Leo Fender - August 10, 1909 – March 21, 1991
Les Paul - June 9, 1915 – August 13, 2009
And now
Charles Kaman, June 15, 1919 – January 31, 2011
Three of the greats of guitar design. Leo and Les basically created the modern electric guitar with their innovative designs. Kaman did not have equal impact upon acoustic guitars -- Ovation guitars are still the only acoustic guitars that use a composite "tub" for their back rather than a traditional wooden side plate and backboard -- but he was also the first to put a good-sounding under-saddle pickup on steel-string acoustics as a matter of course. Today the majority of gigging country guitarists use similar pickups rather than the previous solutions, which were to point a microphone at the soundhole (has a problem with feedback if a wide-pattern mike, a problem with fadeouts if a narrow-pattern mike) or a soundhole pickup that got in the way of flatpicking.
-- Badtux the Music Penguin
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