Crayon Sky Music

When we think about Leo Fender, we usually think about the guitars that he introduced to our world. The telecaster, the Stratocaster, and the electric bass, all invented and developed by Leo Fender in Orange County California, way back when.

But actually, what may be more important is that Leo Fender was the primary architect of the guitar amplifier as we know it, and it is the guitar amplifier that enabled the development of the electric guitar.

Back at that time when Leo ran his small radio shop, tube-type amplifiers were already widely used. They were used in record players and radios, radio transmitters, public address systems, the sound systems in movie houses, and in telephone switchboards.

Realize that these amplifiers really didn’t sound worth beans, but it was their presence that brought to mind the novel idea that folks could make a guitar louder. And as a spinoff of that idea as it developed, there naturally came the development of the electric bass.

In those old movies you’ve seen of the war years you’ve probably noticed those very fancy nightclubs with the big band music and people dancing and drinking and having a great time. But after that time as movie theaters became more common, and as radios appeared in almost every home in America after the rural electrification act of 1940, live music experienced a decline of popularity.

Those fancy nightclubs grew smaller, devolving into the American roadhouse, in parallel with the emergence of a car in every garage and better roads linking our fevered nation.

And given the high expense of hauling a busload of big-band musicians to an ever-dwindling set of nightclub venues, what happened was that the rhythm section stepped up front to become the entire band.

The drummer, the guitar player, the electric bass player, and the singer were everything needed in these new smaller roadhouse venues. I mean, if you take your best girl and you’re drinking well hey, you got sex, drugs (alcohol), and rock and roll. Yeah, man!

Basic amplifier design of those times enabled the development of the electric guitar, Leo Fender transformed the lame record-player amps of the time into good guitar amps, and the amplified electric guitar enabled the development of the rock ‘n roll band.

Thank you, Leo Fender!

From new arrangements of vacuum tubes to enable good tone, to the coupling of high-power vacuum tubes with low-power output transformers (to get a good sound), to the persuasion of the Lansing Speaker Company to produce a new design of speaker that wouldn’t blow up, Leo Fender basically drove most of the innovation in guitar amplifier design for 20 years and more.

There is no actual single Fender amplifier.

From the very first there was a series of amplifiers, all of which have their own distinctive sound. However, usually we describe them most easily by describing their distinctive appearance. For example, the Woody, the Tweed, the Blond, the Brownface, the Silverface, and the Red Knob.

Still popular today. Although we most know Leo Fender for his guitars, even had he never made a guitar in his life, we’d revere him as the father of modern guitar amplifiers.

Thank you, Leo!

FENDER ROADHOUSE STRATOCASTER £450 + GIG BAG web.wmv