After CBS broadcast the Beatles' first American TV appearance at the Ed Sullivan Show, on February 9, 1964, all the American kids, suddenly, wanted an electric guitar. The demands increased so much that the musical instrument companies had difficulties in keeping up with the orders and the market was invaded by many foreign brands, especially from the East. At that time Leo was suffering from a persistent streptococcal infection and he started thinking he was no longer able to manage the expanding business. So, at first, he proposed to Don Randall to purchase his share for 1.5 million dollars, but his partner was firmly convinced that it would be more advantageous for both to sell the company to an external buyer. In the mid-1960s, the Fender was the guitars brand with the highest turnover and it was contacted by the Cincinnati based Baldwin Piano Company, which, however, did not intend to buy the acoustic guitars and keyboards Rhodes brand; so the negotiation failed. At a later time, as Leo and Don were planning to convert the Fender into a joint stock company, CBS broke in. On January 5, 1965, after a series of secret talks that began as early as the summer of '64, Leo Fender and Don Randall sold Fender Musical Instruments and Fender Sales to Goddard Lieberson’s powerful CBS (Columbia Broadcasting System) for $13 million – CBS was already the owner of about forty different companies, including the radio-television giant Columbia Records and the New York Yankees baseball team, and it had introduced the 33⅓ rpm record format. Donald Randall was confirmed as vice president, while Leo was offered only a position as an external consultant. Obviously, CBS included a contractual clause temporarily preventing Leo from opening a new musical instrument company. Forrest White remained in office until 6 December 1966 – then, bored by CBS’ ideas that favored profit over quality, he left the company. After the acquisition, new plants were built, for a total of nine buildings, where the entire production was moved, right next to the old factories, which became a simple warehouse for repair, development and storage. Thus began the CBS era of Fender, a dark period during which, due to the shift to mass production, the new management sought above all to optimize and speed up production instead of focusing on the quality of the instruments, gradually transforming the company from a refined guitars producer to a sort of assembly line interested only in profit and capable to produce, solely, instruments that were the shadow of those realized a few years earlier. Later, to Tom Wheeler’s question if he regretted the sale, Leo Fender replied he didn’t because he couldn’t keep up with the requests; rather, he said jokingly that since the Fender had grown so much, there were so many doors to close in the evening that George Fullerton could only take care of this!
Antonio Calvosa
Antonio Calvosa
