I was born in Los Angeles but my family moved to nearby suburban Orange County when I was three. I went with them. I didn’t know any better and what the heck, they were very nice people who had my best interests in mind.

Our home was right next to a large orange grove and just down the road from one of the many Sunkist packing plants that populated the county. These plants backed up to the rail heads. Even the trains smelled like oranges.

There was something else however that was being exported out of Orange County back in those days whose cultural significance can’t be overstated.

Today the O.C. sometimes is looked down upon by Angelenos as a cultural wasteland and an enclave of white, ultra conservative suburbanites driving a bunch of towheads in Chevy Suburban’s to soccer practice. 

There are of course many things to recommend about Orange County not the least of which are great beaches, a mild climate and a major league baseball team. You can find all these things in L.A. as well. There is one thing however that for me trumps everything. It is something that makes this desperate lad of the O.C. beam with “civic” pride.

Orange County is the home and birthplace of Clarence Leodonis Fender. Leo Fender is one of the great innovators and most important figures in American music. Out of the orange groves of Anaheim and Fullerton came a man who had a background in accounting and was a world class tinkerer who was fascinated with sound. 

2011 marks the sixtieth anniversary of the Fender Precision Bass. Its impact on the world of
 music is enormous. With all the discussions of Telecasters and, Stratocasters, the Henry Ford of the Solid Body electric guitar’s most influential design and product may be the P-Bass. Sometimes it is generically referred to, simply as the the Fender Bass.

It is the most popular electric bass of all time. Players from virtually all styles of popular music gravitated to Leo Fender’s new product immediately.

It was introduced at a time when small combos in all types of music were replacing big bands and larger ensembles. Les Paul and Leo Fender’s innovations as they relate to the electric guitar, made that instrument more versatile. The guitar could now be used to phrase notes much the way horn sections had done in the past. The sonic clarity of the solid body electric guitars could also be used to take solos the way horn players had done in larger combos. The bass was pushed further to the back of the mix.

Just the issues associated with the size of the double upright acoustic bass created a host of logistical and transportation problems for the working musician  Read about Willie Dixon, in his biography, trying to hail a Checker Cab on a cold Chicago night while standing next to an upright acoustic double bass on a curb. Just getting to a gig was made easier by Leo Fender and his P-Bass.

The Fender Bass is also more mobile on stage. A bass player was no longer relegated to the back of the band stand. He could now wander the stage and even stand shoulder to shoulder with the guitar players and get a better look at the pretty girls on the dance floor.

The Fender Precision Bass could be seen in surf bands across Southern California in the sixties. It is hard to imagine Dick Dale, the Safaris or the Chantays without a Fender Bass standing on the front line next to the Strats. Bob Bogle of the Ventures, the greatest surf band of all time, used a Fender Bass as well.

I grew up in a family with not just one but two bass players. Both my younger brothers'
biggest influence may have come from one of the most recorded bass players in popular music, James Jamerson of Motown’s house band, the Funk Brothers. Those records could be heard in our home for about as long as I can remember. The Funk Machine heard up in the mix on virtually all of those great Motown recordings is a Fender P-Bass.  

In the blues world it is not uncommon to see a Fender bass leaning up against an amp while the bassist is playing an upright. On a blues gig, the Fender is often swapped out with its acoustic counterpart during sets.

For many years the P-bass along with the other instruments and amplifiers in the Fender product line were made not far from my childhood home.  When I hear Albert Collins’ hammering opening riff to Don’t Lose Your Cool, I can practically point to the spot where his Telecaster was manufactured. When I hear Albert King’s Born Under a Bad Sign and hear
Donald “Duck” Dunn’s iconic bass line, I sometimes think of the wood, lacquer paint, coils and strings that were used to manufacture his P-Bass just a few orange groves away from where I played little league. 

They don’t grow Oranges in Orange County anymore and Fender doesn’t have a plant here either. They are in fact long gone. There are still a few groves in rural parts of nearby Riverside County . That’s also where you will find Fender’s Corona, CA, plant and custom shop. Many of the instruments are now manufactured 200 miles or so to the south in Ensenada, Mexico.

Leo Fender's great legacy and history is something that the O.C. will always have. It can’t be bulldozed to make room for track housing, gated communities and shopping malls. It can’t be sold. The solid body guitar and bass is an indelible legacy that is tied to Orange County as well as the history of music Americana.   

- David Mac