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1959 - Fender Rhodes Piano
1963 - 63/64 Fender Products Catalogue with four different Fender
Rhodes
1965 - Fender Rhodes Electric Piano is born
1970 - Fender Rhodes Mark I is introduced
The Fender Years
The years 1959-1965 are a dark era in Rhodes history. The only
available instrument is the Fender Rhodes Piano Bass, a 32-note version
consisting only of the low range of the piano. This is hard to believe,
since Rhodes finally had made a real full-range instrument. It seems
that Leo didn't like the upper-range sound, so he locked Harold in the
workshop to experiment with various strange ideas based upon the guitar
neck (like the Hohner Clavinet). This didn't prevent Rhodes from, in
his spare time, realizing his next milestone: the Rhodes 88.
Suddenly one day in 1964, he is visited in his workshop by two guys,
who leave after a few remarks about the piano. They were Goddard
Lieberson and Don Randall from CBS, and a few months later they offer
him a release from the Fender agreement, plus an option to either get
out or stay with CBS as his own boss. Familiar with Harold's pioneer
soul, we would now guess that he wanted his own company, but he
actually stays with CBS.
CBS buys Leo Fender out for an unbelievable $13,000,000 on January 4th,
1965.
--- westcoastpaeb <> wrote:
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jville.geo@yahoo wrote:
> The Fender Rhodes wasn't in production till about 1970
> or so. If anything, the "prototypical" elec. piano
> sound is more likely the Wurlitzer electric piano,
> which started production sometime in the 1950s.
>
> ~ Jonathan
john.blair@s... wrote:
> The Fender Rhodes electric piano was introduced in the early 1960s,
not the
> early 70s.
> john blair
Both you guys are right. Tho introduced in the early 60's, it is
doubtful that even any studio surf group used the Fender Rhodes.. And
certainly no performing surf band did because the Fender Rhodes
(suitcase) portable models the Mark 1 73 or 88 keys didn't get
introduced until 1970.
westcoastpaeb
.
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