LEO FENDER WANTED TO MAKE IT EASY
FOR GUITARISTS TO PLAY BASS —
AND MUSIC WAS NEVER THE SAME
BY JIM ROBERTS
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When Leo Fender invented the instrument he called a Precision Bass, he had
modest goals. As he later told music journalist Tom Wheeler, “We needed to free
the bass player from the big doghouse,
the acoustic bass. That thing was usually
confined to the back of the band, and the
bass player couldn’t get up to the mic to
sing. And … guitar players would have an
advantage if they could have an instrument with frets that would make doubling
on bass easier for them.”
ignored or played for only a short time
before being discarded.
Although there were some predecessors,
including electric upright “stick” basses that
first appeared in the 1920s, Leo Fender
invented the first commercially successful
electric bass guitar. It was introduced in
1951, but its acceptance was by no means
a sure thing. The history of music is littered with new instruments that were either
Leo Fender was not a musician, but he always
listened closely to the musicians who were his
customers and friends. After hearing guitarists complain that they could not double on
stand-up bass—the instrument required very
different technique—he began to ponder a
solution. Leo had already built and marketed
the Broadcaster guitar, later known as the
Telecaster. So he decided that all he had to do
was take the idea of a solidbody electric guitar
and make it bigger.
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This story is excerpted and adapted from How
The Fender Bass Changed The World. Hal
Leonard publications are available at bookstores
nationwide or through: musicdispatch.com
Fender Unleashes the
Precision Bass
The original Precision Bass was somewhat like
a big Telecaster (although the Telecaster Bass,
a throwback to Leo’s 1951 design, didn’t come
along until 1968). It had a square-sided ash
body and a bolt-on maple neck. Figuring out
how long to make the neck was one of the
more challenging problems. There are varying
stories, but however Leo did it, 34” was an
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ram such as Illustrator, be sure to set your PREFERENCES for the units to scale
window pops up - check the box for “SCALE STROKES & EFFECTS”
