Topic summary
Fender Rhodes
Extracted from the Wikipedia article Rhodes piano.
Under CBS
Fender was bought by CBS in 1965. Rhodes stayed with the company, and released the first Fender Rhodes piano, a 73-note model. It comprised parts — the piano, and a separate enclosure underneath containing the power amplifier and loudspeaker. Like the piano bass, it was finished in black Tolex, and had a fiberglass top. During the late 1960s, two models of the Fender Rhodes Celeste also became available, which used the top three or four octaves, respectively, of the Fender Rhodes piano. The Celeste did not sell well and is now hard to find. In 1969, the fiberglass lid was replaced with vacuum-molded plastic; the earlier models became known retrospectively as "silvertops".