Fender Guitars

The original Fender Company, Fender Electric Instrument Manufacturing Company, was founded in 1946, in the town of Fullerton, in the State of California. One cannot imagine that Leo Fender, the original founder of Fender Guitars, ever envisioned that his company would have such an effect upon contemporary music, being responsible, alongside Gibson, for shaping the sound of modern music as we know it.

The success of Fender Guiatrs can be laid squarely at the feet of a handful of guitar designs, which proved to be entirely playable, making the classic guitars we value so highly today. One of the first guitars to be designed by Fender was the Broadcaster. Many people will not recognise this name, although when we discover that it was later renamed the Telecaster, things become more obvious.

However, the Telecaster was not as popular upon its release as it is in present times. Leo Fender was forced to go back to the drawing board to create a guitar that not only sounded great, but also had stylish looks, and would be far less blocky than the Telecaster.

In 1954, Fender Guitars unveiled their new electric guitar design, which was named the Stratocaster  . A model, which despite certain design changes, still remains one of the most successful guitars today. Indeed, when we consider sales of original guitars (not 3rd party copies), the Fender Stratocaster (or Strat as it is often called), remains the top selling guitar of all time.

In 1983, following the takeover of the Fender Corporation by CBS, the Stratocaster was re-designed to a much tighter budget. What followed were several years of inferior instruments being produced. The existing pre-CBS models are now almost exclusively considered vintage guitars, even though the Stratocaster design was reverted when sales were seen to begin dropping.

 The Fender Company has also produced several other very successful Fender Guitars, although none of them match the Stratocaster or even the Telecaster in popularity.

The Fender Mustang was Leo Fender’s attempt at producing a budget priced guitar, aimed at students of music. It was released in 1964, and although it had a fairly modest price tag, it failed to become overly popular. Production was ceased in 1982. However, in the early 1960s, it was a common instrument played by Surf bands, and when Surf music became a partial inspiration to several well know alternative bands in the late 1980s, the Mustang once began to become desirable. So much so, that in 1990, Fender reissued the model.

Another model that did not really achieve much success until the early 1990s is the Fender Jaguar. This was the child of the original Fender Jazzmaster design, and upon its inception, it was targeted firmly at the Jazz scene. In the 1980s, many musicians were seeking quality guitars, at a good price, and begun exploring alternative models manufactured by mainstream companies such as Fender Guitars. The Jaguar was extremely popular with rock musicians due to its distinctive shape, and became a serious rival to the Gibson Flying V.

Fender has been the backbone of the electric guitar scene for over four decades, and continues to maintain a reputation for producing exceptional instruments.

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