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拍品专文
Like so many creation stories, the one about the invention of the solid-body electric guitar features more than a few protagonists.
The names Adolph Rickenbacker, George Beauchamp, Paul A. Bigsby, Les Paul and the lesser known, Paul Tutmar, were all instrumental in the early development of solid-body electrics. Yet it is Leo Fender's name that is synonymous with the electric guitar. By borrowing from the ideas and innovations of those who preceded him, he achieved what all the others had aimed for, a purely electric guitar that could fulfill the needs of the professional musician. Unlike his predecessors, Fender was not ahead of his time, but uniquely current within the post war era in which he worked. His first electric guitar, the Esquire, introduced in 1950, paralleled the early development of Rock and Roll.
It was always Fender's idea that to successfully produce and market an electric guitar it should be easy to construct and affordable without sacrificing quality. It must be both dependable and easy to service. He wanted to supply a tool for the guitarist that they could rely on. Though he was never predisposed to a solid-body construction, the natural progression of his early prototypes led him in that direction.
Fender decided to design his guitars so that the neck and body could be completed separately in their entirety. It would entail the mounting of all the hardware and electronics as well as having the finish applied to each. This made it possible for multiple productions of two fully completed components to be easily assembled at the end of a production line.
Fender would not incorporate a separate fingerboard made of rosewood or ebony as a traditional maker would. Instead he carved his necks of hard American rock maple, finished the playing surface and inlayed the frets directly into the finished neck. This eliminated the added labor a separate fingerboard would entail. The peghead design, synonymous with all Fender instruments, was a return to an 1820 Viennese design reminiscent of Johann Stauffer and Christian Frederick Martin, not to mention Paul A. Bigsby in 1948. He fitted this neck into a pre-routed neck pocket in the body, using a neck plate and four screws. This was an idea derived from the many Rickenbacker guitars he had seen.
With the help of George Fullerton, he designed a wood body of ash that incorporated a full cutaway on the treble side and added a less extreme cut on the bass side. The resulting shape was uncannily modern for 1949.
The first successful model, the Esquire, laid the template for the Telecaster that would follow. First fit with one simple single-coil pickup, he quickly expanded this to include two pickups. Fender applied his years of experience in electronics to design and produce these pickups. They would prove to produce a balanced, clear and bell like tone that was easily controllable across a full spectrum of tones even when pushed to their decibel limit. It was this sound and power that guitarists and audiences craved and gave the voice to Country, Rock-a-Billy, Rhythm and Blues and ultimately Rock and Roll.
The names Adolph Rickenbacker, George Beauchamp, Paul A. Bigsby, Les Paul and the lesser known, Paul Tutmar, were all instrumental in the early development of solid-body electrics. Yet it is Leo Fender's name that is synonymous with the electric guitar. By borrowing from the ideas and innovations of those who preceded him, he achieved what all the others had aimed for, a purely electric guitar that could fulfill the needs of the professional musician. Unlike his predecessors, Fender was not ahead of his time, but uniquely current within the post war era in which he worked. His first electric guitar, the Esquire, introduced in 1950, paralleled the early development of Rock and Roll.
It was always Fender's idea that to successfully produce and market an electric guitar it should be easy to construct and affordable without sacrificing quality. It must be both dependable and easy to service. He wanted to supply a tool for the guitarist that they could rely on. Though he was never predisposed to a solid-body construction, the natural progression of his early prototypes led him in that direction.
Fender decided to design his guitars so that the neck and body could be completed separately in their entirety. It would entail the mounting of all the hardware and electronics as well as having the finish applied to each. This made it possible for multiple productions of two fully completed components to be easily assembled at the end of a production line.
Fender would not incorporate a separate fingerboard made of rosewood or ebony as a traditional maker would. Instead he carved his necks of hard American rock maple, finished the playing surface and inlayed the frets directly into the finished neck. This eliminated the added labor a separate fingerboard would entail. The peghead design, synonymous with all Fender instruments, was a return to an 1820 Viennese design reminiscent of Johann Stauffer and Christian Frederick Martin, not to mention Paul A. Bigsby in 1948. He fitted this neck into a pre-routed neck pocket in the body, using a neck plate and four screws. This was an idea derived from the many Rickenbacker guitars he had seen.
With the help of George Fullerton, he designed a wood body of ash that incorporated a full cutaway on the treble side and added a less extreme cut on the bass side. The resulting shape was uncannily modern for 1949.
The first successful model, the Esquire, laid the template for the Telecaster that would follow. First fit with one simple single-coil pickup, he quickly expanded this to include two pickups. Fender applied his years of experience in electronics to design and produce these pickups. They would prove to produce a balanced, clear and bell like tone that was easily controllable across a full spectrum of tones even when pushed to their decibel limit. It was this sound and power that guitarists and audiences craved and gave the voice to Country, Rock-a-Billy, Rhythm and Blues and ultimately Rock and Roll.