Just great. I've been a musician for 62 years and I love and play fender guitars and especially bases but I never knew the history of Leo and his company. Thanks
Forrest White wrote a book called "Fender The Inside Story" that's worth reading. Also the Fender factory was in Fullerton CA., not Anaheim. The G&L factory is still in Fullerton, their guitars are built like the Fenders from the 50's.
There is a tendency to treat everything made in the "pre-CBS era" as a golden age of quality. Certainly the DESIGNS were well thought out (except for those "death capacitors") but there are videos on TH-cam from a tour of the Fullerton plant filmed between 1955 and 1958 that illustrates how barebones and haphazard production was. The current nostalgia for original instruments and amps from that era is more likely due to "survivor bias." Those pieces still around and playable today are likely still around because they were the best specimens encountered and were preserved as such. Units from the middle and lower parts of that wide ranging bell curve of quality weren't so precious and didn't survive.
Forrest was one of my closest friends in the 1970's-1980's. Forrest was Leo's VP from 1954-1965, and he stayed on with CBS until early 1967. When Forrest started at Fender they were simply a "boutique" shop, struggling to keep things going. After Forrest organized and restructured the plant, introducing inventory control and creating employee incentives, Fender became a real factory. In 1965 Leo sold Fender to CBS, and their corporate "suits" immediately started squeezing margins (as they always do), which substantially affected overall product quality. (this is the nicest way I can put it)
Ever do one on Les Paul. He lived not that far from here, in Califon. He was a pioneer in reverb and multitracking in addition to the guitar. NJ My guitar teacher knew him.
It is hilarious. It's interesting to note that when Gibson made their solid body Kalamazoo brand guitars, they had the bodies made by a company that literally made toilet seats.
That was nicely done and I thoroughly enjoyed it. i look forward to your future - perhaps we'll meet Travis Bigsby and Lester Paulfus... and the brilliant Mary Ford - who was one of the most gifted musicians of her time. Also, we can never get enough of the godmother of rock and roll, Sister Rosetta Tharpe...
I’m enjoying this background material on the history of Fender. But you got a couple of details wrong. First off, Music Man amps were not solid-state. The preamps in them were, but the power section had tubes. I had one back in the ‘70s, a 410HD-130 that used four 6CA7 tubes. It was a great-sounding amp, and I knocked it around the Midwest and the South for most of the ‘70s. Also-the band that Forrest White would have heard in Ohio would not have been called “The Cowboy Copas”-their front man was a guy whose last name was Copas-I don’t know his first name-and his stage nickname was “Cowboy”. Cowboy Copas was a well-known country singer in the 1940s and 1950s. I can’t remember what his hits were-he was a little before my time-but he did have a few.
Thank you! I should have clarified the hybrid nature I was so overly focused on the solid state transistors when I was talking! And I didn’t realize Cowboy Copas was one person that’s hilarious. Bob was playing with HIM!! 😂🙌🙌 Thank you for being here! ♥️🎵🎉
Great video! It would be nice to see video on Laurens Hammond or Jesse Crawford, or both. Here are a few resources I can get you started with. Both men were very interesting geniuses with unique backgrounds, a would join forces as you will see. A great book is *Jesse Crawford: Poet of the Organ; Wizard of the Mighty Wurlitzer* . Also start by watching the 1980's documentary on ytb- *Legendary Theatre Organists* . There is a great Paramount Film reel at the 40min mark in that documentary which is about the all new Hammond Tone Wheel organ. It shows the basic principle of a tone wheel and demonstrates a how it works by singling one out and spinning it with a finger crank. It's simple, but very effective. Note the little bobbins of wire are no different than a guitar pickup and the tone wheel no different than a string essentially. This is how Jon Lord of Deep Purple could rock out his Hammond through a Marshall amp! Jesse actually hated the Hammond organ when it first came out in 1936. By 1941 Don Leslie, a theater organ fan, he desired that Hammond had a theater organ Tremulent ( vibrato + tremolo) that results from oscillating the air coming into the pipes. A state of the airflow being robbed from the pipes in pulses as set up by the tremulent bellows, it results in both an Amplitude Modulation (AM), as well as Frequency Modulation (FM) [ AM/FM sound familiar?]. Don Leslie reasoned that by rotating the sound to and fro in a circular path you would get the AM volume shifting as well as the Doppler Effect 'pitch shift', FM. So in 1941 the Hammond/Leslie sound was born. Laurens Hammond invented SPRING REVERB. The first units were large and bulky. See all about these first units in article: *Ken Griffin Special Effects* BY the end of WWII the need for theater organs had dried up and Jesse Crawford needed to reassess his prospects. Never learning to read music efficiently Jesse went to one man in particular who had worked with other great artists of the day, like George Gershwin. Jesse reassessed his prospects with Hammond when they made him a great offer to front their organs. Jesse became a foremost instructor with Hammond and many great organ instruction books were written by Jesse. Also Jesse continued to record on Theater organ as well as Hammond organ. His musical genius is everywhere in the 1920's until his death in 1963. He was a household name. Jesse was known as "The Poet of the Organ". Back when Jesse first began playing movie houses he overheard a woman swoon in the audience every time he played a simple glissando. Capitalizing on this he spent mornings and early afternoons perfecting the technique before the matinee opened. Jesse was the top theater organist, playing the Chinese Theatre in Hollywood, California, and then playing the New York Paramount theatre (iirc). So Jesse was a great asset to the Hammond organ Company, and Jesse said it made him a wealthy man. Listen to many of Jesse Crawford's theater organ albums on Pax41 channel. Three albums that represents Jesse's Hammond organ technique the best are on ytb: Jesse Crawford Hammond Organ Poet of the Organ Jesse Crawford - Remembering , with Ann Stockton Harp Accompaniment Jesse Crawford - at the Hammond Chord Organ [ Hammond came out with the great sounding Hammond Chord Organ model S, S4, but then the S6, which was the most abundant made model. It was $789 in 1955. It had a rich full sound when the Hammond 3-Spring Necklace Reverb and AO-35 Reverb amp was added. Other resources: The Organ Forum ( electronic organ web group), North Suburban Hammond Organ Society , paulj0557 ytb.
MM amps were hybrid amp. Only the pre-amps were soli state. The power output stage used vacuum tubes. And the A in Akron is a short a pronounced like as, at, or and, not a long a suck as aim or came like you uaed.
I understand that Leo never learned to play the guitar. He played saxophone in high school, but that was it. I’ve read that he would test guitars and amps in his office by strumming across the open strings at full volume, and Forrest White finally offered to tune the test guitar to an open chord to keep it from sounding quite so obnoxious!
Just great. I've been a musician for 62 years and I love and play fender guitars and especially bases but I never knew the history of Leo and his company. Thanks
Forrest White wrote a book called "Fender The Inside Story" that's worth reading. Also the Fender factory was in Fullerton CA., not Anaheim. The G&L factory is still in Fullerton, their guitars are built like the Fenders from the 50's.
There is a tendency to treat everything made in the "pre-CBS era" as a golden age of quality. Certainly the DESIGNS were well thought out (except for those "death capacitors") but there are videos on TH-cam from a tour of the Fullerton plant filmed between 1955 and 1958 that illustrates how barebones and haphazard production was. The current nostalgia for original instruments and amps from that era is more likely due to "survivor bias." Those pieces still around and playable today are likely still around because they were the best specimens encountered and were preserved as such. Units from the middle and lower parts of that wide ranging bell curve of quality weren't so precious and didn't survive.
Love love love this ❤
All hail king Leo
Forrest was one of my closest friends in the 1970's-1980's. Forrest was Leo's VP from 1954-1965, and he stayed on with CBS until early 1967. When Forrest started at Fender they were simply a "boutique" shop, struggling to keep things going. After Forrest organized and restructured the plant, introducing inventory control and creating employee incentives, Fender became a real factory. In 1965 Leo sold Fender to CBS, and their corporate "suits" immediately started squeezing margins (as they always do), which substantially affected overall product quality. (this is the nicest way I can put it)
Ever do one on Les Paul. He lived not that far from here, in Califon. He was a pioneer in reverb and multitracking in addition to the guitar. NJ My guitar teacher knew him.
Another great doc on Fender, love it.
Love your informational and entertaining videos
Thank you so much! thank you for being here and supporting music history! 🎶
Another great video! Keep them coming please I am glued to the story.
"toilet seat with strings" 😂 it's hilarious that there were already delulu gibson fanboys at that point
It is hilarious. It's interesting to note that when Gibson made their solid body Kalamazoo brand guitars, they had the bodies made by a company that literally made toilet seats.
I own many MM amps and guitars. I have owned many more. They are great!
That was nicely done and I thoroughly enjoyed it. i look forward to your future - perhaps we'll meet Travis Bigsby and Lester Paulfus... and the brilliant Mary Ford - who was one of the most gifted musicians of her time. Also, we can never get enough of the godmother of rock and roll, Sister Rosetta Tharpe...
Read "The Birth of Loud", you'll enjoy it.
I’m enjoying this background material on the history of Fender. But you got a couple of details wrong. First off, Music Man amps were not solid-state. The preamps in them were, but the power section had tubes. I had one back in the ‘70s, a 410HD-130 that used four 6CA7 tubes. It was a great-sounding amp, and I knocked it around the Midwest and the South for most of the ‘70s.
Also-the band that Forrest White would have heard in Ohio would not have been called “The Cowboy Copas”-their front man was a guy whose last name was Copas-I don’t know his first name-and his stage nickname was “Cowboy”. Cowboy Copas was a well-known country singer in the 1940s and 1950s. I can’t remember what his hits were-he was a little before my time-but he did have a few.
Thank you! I should have clarified the hybrid nature I was so overly focused on the solid state transistors when I was talking! And I didn’t realize Cowboy Copas was one person that’s hilarious. Bob was playing with HIM!! 😂🙌🙌 Thank you for being here! ♥️🎵🎉
Also, the Broadcaster had been renamed Telecaster 3 years before Forrest joined Fender.
At the point Forrest White joined Fender in 1954, the Broadcaster had been renamed 'Telecaster' for 3 years.
Do you plan to do a video on the Stratocaster?
Great video! It would be nice to see video on Laurens Hammond or Jesse Crawford, or both. Here are a few resources I can get you started with. Both men were very interesting geniuses with unique backgrounds, a would join forces as you will see. A great book is *Jesse Crawford: Poet of the Organ; Wizard of the Mighty Wurlitzer* . Also start by watching the 1980's documentary on ytb- *Legendary Theatre Organists* . There is a great Paramount Film reel at the 40min mark in that documentary which is about the all new Hammond Tone Wheel organ. It shows the basic principle of a tone wheel and demonstrates a how it works by singling one out and spinning it with a finger crank. It's simple, but very effective. Note the little bobbins of wire are no different than a guitar pickup and the tone wheel no different than a string essentially. This is how Jon Lord of Deep Purple could rock out his Hammond through a Marshall amp!
Jesse actually hated the Hammond organ when it first came out in 1936. By 1941 Don Leslie, a theater organ fan, he desired that Hammond had a theater organ Tremulent ( vibrato + tremolo) that results from oscillating the air coming into the pipes. A state of the airflow being robbed from the pipes in pulses as set up by the tremulent bellows, it results in both an Amplitude Modulation (AM), as well as Frequency Modulation (FM) [ AM/FM sound familiar?]. Don Leslie reasoned that by rotating the sound to and fro in a circular path you would get the AM volume shifting as well as the Doppler Effect 'pitch shift', FM. So in 1941 the Hammond/Leslie sound was born.
Laurens Hammond invented SPRING REVERB. The first units were large and bulky. See all about these first units in article: *Ken Griffin Special Effects*
BY the end of WWII the need for theater organs had dried up and Jesse Crawford needed to reassess his prospects. Never learning to read music efficiently Jesse went to one man in particular who had worked with other great artists of the day, like George Gershwin. Jesse reassessed his prospects with Hammond when they made him a great offer to front their organs. Jesse became a foremost instructor with Hammond and many great organ instruction books were written by Jesse. Also Jesse continued to record on Theater organ as well as Hammond organ. His musical genius is everywhere in the 1920's until his death in 1963. He was a household name. Jesse was known as "The Poet of the Organ". Back when Jesse first began playing movie houses he overheard a woman swoon in the audience every time he played a simple glissando. Capitalizing on this he spent mornings and early afternoons perfecting the technique before the matinee opened. Jesse was the top theater organist, playing the Chinese Theatre in Hollywood, California, and then playing the New York Paramount theatre (iirc). So Jesse was a great asset to the Hammond organ Company, and Jesse said it made him a wealthy man.
Listen to many of Jesse Crawford's theater organ albums on Pax41 channel. Three albums that represents Jesse's Hammond organ technique the best are on ytb:
Jesse Crawford Hammond Organ Poet of the Organ
Jesse Crawford - Remembering , with Ann Stockton Harp Accompaniment
Jesse Crawford - at the Hammond Chord Organ [ Hammond came out with the great sounding Hammond Chord Organ model S, S4, but then the S6, which was the most abundant made model. It was $789 in 1955. It had a rich full sound when the Hammond 3-Spring Necklace Reverb and AO-35 Reverb amp was added.
Other resources: The Organ Forum ( electronic organ web group), North Suburban Hammond Organ Society , paulj0557 ytb.
The factory was in Fullerton, not Anaheim.
MM amps were hybrid amp. Only the pre-amps were soli state. The power output stage used vacuum tubes.
And the A in Akron is a short a pronounced like as, at, or and, not a long a suck as aim or came like you uaed.
is it true that leo fender never played the guitar?
This is exaggerated He didn’t play professionally.
@@shanewalton8888 i've read that he could not play the guitar
I understand that Leo never learned to play the guitar. He played saxophone in high school, but that was it. I’ve read that he would test guitars and amps in his office by strumming across the open strings at full volume, and Forrest White finally offered to tune the test guitar to an open chord to keep it from sounding quite so obnoxious!
@@jfinester thanks
💯 true! The man couldn’t play a campfire soirée even if he wanted to 🤣
Why do these people doing this type of thing always mispronounce common place names . Are these people not American?