Fender Guitars and Amplifiers

Fender Guitars and amplifiers revolutionized the music industry. Many guitar players dream of playing a Fender Stratocaster (or Strat) and many musicians, famous and not famous, do play them. Some well-known guitar players who play or have played Fenders include John Lennon and George Harrison of the Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, Muddy Waters, Eric Clapton, Mike Einziger of Incubus, Tom De Longe of Blink 182, Rivers Cuomo and Brian Bell of Weezer, Kurt Cobain of Nirvana, and John Frusciante of the Red Hot Chili Peppers[i]. Fender guitars made a serious impact on music, defining many styles of music like jazz, rock, and metal.

It all started in the early 1940's. Clarence Leo Fender, a Californian inventor, looked at the designs of early electric guitars, and knew he could improve them. He began to make prototype solid-body electric guitars. Leo made the first instrument amplifiers with built-in tone controls. In 1951, he produced the Broadcaster, with George Fullerton[ii]. It was a prototype solid-body guitar that would later be renamed as the legendary Telecaster© (or Tele)[iii]. The Telecaster was the first solid-body electric Spanish style (six-string) guitar to go into commercial mass production. Leo Fender became the Henry Ford of musical instruments because of his many advances in the manufacturing of his guitars and amps[iv]. After the Tele, Leo created the Precision Bass© guitar in 1951. "For the first time ever, bass players were able to amplify their playing, [while] before, they were limited to the natural abilities of their acoustic instrument[v]." Fender created the first electric bass, which is now widely used for all kinds of music. He later invented the Jazz Bass©, which was just as popular as the Precision Bass©[vi]. Both instruments are still very popular today.