, Jonny Greenwood, Chrissie Hynde, Graham Coxon, Robbie Robertson and George Harrison.
Leo Fender: “I never decided to just build guitars”
“I sat at home and thought about it. I never decided to just build guitars; I first built amplifiers until around 1940. I started before it was out here [in Orange County, Kalifornien] There was a radio station in 1922. They only had Catalina [eine Insel 26 Meilen vor der Küste Kaliforniens] for a transmission. Before there is a cable over the channel on Catalina [zum westlichen Rand der kalifornischen Küste] “It was sent over the air and people were talking back and forth and tuning in,” Fender once told Ultimate Guitar.
However, there are also other histories, so much must be mentioned for the sake of completeness. According to Randall, a former Radio-Tel sales partner and later Head of Sales at Fender, the invention of the solid body cannot be attributed to Fender. “Leo was a very introverted person. Of course, he took credit for inventing the solid body guitar, which is actually not true. Paul Bigsby was the one who brought out the solid body guitar with the lute head and all that. This was before Fender’s guitar, and before that, as Leo [bei K&F] “When I was playing around, a guy named Doc Kauffman was the driving force,” an interview on the instrument platform reverb.com quotes.
The sale of Fender and the founding of Music Man
Fender’s guitars and basses became an international success, and many other models such as the Jazzmaster, Jaguar and the Precision Bass followed. Because he became seriously ill in 1965 and there was no cure in sight at the time, he sold Fender to the media company CBS in 1965 for a ridiculous $13 million today. Leo officially remained an advisor, but discrepancies and disagreements continued to arise.
When Leo Fender’s health improved again, he founded Tri-Sonic with his partners Forrest White and Tom Walker, later renamed Music Tec and finally Music Man in 1974. Music Man is best known for his basses, especially the StingRay. Once again Leo created an instrument that is still omnipresent today.
Leo Fender had his own ideas, which was also evident during his time with Music Man. He fell out with management and left the company. It wouldn’t be the last time Leo created something new. He founded G&L Musical Instruments with George Fullerton and Dale Hyatt. Many guitarists today consider G&L to be the “better Fender,” and the company also manufactured pickups and tremolo systems.
Leo Fender: Death
Leo Fender died on March 21, 1991 in Fullerton, California, as a result of Parkinson’s disease. Fender’s legendary status never went to his head, as his colleagues report. He remained a workaholic to the end, a seeker with an inventive spirit. “Leo was undoubtedly a hard-working person,” George Fullerton recalled to guitar.com. Fullerton continued: “And he wasn’t arrogant. He wasn’t the kind of person who wanted to be a big shot, if you want to call it that, and he never was. He was Leo until the day he died. He was a difficult man in many ways, a really strong-willed person. The ideas he had couldn’t be changed. If he had an idea to try something, the only way to change him was to prove to him that what he had didn’t work.”