From setting up for the dance to helping fund a cause he felt so deeply about, to working behind the scenes to make sure everyone had a good time, to the moment he wanted to help a struggling guitarist to get heard, it was never about Leo. In his mind, it was all about helping his country, the dancers, and ultimately the musicians.
Leo in high school
That’s the secret to understanding Leo Fender. He knew that helping others made him happy, and he never strayed from that guiding principle.
THE TELECASTER DAYS
The idea to help the struggling guitarists remained Leo’s obsession for the rest of his life.
The day after the dance, in 1943, Leo Fender went to his radio shop. He got out some drafting paper and started working on designing a ground-up, solid-body electrical guitar with electrical pickups. Nobody had ever done it before, but that did not stop him. He told me that at his radio shop, he got a hunk of wood, cut the middle, out and put some electronics in it. That is where the magic began. He built several “paddle guitars” that quickly evolved into the guitars we see today.
Leo’s high school yearbook
When Leo came out with the electric guitar, he said that people laughed and made fun of him. Scoffing, people called them “boat paddles.” Most people do not like being laughed at. Leo did not like it either, but he did not take it personally. He converted that energy into fuel that propelled him forward. Leo believed in himself and in his invention.
Ironically, when Leo’s electric guitar took off, the critics went from laughing to trying to take credit. Some manufactured a debate over who really invented the electric guitar, so let’s clear that up. At the time that Leo invented the electric guitar, a few people were starting to put pickups on regular acoustic guitars. Leo never claimed to have invented that concept, and some people, including himself, were putting pickups on different things like steel lap guitars. However, Leo got the idea from the war bond dance to put pickups on a solid body piece of wood, and create what today is considered a true electric guitar. When these kinds of discussions came up, Leo would just smile, and calmly say, “I’ve got the patent.”
Leo really had something, but it did not take off immediately. In his rented shop on Harbor Boulevard, Leo bought some parts from Mr. Ellingson, who owned the shop he rented. Leo built guitar after guitar, but they did not sell overnight. After thirty days Mr. Ellingson came to collect on his invoice, and Leo just said, “You can’t collect on that bill, I haven’t sold the guitar yet.” Mr. Ellingson just smiled and tried to explain things to Leo, who as an accountant knew better. However, Leo soon did sell the guitar, and then another and another. And they just kept on selling. Sales may have started off slow, but they quickly picked up. Leo paid his bills.
Leo’s first shop is listed on the National Historical Register. It is a good thing too because that building was made from beautiful brick, while all the rest of Leo’s buildings were so ugly! Leo just wanted places to get the job done, and he was no interior decorator. The key word for Leo was function! From the time Leo started building his own factories, the rest of his buildings were non-descript, grey, concrete block buildings. But I will say that inside those ugly buildings, beautiful things did happen.
Today, at the rear of his first building there is a ceramic mural of a striking red Stratocaster guitar, created by wonderful school children from Fullerton.
While the war was raging, Leo met Clayton Orr “Doc” Kauffman. Doc had been a designer of lap steel guitars in the 1930s for Rickenbacker. Leo talked Doc into teaming up, and they formed the K&F Manufacturing Corporation. In 1944, Leo and Doc patented a lap steel guitar that used a pickup that Leo had patented. Leo would later buy out Doc’s interests and rename the company after himself.
Guitar Player magazine said,
Clayton Orr “Doc” Kauffman was a key person in Leo’s introduction to manufacturing. “Leo came by one day,” recalled Doc, “and he said, ‘Hey, you’ve been building guitars around here – want to build some together?’ and I said, ‘Well, sure, sounds okay to me.” Kauffman and Fender called their company K&F and built lap steels and small amps. Doc was dubious about a future in guitar building, despite the modest but promising successes of K&F. “See, it hadn’t been that long since the Depression,” he explained. “My dad was a credit boy all his life – owed money on the farm – so I told myself that I’d never go into debt. Leo was different – He’d go into debt on an investment like a house afire! He didn’t care. Besides, he was smart. And he thinks at it all the time; he keeps digging. He’s a pursuer, by day and night. That’s what put the guitar where it is.
I only met Doc a few times, but Leo told me that when Doc had worked for Rickenbacker in Santa Ana, they built Hawaiian and steel lap guitars. Doc had invented a pickup and a tailpiece that Leo called a tremolo. Nobody knows where Leo got this name, but he always insisted that everyone call it that. It was not a vibrato, not a whammy bar, but a tremolo!
In 1946, Leo set up his first plant to produce his guitars a couple of blocks away from the radio repair shop at 122 S. Pomona Avenue. Today, the site has a parking structure, and over two entrances there are wonderful murals of Leo and his inventions. It was created by a local artist, with the help of some of Fullerton’s children.
In 1949, Leo finished a prototype of a thin solid-body electric guitar and commercially released it in 1950 as the Fender Esquire. He renamed it the Broadcaster, but that got Leo into copyright trouble with Gretsch Drums. Leo was not a fighter and not about to waste time with a bunch of lawyers. He just quickly sidestepped and trimmed the name off the decals. Today, those guitars are known as “Nocasters.” Eventually, Leo thought of a new name, the Telecaster. This name was a simple, catchy blend between the new, upcoming televisions and radio broadcasters. That was Leo—he liked it simple.
The Telecaster immediately caught on. Leo, now more business savvy from his prior legal challenges, quickly took his drawings and registered them with the US Patent Office. This turned out to be yet another brilliant idea, which kept the copycats at bay. Leo just loved the Telecaster and the music it made. With his one good eye, Leo knew style when he saw it. The Telecaster had style.
When Leo invented the Telecaster, he had his own musical taste in mind. Leo was always clear that he specifically liked three kinds of music. There was country music. There was western music. And there was country-western music. For his entire life, he simply loved watching a Telecaster being played by country-western players.
When I think about the Telecaster, I wonder how many other products were invented in the 1940s that are still considered iconic today? Now, that is “staying power!” That Telecaster later created music ranging from Chuck Berry to the Beatles to Jimmy Page’s Led Zeppelin One album, and everything in between. Leo’s years of obsession with the Telecaster resulted in an instrument that today continues to inspire musicians.
THE STRATOCASTER DAYS
Leo continued working on Pomona Avenue for a few years, but his Telecaster guitar was taking off, and it was clear that he needed more space. Leo insisted that the company stay in Fullerton, so he went a few blocks east and found a large tract of level land on Raymond Avenue.
Leo designed the buildings himself—but then again, he designed everything himself! Leo was optimistic about his business, but he was also cautious. He designed the building as multiple, small independent units that could also be operated as one large manufacturing plant. Leo thought that if his new business ever struggled or failed, at least it would be easy to lease out the individual units. That never happened.
One day, the contractors handed Leo a set of keys to 500 S. Raymond Avenue. It was a non-descript, grey concrete building located just south of the railroad line