Tools of the trade - the Stringbenders

 

Original B-Bender Guitar....

The B-Bender was invented in 1968 by musicians Gene Parsons and Clarence White of Nashville West and The Byrds. The device was originally called the Parsons/White Pull-String, later renamed the StringBender, and is now best known as the B-Bender. Early prototypes developed by Parsons (a machinist as well as a drummer) included multiple bending devices for the E, B, G and D strings, but guitarist White decided he preferred a single B string bender in the final design. The B string is bent up a full tone by pulling the guitar neck down. This puts pressure on the strap, which is attached to a spring-loaded lever at the base of the neck. The lever arm passes through the body of the guitar and is connected to the B string behind the bridge 

White's 1956 Telecaster with the original Pull-String is now owned and regularly played by Marty Stuart, who bought it from White's widow.

Another early maker and user of the Pull-String was Bob Warford, a friend and Kentucky Colonels bandmate of White's who also played guitar with Linda Ronstadt and The Everly Brothers. Warford made his own Pull-String in early 1968 based on the Parsons/White design, with their consent, and installed it in his Telecaster. Later that year, Parsons and White licensed the StringBender to Leo Fender at Fender Musical Instruments Corporation. Fender revised the design to simplify mass production and developed a prototype. However, this model never went into production. Parsons and White subsequently licensed their design to Dave Evans, who had heard about the device and had been experimenting with his own models. Evans built and sold a version of the Pull-String from 1969 to 1973. His customers included Albert Lee, John Beland (guitarist for Linda Ronstadt) and Eagles guitarist Bernie Leadon, who played his Evans Pull-String on "Peaceful Easy Feeling".

In 1973 Parsons started making and installing the Pull-String himself, and renamed it the StringBender. He eventually made as many as 2,000 custom installations for guitarists including Ronnie Wood of The Rolling Stones. Harold Matlin of Matlin Guitars built one for Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin. Parsons also supplied several hundred StringBender kits to Japanese guitar manufacturer Tokai Gakki. In 1989, when demand overtook his production capacity, Parsons partnered with Meridian Green to outsource the production of the kits, develop a network of authorized installation shops and write an instruction manual for the installers. Green also approached Fender again, and the Fender Custom Shop began producing a Clarence White signature model custom Telecaster equipped with the Parsons/White StringBender. Around 200 were produced, and based on this success, Fender decided to mass-produce a similar model and call it the B-Bender. Parsons and Green revised the design again, and in 1996 Fender began production of the Nashville B-Bender Telecaster incorporating the Parsons/Green StringBender.

Shortly after Clarence White was killed by a drunk driver while loading equipment into his van with his brother Roland after a gig, Richard Bowden, former Linda Ronstadt and Dan Folgelberg guitarist, joined Roger McGuinn's post-Byrds organization and Bowden created his own B-Bender. Being a Gibson player and with String Benders only available for Telecasters, Bowden created a non-defacing palm pedal that attached to the standard Gibson-style stop-bar tail piece. He leased his patent to Gibson, who turned it over to Epiphone for production. Due to manufacturing flaws, Epiphone discontinued production when their patent lease expired after ten years. Bowden now manufactures his device in his own custom shop and has expanded his designs to also fit on Telecasters, G&L ASAT Tribute Specials, and Stratocasters, as well as many acoustic guitars.