Royal Rumble

Gibson’s head of Product Development, Mat Koehler, and Fender historian, Terry Foster, explain how the two industry titans battled it out over the electric bass in the early days—and changed the course of popular music in the process…

- Rod Brakes

The post-war period of the early 50s was a time of great innovation. Following major advancements in instrument design after the war, radical developments at Fender saw the release of both the seminal Esquire and Broadcaster by 1950 (renamed the Telecaster in 1951). In 1952, Gibson’s Les Paul model similarly heralded the beginning of a new era in guitar building. As creativity flowed between musicians and guitar builders alike, popular culture and music technology moved forward in tandem and a new style of the instrument began to take shape, beginning with Fender’s Precision Bass in 1951, followed by the Gibson Electric Bass or EB-1 in 1953. As the decade progressed, the electric guitar industry’s biggest rivals—Gibson in the east, Fender in the west—began battling it out for their stake in the expanding marketplace of electric basses.

“Commercially, Gibson was playing catch up with Fender from the start,” begins Terry Foster, co-author of Fender: The Golden Age 1946-1970. “In 1950, the Broadcaster and Esquire came out, and in 1952, Les Paul came out. It was the same thing when the Precision Bass came out in 1951 and then the EB-1 came out in 1953. That’s a large expanse of time. And at that point, there wasn’t just the one almighty NAMM trade show twice a year; there were multiple trades shows all over the country. The Gibson representatives would have had a chance to check out those instruments multiple times and see the dealers’ reactions. Then they’d go back and say, ‘Okay, guys, we need something as well.’”