Fender Bender

From the desk of Ned P. Rauch:

Lost in all the well-deserved requiems for Les Paul, who died last month, after a rich life of making music and inventing gadgets, is the legacy of Leo Fender. Born in 1909, six years before Paul, Clarence Leonidas Fender came up with the first mass-produced, solid-body electric guitar, the Broadcaster/Esquire/Telecaster (same guitar, with slight variations, with three different names within a year or so), in 1950, two years before Gibson came out with the guitar that bore Les Paul’s name.

Fender wasn’t a musician. He was an electronics geek who got into the instrument biz through customers who brought pickups for their hollow-body guitars into his fix-it shop for repair. His guitars, particularly the Telecaster (Keith Richards, Bruce Springsteen and Chrissie Hynde are some of the most famous Tele pickers; here's a clip of Keith using his Telecaster to ward off a stage-rusher) and the Stratocaster (think Hendrix, Buddy Guy and Clapton) are some of the most popular instruments of the 20th century. The Strat is the most-copied electric guitar shape of all, and the Telecaster is the longest-running model. On top of that, Fender came up with the Precision Bass, the first solid-body electric fretted bass ever. Until he developed the P-Bass, bassists had to lug around upright basses. And he made a bunch of amplifiers, for both guitar and bass, whose popularity endures.

Fender eventually left the company that bares his name and went on to found G&L Musical Products and Music Man. He died in 1991 and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame a year later.

(Photo found on BigDecal.com, a Web site devoted to "classic Fender replacement decals for most vintage Fender guitar or bass models from the 1950's through the 1970's." There's something for everyone out there, folks.)