The Mesa Boogie guitar amplifier came on the scene in 1970 when most bands were stacking speakers all over the stage. The thought was, “The bigger the speaker cabinets, the better the sound.” Smaller amps like the Fender Tremolux and Deluxe Reverb were literally buried on stage by stacks of Marshall, Acoustic and Kustom amps

Mesa Boogie Amplifier, amplifier

It is said by the Mesa Boogie company that the first Boogie was built as a practical joke to see how much they could drive a small amp without it blowing up. It looked like a tiny Fender Princeton in the old-fashioned Fender tweed case. In fact, it was. The originator, Randall Smith, literally gutted Princeton amps and, like putting a ship in a bottle, fit high power electronics, big transformers and a 12″ JBL speaker (in a space meant for a 10″ one) back into the case.But it was worth the effort.

Santana Names the Small Amp

Word spread around the music community and Carlos Santana tried one at a jam. His quote was “Shit, that little thing really Boogies!” and the rest is history. From 1967 to 1970, in a converted dog kennel, over 200 Princeton amps were sacrificed to make these incredible amps. Many of these so-called “pre-Boogies” are still around.

With the success of the small amp Smith moved out of the kennel into a garage and had to start making his own cabinets. Word was out that Fender was getting suspicious as to the amount of amps and high-powered transformers he was ordering.

Garage Amps

Smith started building the second generation Boogie in a two-story garage with wood rejected by a lumber mill. Except for the custom-made transformers almost every part of those first Mark I Boogies was produced in the garage:

  • Silk-screened, sheet metal chasses were hand punched
  • Wiring and cabinet building were done by hand.
  • Printed circuit boards were screened and etched there.
  • Unlike the newer solid-state amps, tubes were the heart of the Boogie.

It was a true cottage industry with a host of friends doing small projects like the foot switch boxes and positioning shielded cables. And Smith, a fan of Mercedes, watched over the process with an eagle eye for detail and made sure every amp was perfect.

Why did such a small amp push its way into the big amp market? One of the big reasons, besides its great sound, is the fact that sound systems were getting better and amps were being miked so the amplifier, itself, did not need to have 4 -15″ JBL speakers.