Leo Fender would have been 115 years old this year, here’s a look at his legacy in OC

Clarence Leo Fender, founder of the Fender Musical Instruments Corporation, would have celebrated his 115th birthday this year, which also marks the 70th anniversary of the company’s the iconic Stratocaster.

Let’s take a look back at Fender and the company’s history and impact.

Fender was born in Anaheim in 1909. When just 8 years old, he developed a tumor in his left eye and it was replaced with a glass eye. The injury would later make him ineligible for military service in World War II, setting him down a different career path.

At age 13, according to the company’s published history, Fender became infatuated with a radio his uncle built and began a radio repair service in Fullerton, where he lived most of his life. In time, he would expand his trade to building various speakers, such as public address systems and amplifiers. He also sold instruments, such as the lap steel guitar.

Eventually, Fender began making guitars of his own and in 1943 started developing a concept for a “direct string pickup” that made sound based on suspended string vibrations. He released his first model, the Champion, in 1945.

Building on that innovation, he created various solid-body electric guitars, a new device that lacked the air pockets of an acoustic guitar. He released his first model, the Esquire, in 1950.

It combined the pickup of a lap steel guitar with the body of an electric guitar and had a three-way selector switch to change its tone. It also had a bolt-on neck, making it easier to manufacture.

The Fender company calls the Esquire the first solid-body electric guitar. Unfortunately, according to the Fort Collins Museum of Discovery, Fender only made about 50 of these original guitars.

Soon after, Fender expanded on the Esquire’s concepts with the Telecaster.

The Telecaster was the first commercially successful, mass-produced, solid-body electric guitar. It featured a truss rod that reinforced the neck and made it more durable than the early Esquire necks and added a second pickup.

Notability, Fender designed every part of the guitar to be mass-produced for easy assembly, allowing the company to manufacture it in significant quantities and at a price lower than the competition.

In 1954, the company introduced the Stratocaster, which featured three pickups, had a famous contour-shaped body, and added a new color scheme, the two-tone Starburst, that became an iconic shade for Fender.

The Stratocaster’s most significant innovation was its vibrato system, which allowed players to easily change note pitches. This trait allowed for guitarists to perform new tricks such as divebombing, where players move the tremolo bar, which controls the pitch, toward the neck, lowering the pitch.

In 1965, CBS acquired the Fender company – Fender stayed on under a consulting contract until 1970.

It was under CBS that the Fender company first issued replicas of the original Stratocaster in 1982. That year, the company also started the Squire line, a series of budget guitars that still exist today.

After leaving the company, Fender continued to innovate. He helped fund the guitar company Tri-Sonix that opened in 1971 and later changed its name to Music Man.

There, he developed the Stingray in 1976, the first production bass to have an active preamp built into it, a device that heightens its sound when amplified. In time, many music luminaries like Flea and Michael Jackson collaborator Louis Johnson would use Stingrays in their recordings.

G&L Musical Instruments is another company Fender founded, this time alongside friend George Fullerton. The two continued Fender’s legacy of innovation.

And, perhaps most notably, all three companies have origins in Fullerton and G&L still produces instruments there to this day.

The Fender company introduced many innovations, including mass producing quality solid-body guitars, making them affordable for many.

Many famous musicians used Fender guitars, including Eric Clapton, Dick Dale, Ritchie Valens and Jimi Hendrix, who most notably played a Statocaster on his Woodstock performance of “The Star Spangled Banner.”

According to the Fender company, it will commemorate the Statocaster’s platinum anniversary with four new models and a range of limited-edition models.

Fender died from complications from Parkinson’s disease in 1991, working on his guitars and amps in his Fullerton workshop up until the end. The following year he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Today, the Fullerton Museum Center is home to the Leo Fender Gallery, which opened in 2006, and features artifacts from his life in Fullerton, his innovations and the company. Also on special exhibit now is “Strumming Through the Decades: 30 Years with Fender,” which also features a map of Fender landmarks around town.

Related Articles

Borrow all kinds of stuff from the county system’s growing Library of Things

OC native gives voice to Batman and Sonic The Hedgehog video game releases this month

Remediation work to resume at Ascon landfill in Huntington Beach

Viet Film Fest, the largest outside of Vietnam, features 50 entries this year and opens Friday in Santa Ana

Sunset Bridge that passes over Superior Avenue in Newport Beach is open