Leo Fender

Clarence Leonidas Fender was an American inventor, who founded Fender. He also founded two other music companies, Music Man, and G&L Guitars.

His contributions to the world of guitar were huge and are still relevant today. Some of his most notable creations is the Fender Telecaster, produced 1950, it was the first "mass produced" solid body electric guitar; Fender Stratocaster, produced 1954, it was and is an iconic instrument and is revered for its comfort, quality, and design. The Fender Precision Bass, produced 1951, set the standard for electric bass's.

Biography
Leo grew up as an electronics enthusiast. Once he began his adult life, he was an accountant, but once the great depression occurred, Leo was let go. To solve his working needs, he started a radio company. The radio repairman and builder got involved with guitar design after guitar-playing customers kept bringing him their external pickups for repair. Before Fender came along, guitarists met their amplification needs by attaching pickups to the surface of their hollow-bodied instruments. While the question of who designed the first successful solid-body guitar is still being debated, Fender was the first to successfully design and market such an instrument with the introduction of the Broadcaster in 1948. Renamed the Telecaster two years later, Fender’s creation remains an iconic peace of country and rock. The guitar became an immediate success, particularly with country pickers. After sixty years, the telecaster is still the same as it was when it was created.

Fender’s Precision bass, introduced in 1950, brought a new sound and flexibility to the rhythm section of bands, liberating the bassist from cumbersome standup instruments. The bass-driven soul music of Motown and Stax could not have been done without Fender’s handiwork. In 1954, Fender introduced the Stratocaster, a flashier instrument featuring a contoured, double-cutaway body, three (as opposed to two) single-coil pickups and a revolutionary string-bending (tremolo) unit. Fender’s Strat has been the favored model of such rock guitarists as Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, Jimi Hendrix and Stevie Ray Vaughan.

In 1965, Fender sold his company to CBS for $13 million. Then, in 1971, he formed the Tri-Sonic Company. In 1974, he changed the company’s name to Music Man. One of that firm’s most notable instruments was the Stingray bass. Then, in 1979, he founded yet another company, G&L Musical Products.

Leo Fender died on March 21, 1991, after suffering from Parkinson’s disease for many years.