Customer Reviews

The Fender Book: A Complete History of Fender Electric Guitars, 2nd Edition

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Even though I've only owned a couple of Fender guitars, I couldn't resist this book when I saw it at my local bookstore (I own the orginal 96 page edition). Although it may not have the most minute detail (even though I was able to find within in its pages the answers to some questions posed by a somewhat more critical customer reviewer), there is a great deal to recommend this book.

The first thing you will notice is the remarkable photography. It is absolutely top-notch, and is in keeping with other books of this "series", such as "The Ultimate Guitar Book". The detail is remarkable. Some of the photographed instruments may be fairly common, but there are also plenty of historically significant and/or rare intstruments included as well. Even commercially unsuccessful instruments are here in all their dubious glory (when was the last time anyone's seen a Montego II or Swinger?). The photographs are arranged well, and are mixed with a great selection of past advertisements and company photos. The text is well written and easy to follow. If anything, it gives a Fender a little TOO much credit for some offbeat ideas (some found the colorful Wildwood finish more ugly than "striking"). While the text may not always provide the obsessive detail that some may desire, there IS a fine reference section that includes a great deal of model-by-model information on such things as pickguard changes and neck-bolt configuration.

A look at the bibliography does two things. It shows that the author did his homework and sought out as many experts as possible and a fantastic array of intruments to photograph. It also gives the reader a list of printed resources for additional research.

I'm not sure if ANY book will please everybody. If, however, you're any kind of a fan of Fender guitars (or even just a fan of electric guitars in general), this book should please you (and as they say on TV, it makes a perfect gift!).

Richly illustrated pages strewn between the tale of Leo Fender's company. At least it was his company in the beginning until it was purchased by Columbia Broadcasting System in 1965. Then in 1985, CBS offered the management of Fender to buy out the company for an amount that was just over liquidation. If that had not happened, there would have been a much shorter version of this book because Fender would have been disolved.

Fender went on to recapture its earlier successes by reissuing copies of its classic statocasters and the rest is history as they say. It was amusing to read about how Fender had to go searching for vintage Fender guitars around the country so they could purchase them and take them back to the factory to copy them. They had to buy their own manufactured guitars at steep vintage market prices so they could mass produce the copies.

The whole story is facinating and makes for interesting reading about a remarkable company that stayed in business dispite some of the mistakes of its owners and operators over the years.

This is a must read for any Fender owner or would be purchaser.

" This book has tons of cool photos, a great history of the company, and if you need to date an old Fender it gives you quite a bit of info for that. The dating info is not just serial numbers ether. For example: it might say that in 1978 the Jazzmaster had a black pickguard, and if you have that one you know it's year."

This is a great book for developing your foundation of Fender guitars, but it fails to review some key details. I realize that the lack of accurate records from Fender is a part of the problem. I have a '67-'69 Fender Telecaster, and I was hoping to narrow the date range to two years. That didn't happen. Also, I was hoping to the book doesn't cover in detail the various font styles used to spell "Fender" on the headstocks. Lastly, I have tortoise shell pick-guard, and the book failed to even mention that this was an option in the late 60's. After reading the book, I'm still confused about when they actually switched to three bolt necks. In this case pictures don't say a thousand words. You're paying for 96 pages of general information. 50% of the book is pictures, which is cool, but it lacks the explanation of those pictures! GIVE ME DETAILS!

Its a small book, size-wise. But it has several fold out pages that offer a decent look at certain instruments. The content is, as many others have said, fairly basic and non-technical. Its a nice book to look at, but suffers from something thats also a clue to its content focus: the cutesy section headings used throughout the book. And so each section in this book is headed by a bold lettered slogan that is 'whimsical' to be generous, or just plain dumb. Its like the People magazine of Fender histories or something ..and so it goes with the content in general.

Another issue is that after the first buzz its easy to look back and say, 'why the frick did I need to buy that book!?' And the answer is that its somewhat entertaining. Somewhat.

If you are interested in Fender guitars do yourself a favor and buy the book 'The Sound Heard Round the World' ..it will make you ashamed you ever thought a Tony Bacon book on Fender was worth owning.

Much of the material is basic and some facts should be well known to serious enthusiasts of Fender guitars. Still, this is a basic reference on the Fender empire. This revised edition has some great added photos. This book would be especially appropriate for the young serious student of the guitar or to accompany the purchase of a Strat or Tele, by a parent. I have purchased a second copy of this as a gift. You might also want to review The Stratocaster

The pictures are great and the information is accurate; the format, with two pages of text alternating with two pages of pictures is helpful when searching in chronological order. Another fine Bacon and Day book.