Music Manufacturing
Robert Beals was just a young man when he first met Chick Evans. The two worked to perfect and promote Mr. Evan’s idea of a synthetic drumhead in the 1950s. Up until that time, drumheads were made from cow skin, which presented several problems. With the skin drumheads, any change in temperature...
Don Randall met Leo Fender before World War II when both men worked in radio repairs. After the war they decided to form a business together that would allow Leo to focus on developing a line of guitars. Don’s history of radio amplifiers and his business education made for a perfect match. The...
Robert Perine was raised in Los Angeles in a very artsy family. At the age of six, his father drew his portrait and asked young Bob to do the same. “It was like magic and from that time on I knew I wanted to be an artist.” After enlisting in the US Navy during World War II, Bob studied at the...
Van Schipper is a guitar luthier who has enjoyed embracing the roots of his craft. As a student of guitar building, he sought the advice of others with a mind to paying tribute to his great influences such as Leo Fender and Paul A. Bigsby. In his handcrafted artistry, Van has used designs and inlay...
Gary Kahler had an idea to add improvements to the electric guitar when he started playing in the 1960s. Over the years he developed a tremolo system that provided different sounds and adjustments to the instrument. He formed the Kahler Company and began manufacturing the tremolo bridge system that...
William Gerien is the industrial and mechanical engineer who invented the Kahler Tremolo Bridge System for the electric guitar. Gary Kahler hired William to follow his design on a new system to add a tremolo or whammy bar to the guitar’s bridge. William machined the very first prototype and created...
George Fullerton befriended Leo Fender back in the days before Leo quit the radio repair business and started in the guitar making business. George worked for the Fender Guitar Company from the beginning and up to the day it was sold to CBS Musical Instruments. After the sale of the company, Leo...
John Page is the founder of a guitar company in Sunny Valley, Oregon, which produces hand made instruments. John Page Guitars, formed in 2006 by John and his wife Dana, is just one of the many fascinating capers in his long and successful career as a luthier. His association with Fender Musical...
Paul Reed Smith began playing guitar as a teenager. He soon designed his own style of guitar, which he built. At first he did not think about selling the instruments he was designing, but he did hope that one day he could give one of his guitars to Carlos Santana. Mr. Santana not only loved the...
Phyllis Fender was married to Leo Fender, the great pioneer of the solid body electric guitar. After reading several publications on his life’s work, it was a refreshing treat to hear about the man behind the workbench when Mrs. Fender sat down for her NAMM Oral History interview in 2003. She...