Music Man (company) - Early Years

Early Years

The Music Man story began in 1971 when Forrest White and Tom Walker talked with Leo Fender about starting a company they would call Tri-Sonic, Inc. White had worked with Leo in the very early days of Fender Electric Instrument Manufacturing Company as the plant manager and stayed on after the company was sold to the CBS Corporation, but had grown unhappy with their management. Tom Walker worked as a sales rep at Fender. Because of a 10-year non-compete clause in the 1965 contract that sold the Fender companies to CBS, Leo Fender was a silent partner.

The name of this partnership was changed to Musitek, Inc. by 1973 and in January 1974 the final name, Music Man, appeared. In 1974, the company started producing its first product, an amplifier designed by Leo Fender and Tom Walker called the "Sixty Five". It was a hybrid of tube and solid state technology. The preamps used the then burgeoning solid state "op-amp" integrated circuits embodying traditional Fender preamp time constants and architecture, while the power amps typically featured a Cathode Driven Tube power amp stage, much as were used in the radio broadcast industry in AM Transmitters. There were a few models with a tube phase splitter in them, but for the most part Music Man amplifiers used the faster responding common Grid, Cathode Coupled drive from a solid state front end that players characterized as "loud as hell". The number of designs rapidly increased. 15 of the 28 pages from 1976 catalogue were dedicated to amplification. In 1975, Fender's legal restriction had expired and after a vote of the board he was named the president of Music Man.

This wasn't Fender's sole enterprise however. He also owned and ran a consulting firm called CLF Research (Clarence Leo Fender) in Fullerton, California. By 1976, it had built a manufacturing facility for musical instruments and was contracted to make Music Man products. In June 1976, production started on guitars and in August basses followed. The 1976 catalogue shows the first offerings; A two pickup guitar called the "StingRay 1" and the StingRay Bass. Both instruments featured bolt on neck designs; the basses featured a distinctive 3+1 tuner arrangement that should help eliminate "dead spots" while the guitars came with a traditional, Fender-style 6-on-a-side tuner array. The StingRay Bass featured a single large hum-bucking pickup (located somewhat toward but not adjacent to the bridge) with a two-band fixed-frequency EQ. A row of string mutes sat on the bridge. Basses were produced in fretted and fret-less versions.

These instruments were designed by Leo Fender and Forrest White. Sterling Ball assisted in the design of the bass. Tom Walker played a large part in the design of the bass preamp. They were the first production guitar and basses to use active electronics which could boost frequencies, whereas traditional electronics could only reduce frequencies. The preamps were coated with epoxy to prevent reverse engineering. The StingRay Bass sold well. While highly innovative electronically, the guitar was not blessed cosmetically and met with little success. Part of the reason for the poor sales of the guitar was that the preamp actually made the sound "too clean" for most Rock and Roll guitarists, who preferred the slightly distorted sound offered by passive electronics.

In December 1978, a two pickup bass was introduced called the Sabre(discontinued in 1991). A redesigned guitar bearing the same name followed. Both sold poorly.

CLF Research and Music Man were treated as separate companies, headed by Leo Fender and Tommy Walker, respectively. Fender made the guitars and basses, while Walker's company made the amplifiers and sold accessories. The instruments were made at CLF, and shipped to Music Man's warehouse, where each instrument was inspected and tested. Problems with fibers in the finish caused Music Man's inspectors to reject a high percentage of the instruments, and return them to CLF for refinishing. Since Music Man didn't pay CLF Research until the instrument finishes were deemed acceptable, a rift developed between CLF and Music Man over payment.

Low sales stressed the staff. The company's internal conflicts caused Leo Fender to form another partnership. Paul Bechtoldt author of "G&L: Leo's Legacy" describes the situation:

Leo had decided to market guitars under another name besides Music Man in 10/79 due to tension between CLF and Music Man. Production of bodies and necks for both Music Man and G&L were concurrent up to and including March 1981. G&L was incorporated May 1980, although some early models with the moniker "G&L" have body dates from March 1980.

Other incidents point to a later date for CLF's exit. Sterling Ball, Music Man's current owner, describes the circumstances and confusion regarding this era on the Ernie Ball website forum:

"Here is the problem...most of these guys are dead so trying to correct the record becomes more and more difficult. Tommy, Leo, Forrest and quite a few more are no longer with us. I can tell you that Leo was very disappointed that his stingray and sabre guitars didn't sell and that was the basis for G&L. G&L (GEORGE AND LEO) was started at CLF behind Music Man's back and coincidence or other CLF made 2,500 Music man bass necks with straight truss rods. Tommy was forced to go to a young upstart Grover Jackson to make the basses. Grover was the one who introduced the trans finishes. I often asked Tommy why he didn't sue over the suspect necks and he replied "My daddy didn't raise me like that".

Still another account varies. In an interview conducted by Gav Townsing, George Fullerton offers this scenario,

"At the end of 1979 we stopped building for Music Man and never made another item for them. We really weren’t friends at that point and not even talking."

It has been said that Music Man attempted to force Leo Fender into selling the CLF factory, and when he refused ~ Music Man began cutting orders trying to drive Leo into financial despair. In November 1979, Leo had enough of Music Man's pressure and the ties were cut.

Tom Walker was also having extreme problems with his relationship with Forrest White. At one point, Tommy is said to have chased Forrest out of the building telling him to never return.

By all accounts it was an acrimonious affair. Sterling Ball makes no mention of the dates these incidents occurred but many place the date of the 'neck incident' in late 1982. So how were the instruments made during the two years between the G&L start up and the final CLF blow out? A contract was given to Grover Jackson to build bass bodies and assemble the instruments with CLF necks and the remaining CLF hardware. When CLF stopped making necks Jackson made those also. Oddly, it was Grover Jackson who would provide the headache that would torment Fender and Gibson in the coming years. His Jackson and Charvel line of guitars seemingly would pop into every guitarist hands in the 1980s.

Given this climate the StingRay guitar was quietly dropped from the line. The Sabre guitar soldiered on until 1984 but it's doubtful there were problems filling orders. A graphite necked StingRay Bass debuted in 1980. Fender had been opposed to the idea. The neck was made by Modulus. It was called the Cutlass and the two pickup variant, the Cutlass II. Neither it, nor the new translucent finishes, were able to turn the financial tide and by 1984 the company was near bankruptcy. Music Man was in good company as both Fender and Gibson reached the nadir of mismanagement in the early 1980s. After looking at a few offers Music Man was sold to Ernie Ball on March 7, 1984. Music Man's remaining physical assets were sold on June 1, 1984. The production of amplifiers, which were manufactured at a separate factory, ceased.