“It may be a cliché, but let’s say it anyway: Jimi Hendrix didn’t do too badly with CBS Fenders”: Fender’s CBS era is often associated with the company losing its reputation for quality – but is that view still justified?

Jimi Hendrix plays his Olympic White Stratocaster at the Royal Albert Hall.

By 1964, Fender was a few years away from its 20th anniversary, business was strong and fine guitars and amps continued to pour from the company’s Fullerton factories in California. Around 600 people worked there – the majority in manufacturing, spread across the 29 buildings that had appeared as demand grew through the years.

Forrest White, in charge of production, recalled that by the end of ’64 his workers were making 1,500 guitars a week, compared to just 40 a week when he’d joined Leo’s small setup 10 years earlier. As well as the electrics and amps, Fender’s catalogs and price lists from the mid-60s also featured acoustics, effects, accessories, and Fender-Rhodes electric pianos.