The Professional was particularly noted as an amp of high-quality, pumping out 25-watts of tube power compared to the typical 15-watt max of the time.ĭespite these innovations, success was still modest at best. dabbled in lap steels and amplifiers, producing between ‘46 and 48’ the original Fender amp lineup: the Princeton, the Deluxe, and the Professional, a.k.a., the Woodies. The newly established Fender Electric Instrument Co. This partnership only lasted a few years, after which Leo renamed the company first as Fender Manufacturing, settling on Fender Electric Instrument Co. The two teamed up to form K & F Manufacturing Corp, releasing Fender’s first guitar and amp designs under the K & F brand. His sales of the electric lap steel led Leo to meet Doc Kauffman, Rickenbacker’s chief designer of electric guitars, in the early 40s. He gradually expanded his services offered and his shop’s square-footage, ultimately growing into a kind of one-stop music shop dispensing records, gear, and instruments to musicians of the burgeoning Orange/LA music scene. Leo dove headfirst into his first electronics company, offering repairs on all sorts of audio equipment, as well as building PAs for sale and rent and wiring-up acoustic guitars with new-to-the-scene pickups. He’d continued running repairs in his home shop and had started to design and build his own PA systems to rent to dance halls.Īfter losing his last accounting job, Leo and Esther moved back to his hometown of Fullerton, where-perhaps motivated by his wife’s support and his recent commission to build 6 PA systems for a Hollywood bandleader-he opened his first business, Fender Radio Service. Also, Fender had never left the electronics alone. For one, he met and married Esther Klosky. However, Leo did have a few bright spots during the early 30s. This was followed by a few different accounting jobs, all of which he was laid off from. Like so many post-recession grads of today, he was at first only able to find work totally unrelated to his degree and wound up driving a delivery truck for a while. Enduring the Depressionįollowing high school, Leo went on to study accounting for 2 years at the local Fullerton Junior College, graduating right as the Great Depression really started to grip the world’s economy. To be on the leading edge of this technology then would be like developing VR and AI today.Īnd Leo? He was a self-taught pioneer, a mastermind tinkering in his workshop in his spare time-yet an altogether humble, hardworking fellow whose interest in electronics would radically alter musical history. Radios, amplifiers, pickups-electronic gizmos in general-were all in their infancy.
The first commercial radio broadcasts happened in 1920, just two years before he was awed by his uncle’s homemade device. Within a few years, Leo began repairing radios at home, quickly becoming adept with the new technology.įor a little historical context, radio broadcasting was in its earliest experimental stages when Leo was born. Uncle John West (whom I think we all owe a bit of thanks to) showed the kid Fender a radio he had made from discarded parts and pieces, which by most accounts is what inspired Leo’s passion for electrical engineering.
What did hook Leo’s childhood attention was the emerging world of electronics, to which he was introduced by his uncle. His parents, a couple of orange farmers named Clarence and Harriet, did give the young Leo musical opportunities in the form of sax and piano, but those hobbies never took. He was born in Orange County, CA way back in 1909 when the main industry was actually oranges. It was a real surprise when I found out that not only were neither of his parents in the music business, Leo Fender himself was never a guitarist.
Littlehand: /6401361309 The Early Daysīefore I knew much about Leo Fender, I would have guessed -drawing from his clear intuition for the guitar craftsmanship- that he came from a long line of luthiers in a similar vein as Gibson and Martin. The Legendary Life of Leo Fender Courtesy of Mr. To me, Leo’s story is inspiration of the highest caliber-a true testimony to the power of passion and perseverance.Īfter learning about the life of Fender, I haven’t been able to look at his instruments the same again, knowing that each axe is a product of Leo Fender’s love, genius, and non-stop drive for perfecting the imperfectible. Despite this, he inarguably revolutionized music as we know it, holding almost as many ingenious patents as years he was alive. Leo Fender’s history and legacy, profound as they may be, have the plainest of origins-for one, he was literally born in a barn. A name synonymous with six-strings, Clarence Leonidas “Leo” Fender was doubtless one of the most influential people in the world of modern music.
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