As early as 1968 the design was licensed to Fender who made a prototype b bender telecaster but never put it into mass production. However from ’73 onwards Parsons started making and installing the ‘Pull String’ himself, now renamed the String Bender doing as many as 2,000 custom installs for guitarists including Jimmy Page amongst others.

Demand continued to grow, String Bender kits were even supplied to Japan, and by 1989 production was outsourced and a network of authorised custom installation shops developed. Fender were again approached and their Custom Shop began production of a Clarence White signature model, of which only 200 were made using the Parsons/White String Bender. (Listen to Clarence White signature model CW121 on recordings by Diesel Therapy.) Its success spurred Fender on to develop a similar model for mass production in the 90’s and it’s at that stage the ‘B Bender Telecaster’ name came to be.

The visual giveaways, from the audience side, are the pull hub (the ‘button’ below the bridge) and the strap lever which replaces the standard top strap button. Around the back is an arrangement of sprung loaded actuating levers built into the guitar body which will raise the pitch of the B string by a whole tone to C#. It’s a masterpiece of engineering simplicity.

But so much easier and musically enjoyable to let Gene Parsons describe and demonstrate the b bender telecaster himself or listen to Clarence White signature b bender telecaster model CW121 on recordings by Diesel Therapy.

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