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Rhino Recordıs surf music compilation ³Cowabunga² discloses the birth of
reverb. Dick Dale states that his first album ³Surfersı Choice² (Deltone
Records 11/62) had no reverb:
³ . . . But if you listen to that album closely, you wonıt hear one
decibel of a sound resembling a Fender reverb, because it had not yet been
invented!
The reverb came about after I explained to Leo Fender and Freddy T., his
number one man, that I didnıt have a natural vibrato in my voice, and that
my live show was 95 percent singing and that my guitar played the leads
while I sang.
I wanted to sustain my voice like you can a piano note by pushing down on
the sustain pedal. The note just hangs there. I told Leo that I had a
Hammond organ at home, and it had a button that gave you a reverb sound
that was closer to what I wanted for my voice. Leo built a device that
had a Hammond Organ Company spring tank mounted inside, and when I plugged
a Shure Dynamic birdcage microphone into it, I was able to sing and sound
like Elvis.
That was the birth of the Fender reverb.
Later, when I plugged my Stratocaster into the reverb and played some of
my instrumentals, it was the icing on the cake. Only then did my Fender
reverb sound become associated with surf music.²
Mr. Dale is indeed correct. Fender licensed the design of the reverb
system from the Hammond Organ Company, put the system in a small box with
electronic circuitry, and gave Dale the prototype in 1961. One year
later, in 1962, Fender began selling the reverb for $129.
Rory Wicks
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