Leo Fender

Clarence Leonidas Fender (August 10, 1909 – March 21, 1991) was an American inventor and founder of the Fender Musical Instruments Corporation.

Fender designed the company's iconic early instruments: the Fender Telecaster, the first mass-produced solid-body electric guitar; the Fender Stratocaster, among the most iconic electric guitars; and the Fender Precision Bass, which set the standard for electric basses. He also designed the Fender Bassman amplifier, which became the archetype for later amplifiers (notably by Marshall and Mesa Boogie) that dominated rock and roll music.

Fender, who was not a guitarist himself, was inducted posthumously into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1992.

Clarence Leonidas Fender was born on August 10, 1909, to Clarence Monte Fender and Harriet Elvira Wood, owners of a successful orange grove located between Anaheim and Fullerton, California. At the age of eight, Fender developed a tumor in his left eye, resulting in the eye being removed and being replaced with a glass eye, making him ineligible for the draft in World War II later in life.

As a youth, Fender played piano and saxophone before his interests shifted toward electronics. When he was 14, Fender visited his uncle's automotive-electric shop in Santa Maria, and was fascinated by a radio his uncle had built from spare parts. Soon thereafter, Fender began repairing radios in a small shop in his parents' home.

Biography summary from English Wikipedia, photograph via Wikimedia Commons.