It's simple—;if you've picked up and played a Fender instrument anytime in the past 60 years, you are part of the soundtrack of the planet.
It's true. And it's no exaggeration to say that without Fender instruments and amps as we've long known them, and without the boundless creativity of players worldwide for well more than half a century, music simply wouldn't sound the way it does. Many are famous for having done so, but the sound of modern music is the sound of anyone who has ever eyed a Fender instrument and felt moved to pick it up and make sound with it.
So congratulations, because that means you. If you're one of literally millions who have picked up and played a Fender guitar or bass, you are part of Fender history.
You're in good company, by the way. In each decade since Fender's founding in 1946, people have taken the company's guitars, basses and amps and wrung their own identity from them, making indelible marks on music history and weaving Fender into the very fabric of popular culture. From '50s rock 'n' roll to '60s surf and psychedelia to '70s prog and punk to '80s new wave and alternative to '90s grunge and shoegaze and the punk-pop of today, Fender has always and easily made everyone right at home.
In fact, here's another take on Fender history, focused into a single paragraph:
Buddy Holly. Jimi Hendrix. Keith Richards. The Ventures. The Beach Boys. The Yardbirds. The Beatles. The Clash. Pink Floyd. Bruce Springsteen. Dee Dee Ramone. Eric Clapton. Television. Nile Rodgers. Talking Heads. Merle Haggard. Iron Maiden. The Smiths. Stevie Ray Vaughan. Elvis Costello. Rush. Buddy Guy. The Police. Dinosaur Jr. Kurt Cobain. Vince Gill. U2. Green Day. John Frusciante. Smashing Pumpkins. Brad Paisley. Tom Morello. My Bloody Valentine. Blink-182. Slipknot. Jimmy Eat World. Woodstock. Live Aid. Lollapalooza. Coachella.
And that's the short list.
Fender and rock 'n' roll are synonymous, period. Not bad for a company founded in sunny Southern California in 1946 by a guy who didn't even play guitar. It all started modestly enough—;and ten whole years before rock 'n' roll, at that—;but Fender gradually became a worldwide musical and cultural institution thanks to one of the most brilliantly fertile creative streaks in history and thanks to the brilliance and devotion of some of the sharpest minds and most passionate hearts in the musical instrument industry, then and now.
Founder Clarence "Leo" Fender (1909-1991) personally invented or at least oversaw development of the six instruments and stable of great amps on which Fender's worldwide empire still stands tall. Never mind that the Telecaster® (1950), Stratocaster® (1954), Precision Bass® (1951), Jazzmaster® (1958), Jazz Bass® (1960) and Jaguar® (1962) guitars were ingeniously designed with remarkably enduring elegance and simplicity; they just sounded great, played comfortably and looked cooler than cool.
They did more than that, though—;Fender guitars set people free; letting them unleash oceans of personal creativity and leading to sounds, recordings and performances that have helped define the music and culture of well more than half a century.
Leo Fender sold the company bearing his name to CBS in 1965. Long story short, while plenty of fine instruments continued to be produced in the 1960s and well into the 1970s, quality steadily eroded under the not-too-watchful CBS eye to the point that, by the early 1980s, Fender was dangerously close to vanishing forever. We're talking really close to the brink. That's when Bill Schultz took over.
William Schultz (1926-2006) was the energetic, resourceful and charismatic president of Fender at the time. When CBS jettisoned all its non-broadcast holding in the mid-'80s, Schultz assembled a small group of investors to buy the ailing company. With few resources at their disposal, Schultz and the people who formed what was left of Fender slowly engineered the company's rebirth. Guitar by guitar and amp by amp, they created the Fender Musical Instruments Corporation as it exists today.
Today Fender is once again a world leader in electric guitars, basses and amps. The sound of Fender is the sound of modern music, but it's also much more than that, because throughout its long, loud and colorful history, Fender has become inextricably woven into the larger fabric of popular culture all over the world.
As it was at its founding and has been throughout each era in its history, Fender is for everybody. Fender instruments are more than just played. They are prized, revered, written about, coveted, copied, fussed, fawned, fantasized and fought over. People change their lives for them. People become who they want to be with them.
In short, Fender is for you. And because of that, history is just getting started …
