Donald D. Randall 1917-2008
Don Randall passed away on December 23, 2008 at the age of 91. He will be missed by his family and friends, but his achievements will live on. Up until a few months ago he was still going to his office every day and over the last 2 years or so we spoke on a regular basis. The last time I called him he gave us permission to use the Robert Perine painting for the cover of the book.
Randall was a sales and marketing genius. He changed the way in which consumers perceived the guitar forever in the 1950s and 1960s. His ingenious business plans coupled with Leo Fender's designs made Fender the most innovative and one of the most successful musical instrument companies during his tenure.
One of the most common misconceptions that people have is that Don worked for Leo Fender. They were in fact business partners. Leo owned 100% of the manufacturing operation (Fender Electric Instrument Company) and they each owned 50% of Fender Sales Inc (they even invested in property together). Don told me that Leo never made anything he didn't ask him to. Randall was closest to the market he knew what would sell and was seldom wrong. He also chose the names for all the instruments as well as the colors they would be manufactured in (it is worth noting here that George Fullerton is a bit of a historical revisionist, taking much undo credit such as conceiving custom colors). Randall also orchestrated the $13M deal with CBS which netted the most ever paid for an instrument company at the time and was more than CBS paid for the New York Yankees a few months earlier.
To quote Tom Wheeler, "It's highly unlikely that Fender could have achieved anywhere near as worldwide success without Don Randall, despite those wonderful products and despite the genius of Leo Fender."
Don Randall was personal hero of mine and I will miss him.
All that glitters is...
There are still great vintage Fenders to be discovered. My latest acquisition, which will of course be featured in the book, is an all original early 1964 Musicmaster in gold and red sparkle.
Fender sparkle guitars are exceptionally rare (see photos of a 1965 Blue Sparkle Jazzmaster in an earlier blog post) and each one is slightly different than the others as many were made as one offs for trade shows and artists.
The application of sparkle finishes deviates from the application of other factory finishes (i.e. sunbursts and custom colors). Many stories abound about why they are different, such as sparkle finishes were shot down the street at a car repair shop because the paint gun nozzles at the Fender factory were too small to apply the small aluminum metal flecks that give these finishes their sparkle. Regardless of the production techniques used to apply these finishes they are counted as the only true Fender "custom" colors.
New Blad Cover
Our publisher is printing some new Blads. They were not as happy as we were with the cover (in fairness to them you have to be a proper Fender anorak to love that cover like we do), so have asked for another design. I received permission from Don Randall personally to use the Robert Perine painting as the cover for the old one. At the time the painting was still hanging on the wall beside him in his office.
Paul dug into our photo library and came up with this great shot he took of my mint 1957 Musicmaster in its original red lined case.
Blad
Here's preview of the Blad (acronym for Book Layout and Design) produced by Cassell Illustrated to begin their marketing of the book. It is essentially an 8 page version of the finished product - the book will be published August 2009 and distributed worldwide.
The History of Fender's Forgotten Few
An article I wrote with a friend, Tim Pershing, appeared in
the July 2006 issue of Vintage Guitar magazine. The focus of the article was
the birth and evolution of the Musicmaster and Duo-Sonic throughout Fender's
golden era.
The article was well researched. Tim and I both own numerous of examples of these
guitars. Mr. Pershing is a well known expert on the subject of Fender student guitars
and a pretty good photographer too. He wrote all the technical specs and tracked the evolving cosmetic variations of the guitars from 1956 through 1964. I added historical context. Much was written
from primary source material (the actual guitars, contemporary documents and an
interview with Don Randall I conducted a few months ago). I also scanned some
of the primary source material and Tim took some great photos of his collection
for inclusion in the article. Unfortunately, the editorial staff at VG changed
much of the intro to the article and used their own photos (including a
re-finished Musicmaster and a Duo-Sonic with changed tuners). Changes are
to be expected before final publication, but they ruined the article in the process. I am sure the continued
dissemination of incorrect information about the history of Fender was not VG’s
intent when they made the changes. However, it was the end result nonetheless. We were both rather disappointed.
Here are a couple of bits of eye candy and valua
ble information that never mad
e the article:
Sparkles & Bows
We photographed some rather rare pieces over the past weekend. The first was an all original green sparkle Jaguar with matching headstock from the Paul's collection.
The second was the violin prototype. It came with a letter from Forrest White stating that he had to assemble it himself in his hotel room at the WSM Convention in Nashville in October 1958. It was shot with a pristine late 60s example from my collection.
Photos of this shoot will follow shortly. In the meantime, be sure to click on the "More Behind the Scenes Photos" for additional pics of our photo shoots.
Just Like Buddy Holly
A Saturday afternoon in August found us back at work at the Heavenly Records (www.heavenly100.com) head office. We only shot three guitars that day. The first was an Ocean Turquoise Bass V built for specially for the NAMM show (you'll have to wait for the book to see that one). The second was a late 1965 Jazzmaster in original blue sparkle with matching headstock (you'll also have to wait for the book to see it's little brother the blue sparkle Mustang from the same year). The final guitar was a 1952 Telecaster. Although not particularly rare in and of itself, this guitar used to belong to Norman Petty and was used extensively in his studio in Texas in the 1950s. It would have been there in 1957 and 1958 (you can draw your own conclusions here).
Volume pedals, Footswitches and Stellas
A few weeks later find us working late on a Tuesday night in the kitchen of my flat in north London. Our creativity fueled again by the now ubiquitous cans of Stella (perhaps a sponsorship deal is in order). We dipped into my collection of peripheral Fender items.
Paul brackets a shot of a brace of Volume pedals in their original boxes. Check out the original 1962 Fender dealer binder in the background.
Who needs expensive studio time when a messy flat will do? If I'd known I was going to publish these photos I would have hung my laundry in the bedroom.
Early 1960's footswitches
1950's Champs
Late 1950s Musicmaster/Duo-Sonic straps.
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