Fender 2020 Back To The Future

How the world’s biggest guitar company takes some of the guitar world’s most-loved instruments and remakes them anew

70 years has passed since Fender launched its first solid-body electric. A slab of pine with a solitary single-coil pickup appropriated from lap steel, the Esquire showcased an adjustable three-saddle bridge, a bolt-on maple neck, and a very appealing shape... In short order, via two quick evolutionary and appellative leaps, the Esquire became the Telecaster, and the rest is Fender history.

But history has weight. Music, and popular culture as a whole, is governed by a nostalgia that can be gravitational, pulling anyone who thinks outside the box back to earth. It is no different for Fender. How Fender deals with this – the idea that says the best guitars have already been made – is instructive for anyone interested in guitar culture.

Maybe the answer is right there in front of us, the clues to be found in the guitar store and online; it is the guitars, amps, and effects that show us how Fender placates vintage purist and neophyte alike. Such an approach won’t work for all guitar companies. Each brand has its own pressures and expectations – to thine own self be true. But as Justin Norvell, Executive Vice-President, Fender Products, explains, Fender’s evolution is one that can be shepherded along by using its design language and the vast vocabulary of spec at its disposal, paying dues to the past where appropriate. Maybe you’ve got to know where you have come from to know where you are going...

Of all the modern inventions, the electric guitar is unique. Like the television set or telephone, it too has evolved out of sight, incorporating new technologies, different builds, assuming new shapes, and yet many of the electric guitar’s earliest designs are still considered the gold standard.