Founded in 1946 by Leo Fender, the Fender Musical Instruments Company is an American icon. Leo had spent years as an electronics technician, repairing PA systems, speakerboxes, and electric guitars, before he decided to correct the design flaws he saw by making his own products. In 1949, Leo Fender designed the Telecaster, the world’s first mass produced electric guitar. Leo’s time as a technician meant he knew that the Telecaster’s design would make it superior to traditional, hand carved instruments. The machined parts would make it affordable for musicians and the bolt-on neck would be easy for technicians to repair or replace.
Through the 1950s, Fender advertised aggressively to establish its place in the market. Print ads showed skydivers leaping out of planes and surfers at the beach carrying Jazzmasters with the tagline ‘You won’t part with yours either’. Customers came because of the exciting new ads, but stayed because of the superior sound quality that Fender provided. Teenage boys across America got their first jobs to pay for their first Fenders, and sat in their rooms pretending to be James Burton and Muddy Waters.
The key moment in Fender’s early history however, was Buddy Holly playing a Sunburst Fender Stratocaster on the Ed Sullivan Show in 1958. The Fender brand became synonymous with the growing genre of rock ‘n’ roll, continuing to be the instrument of choice for legends such as Jimi Hendrix, Bob Dylan and Stevie Ray Vaughn. When Eric Clapton switched to Fender in 1969, he gave Stratocasters to Steve Winwood, Pete Townshend and George Harrison. When a luthier offered to custom-build a new guitar for Kurt Cobain in 1992, Cobain requested that the body be styled after his favorite Fender Mustang.
Today, Fender is a giant in the field, with factories exporting American quality worldwide. From Taiwan to Lake Tahoe, kids around the world have picked up and learned to play on Fenders, and dreamed of one day playing stadiums with a Stratocaster. Fender is now entirely owned by its employees, the quality and craftsmanship that goes in every Fender guitar, bass and amp today is a proud continuation of a tradition started over sixty years ago by a man named Leo in California.
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