List of Fender amplifier users

This is an alphabetized list of musicians who have made notable use of Fender amplifiers in live performances or studio recordings.

A – Z

A Fender Deluxe Reverb

• Trey Anastasio, guitarist for the jam band Phish, uses a modified Deluxe Reverb with one Weber Alnico Blue.
• Mike Bloomfield favoured Fender amplifiers—usually Fender Twin Reverb amplifiers such as the one he used to play on the Super Session jam album with Al Kooper. Bloomfield also was known to use Fender Showman, Fender Bassman, and Fender Deluxe Reverb amplifiers.
• James Burton (born 1939), guitarist for such artists such as Elvis Presley, John Denver and Ricky Nelson, is known primarily for his long and faithful use of the Fender Telecasters but also uses Fender amplifiers such as a re-issue of the '65 Twin Reverb^[1]
• Mike Campbell (born 1950), most notable for his work with Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, has used various Fender amps with the Heartbreakers over the years, including a 1960s Twin Reverb, a tweed Deluxe, a blonde piggyback Bassman, and (currently) two Princeton Reverbs^[2]
• Larry Carlton (born 1948) has won four Grammy Awards for his performances and compositions. During the 1970s and early 1980s, Carlton was a session musician in Los Angeles, making up to five hundred recordings a year, including albums by Steely Dan, Joni Mitchell, Billy Joel, Michael Jackson and Quincy Jones. His guitar work on Steely Dan's 1976 LP 'The Royal Scam' has been listed as the best guitar playing on record, where he used a Fender Tweed Deluxe for his signature tone.
• Eric Clapton (born 1945) has been in numerous bands including Derek and the Dominos, Cream, and Blind Faith. Clapton uses Fender Twin amps which can be seen in his concert DVDs including One More Car, One More Rider and Live in Hyde Park. He is also noted for using a Fender Vibro Champ to record the song "Layla".
• Kurt Cobain (1967–1994), frontman of the grunge band Nirvana, used a Twin Reverb during the recording of 1989's Bleach and 1993's In Utero; he used a Bassman during the recording of 1991's Nevermind.^[3]
• Robert Cray (born 1953) is a blues guitarist and singer well known for using Fender Vibro King amplifiers.
• Dick Dale (born Richard Anthony Monsour in 1937) is a surf rock guitarist who was provided with several amplifiers from Leo Fender himself, all of which he soon destroyed because of his extreme settings. Fender then provided him with a customized 100-watt amp with a 15-inch speaker which was named the Fender Single Showman.^[4]
• Tom Delonge, guitarist for Blink-182, uses two Fender Deluxe Reverbs.
• Don Felder (born 1947), member of The Eagles, used a Fender Tweed Deluxe for his signature tone that can be heard on major hits like 'Hotel California' and 'One Of These Nights'.
• John Fogerty (born 1945), the former Creedence Clearwater Revival frontman, has used several different amplifiers from different manufacturers, but relied heavily on a Bassman and a Tweed Deluxe while recording many of his early solo records.^[5]
• Jerry Garcia (born 1942), singer and songwriter with the band the Grateful Dead.^[6][7] and Jerry Garcia Band, his silverface Fender Twin amp was a central part of his sound. He continued to use the amp through 1993
• Billy Gibbons (born 1949), a blues rock and hard rock musician most known for being the lead singer and guitarist of ZZ Top, has used various vintage amplifiers, specifically the 18-watt tweed Dual Professional and often uses several amps in different combinations to achieve desired sounds.^[8]
• Josh Homme (born 1973), lead guitarist and vocalist in the hard rock groups Queens of the Stone Age and Them Crooked Vultures, uses (amongst a few other amplifiers) a vintage black-face Fender Bassman while performing live with Them Crooked Vultures.
• Rowland S. Howard (1959–2009), guitarist of The Birthday Party and Crime and the City Solution, almost exclusively played a Fender Jaguar through a Twin Reverb amplifier throughout his career, often placed prominently on-stage to produce feedback on-demand.^[9]
• Steve Howe of Yes and Asia was a long-time user of Fender amps, particularly the Dual Showman and Twin Reverb.
• Richie Kotzen from the Winery Dogs uses a Fender Vibro King and a Fender Vibrolux.
• Both Robby Krieger and Ray Manzarek of The Doors have used Fender Twin amps.
• John Lennon and George Harrison of The Beatles both used Fender Twin amplifiers during the recording of Abbey Road and Let It Be; the group also used Twins during their "Rooftop Concert".^[10] These Twin Reverb amps are most likely using the AC568 circuit made after May 1968.^[11]
• Johnny Marr used Fender Twin Reverb amps exclusively during his time as the Guitarist for The Smiths.^[12]
• Ted Nugent, during the height of his career in the 1970s, was known to use six Fender Twin Reverb amplifiers tied to six tall Fender speaker cabinets; in fact, Nugent once endorsed the Twin Reverb in magazine advertisements in that era.^[13] Earlier in his career, Nugent favored the more powerful, but far less produced, Fender Super Twin amps in the same configuration.^[14]
• Brian Setzer (born 1959), the frontman for the rockabilly band The Stray Cats, plays his vintage or signature Gretsch guitars through either a 1962 Bassman or a 1960 Princeton.^[15]
• GE Smith (born 1952), lead guitarist for Hall & Oates, Bob Dylan and the Saturday Night Live band, is a keen Fender collector and self-confessed "vintage freak" have exclusively played his guitars through various Fender amplifiers.^[16]
• Pete Townshend (born 1945), lead guitarist of The Who and solo artist. Townshend used a 5E7 tweed Bandmaster to record the albums Who's Next, Quadrophenia, and The Who By Numbers. Beginning in 1989, his onstage rig included of a quartet of Fender Vibro-King amps, but it has been trimmed down to three Vibro-Kings since 2006, one amp serving as a backup.
• Eddie Van Halen (born 1955) is a guitarist and a co-founder of Van Halen. Currently Fender is producing a signature three-channel amplifier head called the "EVH 5150 III" and a matching 4×12" cabinet called "EVH 5150 412", both of which are available in black or white.^[17]
• Stevie Ray Vaughan (born 1954) was an American blues-rock guitarist, whose broad appeal made him an influential electric blues guitarist. Vaughan famously used two 1964 blackface Vibroverb amplifiers that were heavily modified by Cesar Diaz. Vaughan was also known to use various blackface Super Reverb amplifiers.^[18]
• Jack White (born 1975), guitarist of The White Stripes, The Raconteurs and The Dead Weather, uses original '70s era Fender Twin Reverb amplifiers with his three bands. He gets a very distorted but characteristic sound mixing his vintage amps with an Electro Harmonix Big Muff and some other distortion/sustain pedals.
• Thom Yorke, vocalist of Radiohead, played Twin Reverbs up until the early 2000s.^[19]
• Neil Young (born 1945) is playing his Gibson Les Paul Goldtop, nicknamed "Old Black", and getting his heavily distorted sound through Fender Tweed Deluxe.
• Dweezil Zappa (born 1965), son of Frank Zappa, plays on the Zappa plays Zappa performing his father's music using Fender Twin Reverb reissue, the digitally controlled Fender Cyber Twin and several other amplifiers.^[20]
• Nemanja Savic guitarist and session musician, plays a modded Fender Deluxe Reverb Reissue, custom fitted with P&K Audio output transformer. Nemanja uses the amplifier for both recording and live performance purposes. His rig runs the Deluxe Reverb in stereo or in conjunction with various stomp boxes including the Mesa Boogie V-Twin Preamplifier to achieve his signature sound from his solo project 'apostrophe, or his band Scream&Dive^[21]

References

1. Fender Artist - James Burton
2. Runnin'' Down a Dream: Mike Campbell
3. KurtsEquipment.com - Amplifers
4. Dick Dale history
5. Fogerty amps and guitars
6. Erlewine, Stephen Thomas. "Jerry Garcia biography". Allmusic biographies. All Media Guide, LLC. Archived from the original on June 3, 2009. Retrieved 2007-04-25.
7. "Garcia, Jerome John". Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. 2007. Retrieved 2007-07-08.
8. Guitarworld - ZZ Top Three unlikely rockstars
9. Rowland S Howard "A Short Account of the Dark Prince's Existence"
10. Google Books page: "Beatles Gear by Andy Babiuk".
11. The Beatles 1968 Twin Reverbs - AC568 not AB763 circuits.
12. johnny-marr.com
13. Ted Nugent Guitar Gear Rig and Equipment
14. Could You Handle Nuge’s Early Gear? : WoodyTone!
15. Fender Players Club - Brian Setzer
16. Fender Musical - The G.E Smith Telecaster
17. Wolfgang registry - EVH 5150
18. http://guitargeek.com/rigview/308/
19. Thom's gear
20. Fender Artist - Dweezil Zappa
21. Savic, Nemanja. Missing or empty |title= (help);

External links

• Official Fender Website
• Fender's channel on YouTube