Great Story: Leo Fender, From Radio Repairman to Guitar Visionary
Guitar maker Fender just recently announced an ownership change, with longtime investor Servco Pacific now a majority stakeholder in the company after acquiring shares from co-investment partner TPG Growth. While Servco and TPG aren't exactly household names, Fender is one of the most recognized guitar names in the world and another example of a great American success story. The company's most well-known products are without a doubt the Stratocaster, the Telecaster, and the Precision Bass, all of which revolutionized not just guitar design but also music itself.
Born in 1909, Leo Fender grew up in Southern California where his parents owned an orange grove. Fender was more interested in electronics than fruit, though. His uncle owned an automotive-electric shop where a teenage Fender became fascinated with a radio his uncle had built from spare parts. While in high school, Fender started his own radio repair business in his parent's house. In college, he studied accounting but continued tinkering with radios and other electronics.
Fender never once took an electronics course but his self-education ended up serving him well. By 1938, having lost several accounting jobs due to the Depression, he and his wife moved back to Fender's hometown of Fullerton, California, where he decided to start a radio repair business with a loan of $600. His Fender Radio Service quickly built a strong following among musicians and band leaders who turned to him for public address systems, which he built himself.
With his steady stream of musician clients, he also began dabbling in amplifier and instrument repair. In the early 1940s, he met Clayton Kauffman, aka Doc Kauffman, a lap steel guitar and electric guitar engineer that had worked for Rickenbacker, the company credited with making the first electric guitars. Fender and Kauffman launched the K & F Manufacturing Corp. and began manufacturing Hawaiian lap steel guitars and amplifiers - sold as sets - in 1945. By the end of the venture's first year, Fender was convinced that manufacturing instruments and amplifiers would be much more profitable than repairing them and decided to fully concentrate on that side of the business. Kauffman disagreed, however, and the two parted ways in early 1946.
The company was renamed Fender Electric Instrument Company and produced its first real commercial success with hardwood amplifiers, dubbed "woodie amps", that ended up setting the gold standard for guitar tone throughout the 60s and 70s. Fender also kept experimenting with guitars and worked up a solid-body prototype that would eventually become the Telecaster, one of the most popular electric guitars in music history.
The Telecaster, introduced in 1951, was the first mass-produced solid-body electric guitar ever sold. The guitar's bolted-on neck allowed for the instrument's body and neck to be milled and finished separately, and for the final assembling to be done quickly and cheaply by unskilled workers. Fender's attention to tone was what really set the Telecaster apart. Unlike any guitar that came before it, the Telecaster had a bright, clean, and cutting sound, with a prominent high end, thick midrange, and bass perfectly suited to the western swing style. This was Fender's initial target market and the Telecaster was quickly adopted by the twang-focused players. But the Tele also caught the attention and admiration of guitarists across a wide range of musical genres, particularly Rock 'n' Roll, R&B, and Country. Its long list of fans includes music legends Bob Dylan, Vince Gill, George Harrison, Waylon Jennings, Kieth Richards, and Bruce Springsteen, just to name a few.
Fender introduced another game-changing instrument the same year as the Tele - the Precision Bass. While the so-called P Bass may be lesser-known outside musical circles, the electric bass's design forever changed the way music is made. Before its introduction, bands relied on the traditional upright bass to round out their rhythm sections. For those not familiar, an upright bass is one of the largest stringed instruments in the music world, averaging about 6 feet in height. For a small touring ensemble, it was terribly impractical. But the P Bass, with its similar size and styling to an electric guitar, freed musicians from lugging around a clunky upright bass. It was also fretted for more precise playing and could be easily amplified. The new design allowed for smaller groups of musicians to play and be heard, and paved the way for the modern rock combo.
Following the success of the Telecaster, Fender introduced yet another revolutionary electric guitar - the Stratocaster. It is a contoured double-cutaway guitar, with an extended top "horn" shape for balance like the Precision Bass guitar. It differed from the Tele's less comfortable square-edged design and allowed players to more easily reach higher frets, in turn exploring new sounds. Fender came up with the new design based on customer input, many of which didn't like the Telecaster's harsh edges. The guitar also featured the Fender synchronized tremolo (or “vibrato”) bridge, a new innovation that allowed guitarists to bend strings more easily. One of the most famous examples of how this system revolutionized rock music is Jimmy Hendrix's Woodstock performance of "The Star Spangled Banner." Hendrix's screaming, psychedelic version of the American anthem set the course for the future of Rock 'n' Roll and instantly elevated the Stratocaster to its iconic status.
In the 1950s, Leo Fender contracted a streptococcal sinus infection that impaired his health. He decided to wind up his business affairs and sold the Fender company to CBS in 1965 for a whopping $13 million ($106 million in today's dollars), which is two million more than they paid for the Yankees a year earlier! He regained his health shortly thereafter and went on to start a couple of other musical instrument ventures, including Music Man, which made the StingRay bass, and G&L Musical Products. Fender passed away in 1991 after a long battle with Parkinson's disease, but his legacy obviously extends well beyond his life.
What I find most fascinating about Fender's story is that he didn't even play guitar. He dabbled at piano and saxophone but considered himself to be entirely lacking in musical talent. His real love was electronics and in pursuing that, he just so happened to become a music legend. I always find it amazing how some people become legendary in a space they could have never imagined. (Sources: Fender, Reverb, GuitarPlayer, Wikipedia)
Jimi Hendrix famously played the guitar above at Woodstock back in 1969. Paul Allen paid +$2 million for it to be placed at the Experience Music Project in Seattle, Jimi Hendrix’s hometown.
Stevie Ray Vaughan’s Stratocatser “Lenny” was named after his wife, who bought him this circa 1965 Strat for his birthday in 1980. After Stevie died in a helicopter crash in 1990, Stevie’s brother Jimmy donated the guitar, which was auctioned off for +$750,000.
"Blackie" pictured above is probably Eric Clapton’s most iconic guitar. As his story goes, Clapton bought six Stratocaster’s in a guitar shop in Texas. He then gave three away (to Harrison, Townshend, and Winwood) and pulled apart the other three to build Blackie, a guitar he used for the next 15 years. Like many of his guitars, Clapton auctioned this instrument to raise money for the Crossroads Rehab Centre, it went for +$1 million!
A 1969 black Fender Stratocaster, owned by legendary Pink Floyd guitarist David Gilmour, called "The Black Strat,” sold last year at auction for $3.975 million to media mogul and Indianapolis Colts owner Jim Isray. “The Black Strat” is as valuable as it is due to the recordings Gilmour used it on, including the albums The Dark Side of the Moon, Wish You Were Here, Animals, and The Wall.