Fifty Years of Fender1946-1996 January 18, 1996
Fender's illustrious fifty-year history is the longest running success story in the solidbody guitar's short lifetime. Every player knows that Fender guitars are the most acclaimed and copied electric instruments in the world. Fender amps-which made ears ring long before the term rock'n'roll referred to a type of music-have always set the standard of professional excellence. In sum, Fender has shaped modern guitar styles for a half a century. It's an unequaled legacy, one worthy of celebration.
When Leo Fender decided to become a manufacturer, he tinkered with radios and phonographs before settling on electric guitars. In 1944, he and musician/inventor Doc Kauffman filed a patent application for a pickup mounted on a one-piece solidbody. This crude, unplayable thing looked like a high school science fair project, at best, but it led to the quasipartnership called K&F (Kauffman and Fender) Manufacturing. K&F made lap steel guitars and amplifiers in a shed behind Fender's radio shop in downtown Fullerton, California. Kauffman once quipped, "Yeah, I helped Leo start a $13 million business!"
Buoyed by K&F's success, Fender saw his chance to jump ahead of guitar companies put out of the music business by WWII. Kauffman was a bit leery and quit in early 1946, an act that led to this story's most important turn. Leo then founded the Fender Manufacturing Company, which soon became the Fender Electric Instrument Company. On May 3, 1946, he pulled construction permit #5484 at the Fullerton City Hall and erected two steel-frame buildings with corrugated-metal walls-a place to get serious about the business. By 1947, the Fender line included the fabled wooden cabinet amplifiers and hardwood steel guitars. Though the operation
floundered in these early months, it soon caught the wave of postwar prosperity. Don Randall, who worked for Fender's distributor (the Radio and Television Equipment Company or Radio-Tel owned by F.C. Hall), managed sales. In the late 1940s, many players considered Fender the leading innovator in instrument design, and the company won endorsements from the top western swing bands and best steel guitarists of the day.
Fender started work on the most obvious addition to his catalog - a solidbody standard guitar - in 1949. There have been several confusing accounts about what happened next, but suffice to say here that George Fullerton, the factory's production foreman at the time, helped make the prototype. Soon a second was completed. Radio-Tel introduced the single-pickup Esquire in April 1950, before the factory was ready to make it in quantity and before the final design was set. Further complicating matters, Leo also planned a dual-pickup Esquire model. Meanwhile, Randall dealt with damage control as unfilled orders stacked up.
Fender needed more work space and added a concrete-block building to his factory in May 1950. He also purchased additional tools necessary to make guitars, beginning limited production by summer. But Randall feared that their un-reinforced necks would bow and implored Leo to fix the problem before shipping more instruments. After several months of delay, Leo designed a truss rod. By November, the dual-pickup guitar went into full production as the Broadcaster model, first appearing on a December 1950 price sheet. The factory produced the model through the third week of February 1951 when Randall dropped the name because of a request from Gretsch (which produced Broadkaster drums and banjos). In a few days the Broadcaster became the Telecaster(R). (The single-pickup Esquire went into full production with a truss rod in January 1951.)
After Fender introduced his standard guitars, he invented the Precision Bass®, another milestone in musical instrument design. More than just a new model, it embodied a new class of instrument: as fully electric, fretted bass held and played like a guitar. Other manufacturers seized the idea and made similar instruments, but the P-Bass® in its various incarnations and the later Jazz Bass® would be the most popular electric basses ever made. The excitement they created
among greats like Lionel Hampton and Monk Montgomery helped Fender make further inroads into the realms of jazz and popular music.
In 1953, Fender, Randall, Hall, and salesman Charlie Hayes formed Fender Sales, Inc., which took Radio-Tel's place marketing Fenders. The factory was moved to a larger location, three new buildings at 500 S. Raymond Avenue in Fullerton. Leo focused on introducing the Stratocaster®, a fancier model needed to compete with Gibson, Epiphone, and Gretsch. It was to become music's most acclaimed electric guitar, the first designed with both the player's comfort and playing ease in mind. Its built-in vibrato put shimmering (and dive bombing) sound effects at the player's fingertips. In a letter written in April 1954, Randall promised to ship the first Stratocaster on may 15.
Leo hired Forrest White, an industrial engineer the company desperately needed on May 20, 1954. He handled most day-to-day operations at the factory, including expansion during Fender's fastest growth. By 1958, the company had nine buildings, 29 in 1964. Despite a rough and tumble start, it emerged as a model for the industry. Fender made electric violins, steels, mandolins, DuoSonics, and legendary amps. The Jazzmaster®, introduced in 1958, changed few minds in jazz circles but found its way into the fabric of a teenage musical subculture, making a big splash with bands emulating Dick Dale and the Ventures. Additional 1960s' models eventually included the Jaguar®, Mustang®, electric twelve string, Bass VI®, and acoustics. Fender wanted to meet musicians' and music dealers' needs even if that meant making some guitars with limited appeal.
Fender was by far the most important trendsetter in the early 1960s, but Leo worried that transistor technology would put him out of business. He also suffered a lingering strep infection that sapped his energy. Sometime in the early 1960s, the inventor decided to sell. Randall and Fender - who had become sole partners in 1955 - made a deal with CBS for $13 million, effective on January 5, 1965.
By the late 1960s, most of music's stars played Fenders - the Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, the Who. In the 1970s, Eric Clapton, Mark Knopfler, and countless others burned the Fender snarl
even deeper into the collective consciousness. The fusion of jazz, country, rock and blues reached new levels and found common ground in Leo's sound. New Wave and punk rock bands were Fenderized, too. Collectors appreciated how solidbodies had changed music history. Admired and played worldwide, Fenders contributed to the globalization of Western cultural values, especially in Communist Eastern Europe. Writer Jim Washburn went so far as to suggest that Fender guitars did more to weaken the iron curtain than cruise missiles did.
CBS-Fender continued to grow almost unabated as the electric guitar became an institution. By 1979, it sold over 40,000 instruments a year, but not without problems. Copies, especially improved Japanese imports, cut into the corporation's profits. The U.S. entered a recession and interest in guitars dropped; teenagers bought computer games instead. By the early 1980s CBS saw that Fender needed fixing and recruited a new management team. William Schultz became Fender's president. By 1982, the company returned to Leo's original pre-CBS headstock shapes and began making vintage reissues based on the original specs. Schultz embarked on a much needed but belated factory modernization program. Still, profits dropped. Work continued at the Fullerton factory-where employment had fallen from a historic high of 1,100 to 90. By 1984, CBS decided to sell and a group of investors headed by Schultz bought Fender's name and distribution for $12.5 million in March 1985.
Fender soon set up shop in Corona, California and focused on quality rather than quantity. It introduced the American Standard models: first a Stratocaster and then a Telecaster. Fender's image, tarnished by CBS, started to shine again. As the new plant increased its capacity, foreign exchange rates moved to favor American-made exports. In a remarkable turn around, the business thrived - a phoenix arose from the ashes. What started as a 14,000-sq.-ft. area devoted to guitars in 1985 became a 80,000-sq.-ft. facility by 1990. Another factory was added in Mexico. Most important, the whole company, including the newly established Custom Shop, started setting new standards for the industry. The first half of the 1990s brought more new guitar models, an expanded Custom Shop, and the Custom Amp Shop - the company is old, but certainly not tired.
The Fender company is still shaping the way the world plays and hears music, and making life better for guitar players. Happy 50th Anniversary. -- by, Richard Smith
A former working guitarist, Richard R. Smith has written exclusively about vintage guitars and guitar company history. His current book, Fender: The Sound Heard 'Round the World (Music Sales, Inc.) will be available in 1996 in book and music stores world-uide. His articles and columns have appeared in Guitar Player, Guitar World, Guitar (Rittor Music, Japan) and Bass (Rittor Music, Japan) magazines. In addition, he is the author of The History of Rickenbacker Guitars (Centerstream). For more information, visit their web site at www.fender.com. |
