Recruiting Musicians to Play Tribute : Concert: A Fullerton guitarist is rounding up artists to honor inventor Leo Fender at a benefit at UC Irvine on Aug. 10. But he still needs a big-name act.

Leo Fender died March 21 and was eulogized nine days later in a small, public memorial service at Temple Baptist Church here.

About 200 people attended. Friends of Fender spoke. Some old-line country musicians got up and twanged in honor of the down-to-earth guitar maker whose Fender Telecaster, Fender Stratocaster and Fender Precision Bass changed the shape and sound of pop music.

Leland Jeffries was among those who spoke at the ceremony. But the 34-year-old rock guitarist from Fullerton, who had worked for Fender during the last two years of the inventor’s life, left the memorial service dissatisfied.

“I felt like he deserved more,” Jeffries said. “To me, he was a great American inventor of the Thomas Edison variety. (Some) players have made millions of dollars with this tool he created for them. I thought there was tremendous potential” that a few of those well-paid rock artists would want to acknowledge their debt to Fender. “The best I could do was to assemble some players to try and pay tribute.”

Hence, the Leo Fender Memorial Jam Benefit, a marathon rock concert at UC Irvine’s Bren Events Center on Aug. 10, the day that would have been the guitar maker’s 82nd birthday.

Jeffries, a novice at concert promotion, says he has spent the past two months trying to recruit some of the top names in rock.

So far, no household names have accepted, although Jeffries is holding out hopes that some will turn up to honor Fender and help the day’s cause: the Newport Beach-based Parkinson’s Educational Program. The national organization, founded in 1979, circulates videos and other information about Parkinson’s disease, in an effort to help patients lead as full a life as possible. Fender, who had Parkinson’s disease and succumbed to its complications, continued to design and build new guitars until the day before he died.

While Jeffries’ efforts to land a really big fish continue--he said that conflicting summer touring and recording schedules have kept some otherwise receptive stars from being able to commit--he has managed to line up a roster of respected guitarists’ guitarists.

Among them are Yngwie Malmsteen, the Swedish heavy metal virtuoso; Steve Lukather, the L.A. session ace who plays in Toto; Dick Dale, the Orange County surf-rock pioneer who served as Fender’s guinea pig during the development of the heavy-duty Fender Showman amplifier; Jeff “Skunk” Baxter, known for his distinctive guitar solos with Steely Dan; Albert Lee, one of the top session players in country music, and Robben Ford, a highly regarded blues band leader.

Jeffries said that others confirmed to appear include Dweezil Zappa, guitarists Gary Myrick and Randy Hansen, bassists Tim Bogert and Jeff Berlin, and Bill Ward, the original Black Sabbath drummer. Guitar Center, a national chain of instrument stores, is providing equipment for the concert, and Guitar World magazine is helping Jeffries with his ongoing artist recruitment efforts.

Plans call for an eight-hour program that will trace the full range of styles influenced by Fender guitars: from country to blues, to surf music, to ‘60s rock and heavy metal. A jam session, mixing and matching players of varied backgrounds, will cap the show.

Malmsteen, reached in Florida, where he is recording a new album, said he quickly accepted the invitation to honor Fender.

“The Fender Stratocaster is to me almost a part of my body,” said the 28-year-old guitarist, who is considered one of metal’s most technically accomplished players. “I’ve played it for 15 years. I have about 80 of them. It’s the most amazing invention. I couldn’t turn an offer like that down--a memorial to Leo Fender, who invented the tool of my craft.”

Said Lukather: “I was honored to be asked. Leo Fender is a staple, a legend. If it wasn’t for him, people like Hendrix, Beck and Clapton wouldn’t have been making the sounds. Guys like me ripped off those sounds and made ‘em our own.”

The benefit show, said Lukather, figures to be “a great way to hang (out), a great homage for a great man who took some little pieces of wood and turned them into something we now take for granted.”

Jeffries may have no concert promotion background, but he is used to approaching famous rockers without prior introduction and asking them to contribute their services to a musical project. In a unique move for an obscure, unsigned band making a self-financed album, Jeffries and his hard-rock group, Force of Souls, recruited such well-known players as Bill Ward, Ginger Baker and David Lindley to play on their recent debut CD, “To Live and Die in Orange County.”

Jeffries said he has mixed feelings about putting his own band on the Fender Memorial Jam bill, because he doesn’t want to be perceived as using the event for self-promotion. But he said some of the better-known players have told him they see no problem with it.

“It may be the only chance any of us (in Force of Souls) get to play in an arena that size. I think we’ll go on for three or four songs.”

Jeffries met Leo Fender two years ago when he got a job in quality control at G&L; Musical Products (Fender started the company in 1980 after coming out of retirement; he had sold the original Fender Musical Instruments Corp. to CBS in 1965).

“When I met Leo, he was really a nice guy, a really warm, hard-hand-clasp kind of a guy,” said Jeffries, who has lived in Fullerton nearly all his life. “People like that always impress me, because you get a lot of those dead-fish handshakes in Orange County. Leo’s parents were orange farmers. He’s one of the best reflections of the Orange County dream that I can think of.”

The Fender Memorial Jam will be the first benefit ever staged for the Parkinson’s Educational Program (PEP), according to Charlotte Jaynes, the organization’s executive director (Jeffries said he wasn’t aware of the nonprofit group until he searched the phone book for a possible Parkinson’s-related beneficiary).

“Other individuals have been interested in raising funds for us, but we’ve always declined,” Jaynes said. “We don’t believe in expensive, black-tie, sit-down dinners (where the attitude is), ‘Let’s do something for these poor people.’ The socialite approach isn’t what we’re about.”

PEP’s aim is to help people live as full a life as possible as they cope with a neurological disease that can cause muscle tremors and speech difficulties.

“It’s about everyday living, and being what you are, and Leo Fender represented that,” said Jaynes, whose organization had no contact with Fender during his lifetime.

Unlike benefits that focus on the debilitating nature of a disease, she said, the Fender Memorial Jam “fits in with what we believe in: You go on with life, you deal with the issues, and you celebrate the person. We liked this because it was honoring a person for what he had done, and it was in the form of a party, a jubilant affair.”

Jubilation won’t really be in order until the benefit proves itself a fund-raising success. Jeffries said the event would achieve that with a turnout of 2,500 people, but he is hoping to sell out the 5,500-seat Bren Center.

Malmsteen, who headlined at Irvine Meadows in 1988, should have a draw among young metal fans, Jeffries said. However, Malmsteen has no current album out to generate a buzz. The other confirmed name players on the bill all have their various fan constituencies, Jeffries noted. But independently, acts like Dick Dale, Steve Lukather, Randy Hansen, Dweezil Zappa and Robben Ford only have been club headliners in Orange County over the past few years.

“It’s a good question,” Jeffries said, when asked whether he expects a big draw if he can’t land a sure-fire attraction like Eric Clapton, Van Halen, Jeff Beck or Bruce Springsteen, some of the many star names he says he has invited to play.

“I assume there will be a lot of (guitar-loving) kids who really want to check it out, not just because of Leo, but because of the players involved. But I think because of the sentiment, the fact that it’s for Leo Fender, we’re going to see a lot of music industry involvement.

“The real draw of it is the fact that it’s the Leo Fender Memorial Jam. Hopefully, there’s 5,000 people out there who feel the same way I do, and wouldn’t miss it. It’s their opportunity to pay their respects.”

The Leo Fender Memorial Jam Benefit for the Parkinson’s Educational Program takes place Aug. 10 at 3 p.m. at the Bren Events Center, off Bridge Road on the UC Irvine Campus. Tickets, priced at $50, $35, and $25, are available through the Bren Center box office, (714) 856-5000, or through Ticketmaster, (714) 740-2000. There is a $5 discount for veterans and current military personnel if they buy at the box office.