Will the Real Leo Fender Please Stand Up?

As a seller of pro-level guitars and basses, it is always frustrating to hear that musicians do not have a broader knowledge of instrument brands, especially since many have been created by the same great minds and institutions that turned their forerunners’ models into household words.

G&L Guitars and Heritage Guitars are two cases in point. Every guitar player on the planet knows of Fender guitars and basses. Fender was founded by the late, great Leo Fender in the late 1940s. In 1951, he created the famous Telecaster guitar and Precision bass. Three years later, he introduced the legendary Stratocaster. These three instruments, followed by the ever-popular Jazz bass, triggered a musical supernova that will likely burn forever.

Leo Fender was a living legend in his day, and though he passed in 1991, his legend lives on.

Leo sold Fender in 1995 to CBS, the same company that brought you news anchor Dan Rather. Many musicians think Leo stayed on the job. Very few seem to know instead that Leo quickly moved on to found two more companies that produced fantastic guitars and basses: first Music Man, then G&L.

Leo sold Music Man to Ernie Ball, a company that produces everything from guitar strings to great guitars, before founding G&L in the late 1970s with longtime sidekick George Fullerton. G&L actually stands for George and Leo.

What’s interesting is that G&L continues to this day to produce guitars and basses in the original Fender plant using much of the original Fender tooling. You see, Leo only sold his name and lineup of famous guitars and basses to CBS. He did not sell his factory.

Most players who own G&Ls say they sound and play much better than Fenders. In fact, Leo once said in a print ad that G&Ls were “the best instruments I have ever made.” But of course you would expect him to say that. Yet his was not a hollow boast. G&L still builds guitars and basses virtually one at a time. If I order a “plain Jane” Legacy, G&L’s improved version of the Strat, it most often takes six or more weeks to arrive. They do not make G&Ls by the thousands and store them in warehouses and distribution centers. The company is strictly old school, and visiting its operation is like stepping back in time. Decades of time. And here is an interesting fact: most hand built G&L instruments cost less than the mass-produced Fender models against which they compete.

So why do so many musicians prefer Fenders to G&Ls? I think it is because human nature often directs us to the easy choice. Why do so many football fans like the Dallas Cowboys? Or baseball addicts the Yankees? Or basketball junkies the Los Angeles Lakers? It is because it is relatively safe to go with big names that everybody knows. The herd principle dictates that there is safety in numbers.

Also many guitar and bass owners believe that certain brands’ instruments appreciate in value over time. This is the case with the earliest instruments produced, but it doesn’t happen today. Five or 10 years from now, your guitar or bass is likely to be worth less than what you paid for it. For you Fender and Gibson owners, sorry to pop so many bubbles.

Another great company, Heritage Guitars, follows a path similar to that of G&L. It builds Gibson-style guitars at the original Gibson factory in Kalamazoo, Michigan. In fact, many of its employees once worked for Gibson, and chose not to relocate when Gibson picked up and moved to its new, super-automated plant in Nashville, Tennessee in the mid ’80s.

Like G&L, Heritage instruments are largely hand-built, considered by many to play and sound better than their Gibson counterparts, and also cost less.

G&L and Heritage might be considered “off” brands by many, but they have managed to retain the original substance and flavor that their larger competitors traded in long ago. So you might say that G&L in many ways is more Fender than Fender Musical Instruments Corporation. And the same can be said for Heritage Guitars … often more Gibson than Gibson USA.

It would be foolish to believe that behemoths Fender and Gibson could ever be eclipsed by their upstart genesis rivals. But it is not foolish to suggest that G&L and Heritage have improved upon their predecessors’ accomplishments by staying close to the original roots.

So next time you are surfing online or checking out a music store, look for these two great brands … G&L and Heritage. Handle them, play them and listen. You will discover that the best instruments are often made by great minds or institutions that chose to reinvent themselves by going home again.

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