LEO FENDER SPENT roughly 20 years at the musical instrument company that bears his name. Perhaps it’s due to his storied history there that people often forget he spent another 20 years, from 1971 until his death in 1991, continuing to design guitars suited to the ever-changing needs of contemporary musicians. In addition to Music Man, the company he co-founded in 1971, Leo spent much of his final years at G&L, the company he created in 1980 with his former Fender colleague George Fullerton.
Remarkably, one of G&L’s newest models comes from a design Leo drew up well before the company came into existence. After selling Fender Musical Instruments to CBS in 1965 and launching his consultancy for the company as part of his non-compete agreement,
