“Queen of Tone” Abigail Ybarra Talks Fender History and 57 Years of Pickup Winding
The longest working Fender employee isn’t who you might think—she’s a pickup winder, Latina, and one of three sisters raised by a single mother in Fullerton, California.
In 1956, while looking for a means to support her family as a teenager, Abigail Ybarra walked into what was then a small 10-year-old factory called the Fender Electric Instrument Company. Fifty-six years later she would be coined the “Queen of Tone” for her handcrafted pickups, and considered a true staple of Fender’s legacy around the world.
While Ybarra’s story is without a doubt monumental on its own, it turns out she comes from a lineage of Latina pickup winders who were prominent during a time when the Fender company sought out women to work on the guitars. First there was Pilar Lopez (whom Ybarra apprenticed under), followed by Abigail Ybarra, and today—after three years of learning from Ybarra herself—Josefina Campos continues what we can seemingly consider a tradition.
Now, after retiring in 2013 at 80 years old, Ybarra resides in Redmond, CA where she continues to dabble in pickup winding. She Shreds had the honor of speaking with Ybarra on the phone to discuss some Fender history, beginning her own operation, and winding enough pickups to wrap wire 16 times around the globe.
She Shreds: How did you first get in touch with Fender?
Abigail Ybarra: Yeah, that’s a story right there. My cousin Corin used to work for Fender and she quit so then—maybe a couple of years later—she was looking for a job, so I decided to go with her, and for some reason they hired me but they didn’t hire her back. When I walked in the office I was given an application and right then and there they took me to the back and I was hired.
You said that your cousin used to work for Fender. What did she do?
She used to solder. She used to do some of the wiring and controls on the pickguards and guitars. That is actually what I started doing—and by the way, I was told that I was going to get 90 cents an hour and that in 30 to 60 days I would get another dime, and I thought that was great.
What did your parents do for work?
My father had died, and it was just my mother and two sisters. So, this was a job. I found out there was a place I liked being a Latina, and the pay was pretty good. It was a time [when] we had an incentive plan and we were earning more money in Fender than in other companies around there. I remember there was this girl that came in working in the office—when she saw our checks, she transferred into the factory.
So, you learned the back end of guitar building in general and not just pickup winding, even though that’s what you are known for.
That was where I ended up somehow over the years, when CBS bought the company from Leo Fender. They pretty much did not let people transfer up and down from one department to another, and there was not that many people who wanted to wind pickups all the time. But I always liked that—for some reason I was comfortable doing that, so I just stayed working on pickups.
What do you think it was about pickup winding they didn’t want to do?
Most of the girls would just say it was boring. I mean, you sit there and you wind. We did not do hand-winding for a long time . . . once CBS took over we got automatic coil winders, so even then the girls didn’t like running the coil winders. They had a lot of problems with wire breaking and somehow I just kind of took to it because I didn’t have that much trouble. So, for many years we did not do hand-winding until I came over here to Corona, California and they wanted me to do hand-winding pickups again.
It sounds like there were a lot of women in the factory. Why was Fender looking for women to work on pickup winding?
They figured that men’s hands were too rough, men just wouldn’t be able to handle such delicate work, so it was just women.
You retired in 2013. Is there a big difference between winding pickups in the ‘60s and in your last years at Fender? As the guitars evolved, how did the pickup winding evolve as well?
Well, by the time I retired I was doing hand winding again. When I started in pickups with Leo Fender, back in Fullerton, we were all doing hand-winding. He asked for and usually got superior work. I don’t want to say—I think it was better back then. Of course when I started doing hand-winding over here in the custom shop I tried to do what Leo Fender had expected us to do back then.
And what was that?
Perfect work. Really serious about what we were doing, taking pride in what we were doing—that’s what he always said. We were part of a great company. Leo always thought that we were the Cadillac of guitar making—in those days Cadillac was the best. So when I came over here to do hand-winding again in Corona, I tried to do the same thing. I was much more of an expert at winding, giving customers what they wanted.
Do you miss being in the shop every day and winding pickups?
I do. I miss the people. I miss the fact that we used to get reporters to come in here and talk to me. It was a fun place to be, I do miss that.
Was there any particular reason why you felt it was time to stop?
Not that I didn’t feel that I could still keep working, but it used to bother me that some people used to come up to me and say, “You’re what? You’re in your 70s and you’re still working? You should be at home.” And I thought maybe they’re right, here I am going on 80 years old and still working.
I feel like that’s what keeps us all alive, is to do what we love, right?
Right? Sometimes I regret that I’m not still there, still going to the NAMM shows.
What do you spend your days doing other than pickup winding?
Nothing, nothing! That’s why I’m telling myself I need to start working, I need to start my own thing, my own pickup.
When Josefina started her apprenticeship with you, what did you make sure to emphasize in the learning process for her?
I trained her exactly the way I was trained back then. I was trained by a girl that Leo Fender trained, and she is the one that trained me. Her name was Pilar Lopez. So when I trained Josefina, [I trained] her exactly the way my work ethic [is], I tried to pass that on to her.
Can you tell me a little bit of what that includes? Is your work ethic based on being authentic and committed to the work or is there something specific, technically?
I taught her, or tried to teach her, to do the job the way I learned to do it—even the soldering. I like to do that with a good pickup that’s gonna last for years. Working in a mass production, I really don’t think that those pickups are that great—seems to me that she needs to take the time to do the job right, not to think about how fast she is going to do it but what a good job she has to put out.
Is it important for you to inspire and encourage other girls to be a part of this kind of work?
My daughter is going to start working with me because eventually I plan to start my own business. I would encourage girls to do that.
How many pickups do you think you’ve wound? Per day or per week?
Leo never had us winding for eight hours. He would only have us do it for four hours because he thought for us to sit there for eight hours was too much. So in four hours we would do something like 15 or 16 pickups. With CBS it was different, we had automatic coil winders, we turned out hundreds on the coil winders. Hand-winding, you can’t wind too many—it’s a slower process.
We had people from Made In America come down to the plant in Corona—it’s a show on Discovery [Channel]. The one guy that was on the show figured out that I had wound wire—just the wire— around the world 16 times.
That’s an amazing fact.
That was so weird. Time just flew . . . by the time I was finished I could not believe it had been that many years. I guess time flies when you are having fun.
Comments
welp if she started her own shop I’m in for at least a few… I have a set of her sigg 69’s, love em
Thanks AY!
Comment by Dean Iversen Green on February 24, 2017 at 12:28 pmDo you know how we can still get those?
Comment by Ja on February 25, 2017 at 6:48 ameBay only place I know
Comment by Twayne on June 19, 2018 at 8:56 amNo but if you find out let me know.
Comment by Chris on December 20, 2018 at 4:04 pmWow this is awesome, I’d love to rewind my pickups now!
Comment by Jerialice on February 25, 2017 at 6:47 amYou are my influence AY
Comment by Ganee Pickups on March 25, 2017 at 7:35 pm[…] probably start a thread in the pickup section for stuff like this: "Queen of Tone" Abigail Ybarra Talks Fender History and 57 Years of Pickup Winding I've been a pilgrim on this earth, since the day of my birth, I'm a long way from my home. […]
Pingback by Martin X - Page 2 on October 30, 2017 at 10:59 pmFabulous story, and Fabi Reyna? What can one say? Your questions to Abigail are perhaps the most thought out, relevant, and insightful remarking questions I’ve ever had the pleasure to read.
Thank you Fabi for not making this a ‘fluff’ piece of reporting. Your questions hit the mark for us. We the Fender adoring public have learned something precious with your reporting. Great Job Girl !! Seriously. I’ve known ‘of’ Abigail through whispered stories and stated facts thru the years. My Dad brought me my first Strat in 1968. I was 7 years old. Thru the years, I’d heard folks mention Alpha Yankee, phonetic for Abigail. Many years ago, I saw a home movie of the Fullerton shop shot in 8 or 16mm film. I believe it was shot in the late 1950’s. Abigail is shown, winding pickups. Or working on them anyway.
Segue to now, and I read this article, and come across the same movie I’d seen so many years ago.
Brilliant piece of reporting, tying the ends together.
I admit to being secretly in love with Abigail most of my life, and seeing this article just now, I know that love was justified.
What a wonderful woman. What a wonderful reporter to take the effort to present just friggin’ exactly the questions so many of us would have asked her ourselves, given the chance.
Nice work Girls! Fabi and Abigail. You make me fall in love all over again!
Very best regards,
Comment by Mike on October 3, 2018 at 12:53 pmMike Ferguson
Santa Cruz Ca. 2018
Replying to my own comment as I’m not able to edit it.
“Thru the years, I’d heard folks mention Alpha Yankee, phonetic for Abigail.”
In the 70’s those of us into guitar would hear snippets like- ‘ “it’s a CBS, no clay dots, but it does have Abbie pickups” “broke the neck, selling for parts, A Ybarra pickups, best offer” And this one conversation I remember from 1979 concerning a Silvertone ‘Tele’ copy, “plays way better than it should because Randy replaced the pickups with some Abbies out of a broken Telecaster.”
Comment by Mike/Cmdrpiffle on October 3, 2018 at 1:04 pmAn so forth.
Thank you, Abby. I once had a ‘63 Stratocaster for about 15 years. I git it by trading a ‘73 Precision bass while going to junior college. It was a fine guitar. I had it cleaned up and retuned byJ Carruthers in the early 1990’s. I used to play it through a Harvard ll I was lucky enough to find in the lat ‘80’s. Good times. But I lost her in a fire a few years later. The Riots. That hurt a lot. But I like to think you wound the pick.ups. Thank you for your hard work and care.
Comment by Glen Carpenter on December 17, 2018 at 4:32 amThis is a wonderful interview with a woman who made history. Thank you for supporting women in music!
Comment by Elise on December 28, 2018 at 2:44 pm[…] Click here to read the entire interview. […]
Pingback by Abigail Ybarra on Pickup Winding – 300guitars on January 31, 2019 at 9:46 amMy ‘62 has pickups she wound. It’s a timeless sound. God bless Abigail
Comment by Brad absher on March 9, 2021 at 3:06 pmWow she could probably make more $ this year doing boutique winding than what she made her whole career – who here doesn’t want to order a pickup set from her right now & willing to pay top dollar!
Comment by Joel B on March 10, 2021 at 2:15 pmWhat does she charge for a set of hand-wound Strat pickups?
Comment by Barry on March 18, 2021 at 9:14 amThanks,
Barry
[…] Lopez, who showed her the ins and outs of the job, giving her an empowered foundation in the craft. In an interview with She Shreds, Ybarra said of her work and the legacy of Latina women who were doing most of Fender’s […]
Pingback by Abigail Ybarra: The Latina Teenager Who Set The Tone for Rock n' Roll - Fanny's House of Music on July 9, 2021 at 3:22 pm[…] “Queen of Tone” Abigail Ybarra Talks Fender History and 57 Years of Pickup Winding […]
Pingback by Abigail Ybarra Interview in She Shreds - Funktronic Pickups on March 29, 2022 at 10:20 amAbigail’s pickups sound better. But why? What did she do differently? Does Josefina do it the same way? Are her pickups as good?
Inquiring minds want to know!
Comment by Isaac on March 30, 2022 at 10:19 am