Leo Fender honored by the Recording Academy

The Recording Academy has honored the late Clarence “Leo” Fender with the Technical Grammy Award, created to acknowledge “contributions of outstanding technical signifcance to the recording field.” The award was presented during a ceremony on February 7th, and during the February 8th Grammys.

While Fender didn’t invent the electric guitar as many believed, he did perfect it in terms of mass production, functionality and affordability. Of course, he also perfected our favorite, the electric bass.

In the L.A. Times feature, only guitarists were interviewed for the piece, but Eric Clapton does mention his first Fender experience was seeing Jerry Lee Lewis’ bass player playing a Fender Jazz Bass in the 1958 film “High School Confidential”.

The Fender Jazz Bass, introduced in 1960, remains the best selling bass guitar in the world.

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