GEAR TALKIN'™ #23: White Amplifiers
The fun and rare Fender side-brand + Jeff covers "Life's a Gas"
While the Tweedy family band is getting things going again on the Twilight Override tour, beloved Starship Casual officer Mark Greenberg is here to tell you about one of the rare-ish guitar amps at The Loft.
Also, below the paywall, I covered a T. Rex song. Last week I covered Tyrannosaurus Rex. I’m not sure why they changed their name. I’m assuming it had something to do with available space on venue marquees. But let’s not underestimate how many times they saw it misspelled or the possibility that they themselves never achieved full spelling confidence.
OxO—Jeffy
Welcome back to Gear Talkin’™! Today we are staring straight at this sexy small tube amp with lovey-dovey eyes. It was made in 1956 by the Fender Electric Instruments company, originally as part of their side brand, White. The amp’s circuit and build and sound were very similar to the tweed Fender Princeton at the time, differentiated mostly by the grey-speckled fabric covering and the blue grill cloth. The plan was to make these amps to be sold alongside 3/4 scale guitars and steel guitars and marketed specifically for teaching studios, who could purchase them from Fender wholesale. Though they did produce some White-branded steels, in the end no White guitar models were ever produced. Maybe Fender had enough 3/4 scale guitar options by this time with the Musicmaster, Duo-Sonic, and eventually Mustang and Bronco models. But close to 1,000 White-branded amplifiers were made in the eight years of production until this side brand faded out as Fender grew into a much larger company, introducing more and more popular models to make and sell.
In the early days of Fender, there was an interesting character on the production floor named Forrest White. He was the vice president, or one of the vice presidents, in charge of managing the factory production starting in 1954. Though he had some history building guitars on his own, he was more of an organization guy, which in hindsight was a great fit with Leo Fender, who was more of the creative dreamer, visionary, and tinkerer. There is an argument that without the organizational skills and production strategy Forrest brought to the table, Fender may have not been able to make the jump from a comparatively small builder to the mammoth industry leader it became. According to Forrest, his relationship with Leo was often contentious, but in spite of that, the two ended up being the right yin for the other’s yang. The zig for the other’s zag. The Lennon for their McCartney. The peanut butter in each other’s chocolate.
There is a famous story that has Leo, in a gesture of love, respect, or maybe just forgetting to tell him, secretly naming this White side brand after Forrest. White only found out when the name plates arrived at the factory. The two of them worked together until Leo sold the company to CBS in 1965 and exited. Forrest continued on for a year under CBS and then resigned. Years later, Leo and Forrest reunited to co-found, along with Tom Walker, the Music Man company, a direct competitor to Fender, although Leo remained a silent partner for years due to his non-compete agreement.
Most of these rare White amps are tucked away safely in collector’s vaults, but every once in a blue moon, one will come up for air, and we are so glad this one found its way to The Loft.
This Week in Wilco, Etc.
1999 / March 9: Summerteeth is released on Reprise Records.
2005 / March 13: Martha Wainwright opens the Wilco show at Rock City in Nottingham, UK. Wilco plays a 21-song set that includes a cover of Thunderclap Newman’s “Something in the Air.”
2019 / March 14: Jeff is at the Tampa Theatre in Tampa, FL for a 22-song set with James Elkington opening. The set features a very deep cut, “Alone (Shakin’ Sugar),” apparently requested four times for this show.
Life’s a Gas (T. Rex cover)
