Don Randall was President of Fender for 5 years after CBS bought them. What went wrong?

"The road to hell is paved with good intentions". Good intentions, but players didn't like the poly finishes or machine-wound pickups as much. Thank goodness for Bill Schultz!

Another great rare interview into the Fender history...thank you, I always enjoy your videos!

Why is Don Randall claiming that there wasn't any major changes to the product when CBS took over fender because there was a lot of changes to the product starting from 1964. Look at the fender amplifier speaker went from alnico to ceramic and different brands of speakers CBS used. The Blackface schematics I don't even think had Leo Fenders approval at all which was all CBS amplifier designers that made the blackface topologies, NOT Leo Fender. Don Randall must have been sleeping a lot in his office to not even know all the differences in amplifier design and guitar designs were going on at CBS for 5 years just sleeping away when CBS came out with those horrible Poly Finishes is the worse even to be put on a fender body to go 100% CHEAP Paint to save money.

In 1978 I Was a Guitar Tech with
BCRICH Guitars 🎸 We Are in Orange County at
The NAMM Show
We Set Up on Wednesday and Thursday and Friday
Saturday and Sunday
I Showed Up at
The NAMM Show and Didn’t Even Hang Out At
Our Booth….I Would Show Up and Go To
The G&L Booth and Just Listen To Leo Fender
Talk All Day And Night
He Was a Amazing Man
He Gave Me a Signed
8x10 Photo Of Him
Of Course
BCRICH Didn’t Like Me
Talking To
Leo Fender For 4 Days
But I Had To Hang with a
True Legend Of
Rock and a Guitar Legend
Who Did So Much For
Rock Music 🎶

Within the first few years of CBS ownership Randall is right that not much changed. But many amps definitely changed a lot by ‘69 or 70 (especially Twin Reverbs).

And Within a couple of years of that guitar quality control took a big hit, as did some the hardware specs. People old enough to to have played mid-70s through early 80s strats at the time know the deal. They didn’t all suck, but an unacceptable number did. I had a 73 and I have an 89. You could not pay me to take that 73 back.

Some of the best fenders came out during cbs. I own the hm strat, which was revolutionary for fender in the 80s. Basically a 24 fret with locking floyd liscensed kahler.

And other wad the big headstock strats that Yngvie Malmsteen uses.

them?

Bottom line corporations suck compared to the person who had the vision. I love my strat and tele BUT as far as buying a fender, I will pick a G&L FULLERTON ASAT CLASSIC, A MUCH BETTER BUILT GUITAR THAN FENDER PROFESSIONAL 2 TELECASTER ‼️
Move out of California and go to a friendly state ‼️

John Page has absolutely one of the most excellent mullets I’ve ever seen in my life!😳

Up to 73 was ok but the guitars after that were generally not as good.

Very nice guitar channel. Love all these incredible interviews with some of the most important people in electric guitar history.

The weight of a big company always crushes the small companies they buy. No exceptions.