HIS GUITARS PLAYED KEY ROLE IN ROCK

Fender guitars played an indispensable role in the birth of rock ‘n’ roll, even before Elvis Presley began shaking his hips in the mid-1950s. With its hard-edged sound--due to the then-radical solid body design--Fender’s renowned Telecaster model essentially defined the modern rock ‘n’ roll guitar sound.

At 75, Leo Fender is still active designing guitars at G&L; Musical Products, the company he founded in 1980 with partner George Fullerton. He continues to work daily in his Fullerton office complex, only a short distance away from where he began experimenting with electric guitars more than 40 years ago.

From Buddy Holly and the Beach Boys to Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton to Bruce Springsteen and Prince, most of the biggest names in rock have played Fender instruments. In country music, Fenders have been the guitar of choice for artists such as Waylon Jennings and Hank Williams Jr., and were also integral to the development of the West Coast or Bakersfield sound created in the 1950s and ‘60s by country artists such as Merle Haggard and Buck Owens. The Fender Precision Bass had an equally revolutionary impact on the rhythm sections of rock, jazz and country bands after its introduction 35 years ago.

It is not uncommon to hear musicians compare their favorite Fender Telecaster or Stratocaster guitars to Stradivarius violins.

“As far as I’m concerned, Fender made the best guitar in the world,” said James Burton, who has played Fender guitars for nearly 30 years. One of rock’s most influential instrumentalists, Burton was lead guitarist in the band that launched Ricky Nelson to national fame in the late 1950s. He has also played with Elvis Presley and other top rock and country artists over the past three decades and currently is part of Jerry Lee Lewis’ touring band.

Said Dick Dale, the Orange County guitarist whose heavily reverbed sound helped create the genre of “surf rock” in the late ‘50s, “There is not a guitar to this day that will equal the old Stratocasters.”

When Leo Fender sold his company to CBS Inc. in 1965 for $13 million, the company was at its peak. At that time, Fender said his company was making guitars at the rate of one every 60 to 75 seconds from a factory that encompassed 27 buildings in Fullerton and Anaheim. (In March, CBS sold its Fender Musical Instruments subsidiary to a private group headed by Fender President William Schultz.)

Said Dave Alvin, lead guitarist for the Downey-based Blasters, one of the most critically acclaimed rock bands of recent years, “To me, rock ‘n’ roll and Fender are interchangeable. Every type of music I love--blues, country, rock ‘n’ roll--uses Fenders.”