Robert Perine

 Robert Perine was raised in Los Angeles in a very artsy family.  At the age of six, his father drew his portrait and asked young Bob to do the same. “It was like magic and from that time on I knew I wanted to be an artist.”  After enlisting in the US Navy during World War II, Bob studied at the Chouinard Art School in Los Angeles for four years.  He then moved to Orange County, where he opened an advertising and graphic design shop and soon was hired by Fender Guitars to create their ad campaign.  Over the years, Bob won several awards for his creative and successful advertisements for the Fender products.  Among the most noted ads he created was the series that ran on the back cover of Down Beat magazine for much of the early 1960s.  One of these ads featured a surfer playing his Fender on the waves, another showed a sky diver holding on tight to his guitar while free falling from 15,000 feet.  Bob’s role in the early days of the success of Fender had often gone unnoticed because he was never a company employee; however his work has often been credited for the fame the company achieved over the years.  NAMM was proud to have interviewed Bob for our Oral History program on November 17, 2003.  Mr. Robert Perine passed away at the age of  81.