Ken King

Ken King performed in several Country and Western bands in and around Los Angeles beginning in the 1940s. While playing his guitar as a guest on the Spade Cooley television show in late 1949, two fellow musicians in the band (Jimmy Wyble and Cameron Hill) showed Ken the new solid body Fender guitar. “What is a Fender?” he recalls asking at the time and soon found himself traveling down to Fullerton to meet the man behind the name, Leo Fender. Ken ordered himself a Fender - a model Leo called “The Broadcaster” - and within a year Ken received what he believes was the sixth Broadcaster made by Leo. At the time of his NAMM Oral History interview in 2019, Ken not only still had the guitar but brought it and played it for us!