Fender Musical Instruments Corporation

The Fender Musical Instruments Corporation, of Scottsdale, Arizona, USA, is famous for making stringed instruments, such as solid-body electric guitars, including the Stratocaster and Telecaster. Leo Fender also designed one of the most, if not the first, commercially successful solid-body electric bass, which is now standard in rock, jazz, country, funk, and all other types of popular music.

The company makes instruments such as acoustic guitars, electric basses, mandolins, banjos, and violins, as well as guitar amplifiers, bass amplifiers, and

PA (public address) equipment.

Other Fender brands include Guild (acoustic and electric guitars), Rodriguez (classical guitars), Benedetto (jazz guitars), SWR (bass amplification) and Squier (entry level/budget). The company is a privately held corporation, with the controlling majority of its stock owned by a group of its own company officers and managers. Its Chairman of the Board of Directors and Chief Executive Officer is William (Bill) Mendello, its President and Chief Operating Officer is Matthew Janopaul, and its Chief Financial Officer is Richard Kerley

The company, initially named the Fender Electric Instrument Manufacturing Company, was founded in Fullerton, California, by Clarence Leonidas Fender in 1946. Fender is particularly important because of its role in bringing solid body electric guitars to the masses with its low-cost, manufacturing-oriented bolt-together designs. Fender offered the first mass-produced solid-body Spanish-style electric guitar, the Telecaster (originally named the 'Broadcaster', 'Esquire' is a single pickup version); the first mass-produced electric bass, the Precision Bass (P-Bass); and the enormously popular Stratocaster (Strat) guitar. While Fender was not the first to manufacture electric guitars, as other companies and luthiers had produced electric guitars since the late 1920s, none were as commercially successful as Fender's. Furthermore, while nearly all other electric guitars then were either hollow-body guitars or more specialized instruments such as Rickenbacker's solid-body Hawaiian guitars, Fender had created versatile solid body electric guitars. These guitars were and still are popular for musicians in a variety of genres.

Other popular and/or notable Fender instruments include the Mustang, Jazzmaster, Jaguar, Starcaster, Duosonic, and Bronco guitars; basses such as the Jazz Bass, the 'Telecaster Bass' reissue of the original 1950s Precision Bass; a line of lap steels; three models of electric violin, and the Fender Rhodes electric piano.

Its headquarters are in Scottsdale, Arizona, with manufacturing facilities in Corona (United States of America), Ensenada (Mexico), Korea and Japan.

info : wikipedia