A 'Fender' Electric Guitar is a popular
brand of solid body electric guitar. The company
behind it also makes other stringed musical
instruments and amplifiers.
A Fender Timeline
1902 – Clarence Leo Fender is born.
1922 – Leo is running an amateur radio station and building
amplifiers and public address systems.
1938 – Opens Fender’s Repair Service
1946 – Renames his business to the Fender Electric Instruments
Company
1949 – Fender guitars and amps are firmly established in the music
industry
1951 – Leo introduces a solid-body instrument which would eventually
be the Telecaster guitar. Later in the same year, Fender introduces
the Precision Bass guitar. Along with the Bassman Amp, these
instruments allow smaller groups to sound big and the garage band is
born.
1954 – The Stratocaster appears with the new Fender vibrato
(tremolo) bridge which can bend guitar strings, giving them the
pedal steel sound used most often in early country music.
1955 – With the success of the Stratocaster, Fender produces less
expensive amps and guitars creating an empire for decades to come.
The one pickup version of “student” electric guitars was the
Musicmaster and the two pickup version was the Duo-Sonic.
1960 – The release of the Jazz Bass, another important innovation in
musical instruments.
1964 – The popular Fender Mustang is introduced.
1965 – Suffering from health problems, Leo Fender sells his company
to CBS.
The CBS Years . . .
Disputes over quality cause many of the loyal Fender employees to
quit. Columbia Records, a subsidiary of CBS runs the business into
the ground. By the early eighties, parts of the company were sold to
the Japanese and U.S. production halted. The Nineties saw custom
Fender guitars once again mass produced with artists like Eric
Clapton putting their names on their own designs. The 50th
anniversary Stratocaster was released in 2004 with the original 1954
design and Fender is once again a leader in the industry.
Today...
Fender produces a big range of electric guitars including the
Telecaster, Stratocaster, Squier and more.
See - Types of
Guitar
Buy an Electric Guitar:
Learn to Play an Electric Guitar:
