Fender's Don Randall Offers Revisionist Take on Leo, CBS, and the Company's Early Days

Reverb.com ^ | Nov 1, 2018 | Tony Bacon

[To-Whose-Benefit?]

I interviewed Don Randall in 1992, when I was researching my first book about Fender. In the beginning, Don had worked for Fender's distributor, Radio-Tel, but in the early '50s he joined Fender as the head of sales, staying there until a few years after CBS' takeover in 1965.

I met Don at his office in Tustin, California, and spent a couple of enjoyable hours chatting about the old days, necessarily concentrating on his view from the business side of Fender—and, in particular, discussing the controversial CBS purchase.

Sitting in his wood-paneled office, he looked to me a little like an aging astronaut—sleek, tanned, and self-assured. He certainly helped take Fender into the stratosphere.

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[To-Whose-Benefit?]

” My second electric guitar was a ‘75 SG Standard in Alpine white.”

Now There’s Bragging Rights!

I expect it’s turned a dark, deep yellow over the years?

Absolutely gorgeous.

[jmacusa]

Sorry to hear. I just gave listen to the 2/19 show. Sounds pretty on my computer but yeah, there’s a bit of an echo. Check out the ‘69 Dark Stars. Quite a number of them have ‘’Mountains Of The Moon’’ and then lead into ‘’Dark Star’’.2/22/69 at Valeo is a good one.

[wardaddy]

I’m freeping listening to the Nile Song on More soundtrack by the Floyd

Boy is that a departure that whole album and that song in particular

Floyd does hard rock

Earlier today I was listening to the various Great Gig in the Sky versions with the ladies taking a prominent role as vocal instruments......Rachel Fury was so hot......but really the original girl on DSOTM Claire Torry the best voice and did it alone I think......the McBroom sisters ...black also did it very well of course...that last year Pompeii video I think David’s wife Polly Samson did the vocals....anyhow here’s Miss Fury who got started with the Buzzcocks btw...

[Mr. Mojo]

I’m sure the color and patina are real nice right about now, but alas I don’t know for certain because I foolishly sold it a long time ago. Wish I had all the guitars back I ill-advisedly departed with — a 1987 PRS Custom 24, a ‘73 Fender Telecaster Custom, and a ‘57 Gibson Les Paul Junior come to mind. But hey, most guitarists have similar sob stories.

[READINABLUESTATE]

“A waste of perfectly good guitars.”’

Don’t speak ill of the Dead. :)

[Mr. Mojo]

Clare Torry — the original and best Gig. One of the most amazing pieces put to record, imo.

I’m listening to “Echoes” now: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KBca3xf-j3o&frags=pl%2Cwn

The funky-bluesy middle section (starting at 7:00) was inspired by George Harrison’s little-known “Out of the Blue” from his first solo release, All Things Must Pass: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JDV_JKCfQ68&frags=pl%2Cwn

An all-instrumental jam with with Clapton, Jim Gordon, Carl Radle, Bobby Whitlock, Billy Preston....

[VietVet876]

He used a Les Paul and a Telecaster among others. I haven’t seen him since 1975 but by the recent videos on the net, he is still great on whatever six string he picks up and plugs in. There’s one where he plays rockabilly on a 175 and an old Gretsch with Dynasonics, one of my favorite pickups.

[VietVet876]

I really wanted to like the USA Strat my wife bought me for Christmas around Y2K. I finally sold it a couple of years ago after going through three or four sets of Strat pickups, humbuckers, P-90’s, couple of nut changes, etc. I finally admitted that I am not a Strat guy but I admire anyone who plays one proficiently without fiddling with the switch and volume and tone pots every fourth measure. I prefer the shorter scale length of 24.75” but like playing some Tele’s just fine. I play mainly clean and never picked up a Strat that sounded good clean. Boosted, yeah. With a good amp and pedal, anything can sound good.

[wardaddy]

I never knew that but it is a distinguishable feature of echoes

I met Whitlock as a college student when I was at Ole Miss when he played there around 1977

Famous from Derek and Delaney and Bonnie

The girls loved him...he had a bevy of them at his hotel room

This was of course the powder era

[Mr. Mojo]

Whitlock, Gordon, and Radle had great chemistry and laid down some serious grooves. What rhythm section.

Tragic story about Gordon (and his mom).

That extended Harrison modal jam (”Out of the Blue”) was groundbreaking. The album itself was the best solo Beatle effort, imo. George had a lot of great tunes stored up by 1970. Also it was Phil Spector’s “Wall of Sound” production at its finest.

[Pelham]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oILpzM4L3iE

[Pelham]

“Check out the 1959 Fender Factory Tour Vid.”

Fender Avenue still exists in Fullerton... a short street with light industrial buildings. Could be some of the same ones from the vid, I’ll have to look more closely next time I cruise it.

[Calvinist_Dark_Lord]

With those mods alone you shouldn’t need anything more than the vol and tone controls on your guitar.

i normally don't use a lot of toys in between me and the amp. Some times some phasing, but that's about it. The filter (i already have it designed), should take care of my needs. The first stage of the filter (it uses a low noise quad op-amp)i can easily use as a preamp going into the amplifier. It is necessary for the design in order to have completely independent control of gain, cutoff frequency, and bandwidth. It allows me to pretty much shape the response any way i want it. There are some trade offs though.

You're correct about not really needing much in the way of anything else with the Tele as it is. At present, i'm using a Crate CR-112 as a practise/small gig amp. That's where the external filter comes in handy. However, the Crate has a nice little overdrive to it. Generally, i crank the overdrive gain all the way up on the amp, set the level where convenient, and control the amount of drive with the volume control on the Tele. It doesn't really affect volume on the amp unless you take it down really low. What it DOES do is limit the amount of signal to the overdrive preamp, limiting distortion.

You can get some real interesting sounds out of it. i've played everything from improv Jazz to Classical, and that is one versatile guitar. Because of the setup i have, i can even get a "Strat" in phase sound by switching the lead pickup to series, and playing it with the stock neck pickup. Even though it has feedback trouble at high gain, the neck pickup is really impressive. Leo Fender got that one right.

Thanks for the Twin mod suggestions. i'll take a look at the schematic, and see what will happen with it. Please keep in mind though...the black face Twin and original Twin were rated at 100 Watts. The 1978 Silver face is rated at 135 Watts. That may change some modifications.

You're also correct about the twin JBL speakers. i may just pull them out and put them in a hi fi system where they belong.

They only exist because Leo Fender and John B. Lansing were best friends.

[To-Whose-Benefit?]

“The 1978 Silver face is rated at 135 Watts”

That one got the really tall pwr trans in it?

Check the plate voltage on your 6L6s. The earlier ones ran appx 480VDC. Your’s might be running up around 530VDC or so.

2 ways around that. Last I looked New Sensor had great replacements. Swap it out (if the bolt patterns match) for the earlier, lwr voltage mdle, OR drill and screw a stud mount Zener diode through the chassis and lift the trans grnd off the frame, solder it to the eye on the Zener.

Without knowing What you have for VDC at the plates and screens, I’ll leave it to you to decide how much you want to scrub off it and buy the right one, though I’m thinking 55 or 60 volts would be pretty close.

http://www.nteinc.com/Web_pgs/Fifty.html

Had to put them in more than 1 old Deluxe Reverb back when new production 6V6s (90s) were a 40% fail rate in those amps.

Even with NOS JAN Phillips which Would survive the amps still sounded too bright and shrill.