You can almost smell the black Tolex, silver grille cloth and the tubes cooking through out this over 500-page hardbound coffee table-style book. The Soul of Tone celebrates the Fender amp as a example of post-War American culture, art and innovative industrial design by Leo Fender and his team--many of whose names you'll recognize as going on to start their own guitar and amp companies. It is full of beautiful photographs, mostly by John Peden, of perfect examples of all Fender's amps and includes two music CDs that convey the classic sounds of the narrow panel Tweed Deluxe, blackface Deluxe Reverb, Vibrolux Reverb, black Tolex Showman, 4-10 Bassman and many more.

The Soul of Tone is exhaustive. It covers the stories of every Fender amp made with many technical and cosmetic details plus the inside story about some of the quirky reasons why certain models are the way they are. There are insights to Leo Fender's holistic approach to guitar amp design succinctly put: his amps are musical extensions of his guitars. Fender was one of the first amp companies seeking to improve their products by soliciting feedback from artists and the book has exclusive interviews with guitar players like: Les Paul, Dick Dale, Billy Gibbons, Peter Frampton, and Albert Lee. The book also has countless rare photos of early guitar pioneers shown with their Fender amps.