I have always been bad with birthdays. Well, birthdays, numbers, names, locations… honestly, unless you want to know about guitar specs, 1980’s cartoons, Star Trek, and obsolete breakfast cereals, please don’t ask me questions. I will not know that answer, I’m telling you.
It’s not that I don’t know when they are generally, but also being a bad test-taker, the emotional stress of having to recall dates of supreme importance like birthdays––even my own!––forces me to make loud thinking noises until someone else answers for me. I remember not too long ago when I needed to pick up a prescription for my wife, and God bless her, she forgot to tell me there would be a pop quiz administered by the pharmacist. I ended up calling her from Rite-Aid to tell her that whatever ailment she had, well she was just going to have to wait it out, and thank the maker she wasn’t a crudely-named character in Oregon Trail.
You can imagine my near-shock when I awoke rather late this morning to discover it was August 10th. (I mean, yesterday was the 9th, so it wasn’t the sequential nature of the date.) Specifically, August 10th is the birthday of Leo Fender, a man that dreamed up the first mass-produced solid body electric guitar. What a guy!
Dear Reader, do you truly understand the weight of that statement? Imagine a world without the Telecaster, imagine the evolution of popular music without the Precision Bass, the Twin amp, and the powerful, wiry sounds of the Stratocaster. This man couldn’t play a lick of guitar, yet he absolutely changed how music is made and played, as well as the world around him in profound ways. He didn’t invent rock ‘n roll, but his work certainly helped.
In honor of Leo’s 106th birthday, there are a lot of articles being published and a lot of celebratory forum threads you can check out with more info on the man and his career, so I’ll keep this one brief. Personally, there are a bunch of things I would love to thank him for, including blackface amps (the Twin Reverb and Bassman in particular) and the Esquire, the Precision Bass, his wild and wonderful offset guitars with their vibratos, and by extension, my career.
I have seen a lot of guitars over the years, but when asked about my work, I always mention that I specialize in offset guitars. They are, without a doubt, my most favorite guitars ever made, and I cherish the ones I own more than any other instruments that have been in my possession. The sound, feel, and near limitless possibilities of these guitars gives me new ideas on a daily basis, causing me to wonder if even Leo himself understood just how cool his guitars are. Never before have I been so enthralled by a guitar as I have been with the Jazzmaster and Jaguar, and because of that, people keep following me on Instagram, reading these blogs, and bringing them to me for setups, repairs, and restorations.
I realize that Mike & Mike’s Guitar Bar exists thanks in no small part to Leo Fender and his instruments. The first time Mike Ball and I met, he was cleaning the fretboard of a red Mustang. When we got together at his practice space, we geeked out about Nels Cline and his black Jazzmaster. Later, I bought my first Jazzmaster from Mike. And when we decided to create our own guitar shop, we specifically targeted Jazzmasters and Jaguars as focal points. When we both ended up with ’61 Jazzmasters, it was serendipitous but not without a sort of cosmic intentionality, as if nothing could have been more right for us.
These guitars are why we have a following, why we’re dealers for Lollar and Novak pickups and Mastery Bridge products, and why we use and install all of them frequently. I mean, hell, we use a silhouette of a Jazzmaster in our damn logo. And woe to those that stumble into the shop to inquire about offset guitars, unprepared for the avalanche of ramblings with which we are likely to answer.
So thank you, Leo. Thank you for your enduring designs. Thank you for continually creating and innovating. Thank you for conjuring these fantastic and inspiring musical instruments from the wellspring of your mind. Thank you for making your amps loud, too; we like that part.
Without Leo Fender, I don’t know that I would be doing any of this. Without Leo, this world and its music would be a lot less interesting.
Thanks, Leo.
Mike & Mike's Guitar Bar 