Description
A riveting saga in the history of rock n roll: the decades-long rivalry between the two men who innovated the electric guitars amplified soundLeo Fender and Les Pauland their intense competition to convince rock stars like the Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, and Eric Clapton to play the instruments they built.
In the years after World War II, music was evolving from big-band jazz into the primordial elements of rock n rolland these louder styles demanded revolutionary instruments. When Leo Fenders tiny firm marketed the first solid-body electric guitar, the Esquire, musicians immediately saw its appeal. Not to be out-maneuvered, Gibson, the largest guitar manufacturer, raced to build a competitive product. The company designed an axe that would make Fenders Esquire look cheap and convinced Les Paulwhose endorsement Leo Fender had soughtto put his name on it. Thus was born the guitar worlds most heated rivalry: Gibson versus Fender, Les versus Leo.
While Fender was a quiet, half-blind, self-taught radio repairman from rural Orange County, Paul was a brilliant but egomaniacal pop star and guitarist who spent years toying with new musical technologies. Their contest turned into an arms race as the most inventive musicians of the 1950s and 1960sincluding bluesman Muddy Waters, rocker Buddy Holly, the Beatles, Bob Dylan, and Eric Claptonadopted one makers guitar or another. By the time Jimi Hendrix played The Star-Spangled Banner at Woodstock in 1969 on his Fender Stratocaster, it was clear that electric instrumentsFender or Gibsonhad launched music into a radical new age, empowering artists with a vibrancy and volume never before attainable.
Length: 352 pages
ISBN13: 9781501141652
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