Given his reputation as a mad scientist within the guitar world, it's funny to think that Gene Parsons – the co-inventor of the B-Bender – was actually a drummer by trade.
Of course, Parsons – a member of the Byrds from 1968-1972 and, later, the Flying Burrito Brothers – always harbored an interest in the guitar. Why else would he move to assemble seemingly arbitrary parts (to a non-believer) into a contraption that would change the face of country music and its adjacent genres forever?
