A Phil Brodie Band Tribute Page

LES PAUL

Lester William Polfus June 9th 1915 in Waukesha, Wisconsin

Les Paul quote "There are a lot of great guitar players out there, but not many of them have what it takes to be truly great. You have to have rhythm, which you can't purchase in a store. You have to have an ear for music, which you can't buy. You have to have soul, which you can't buy. These are things that you're gifted with. Another is perseverance, and another is a sense of humor. You see, when you play with your hands, you have to think the whole audience is made of foreigners. You have to raise your sight, lower your sight, and find where your audience is. Then, of course, you get your standing ovation!"

June 2002 - Les Paul celebrated his 87th year by playing another of his great weekly shows at
the Iridium club in New York.

Les Paul at 89 this year is still playing guitar, every week at a Manhattan club, where he rouses the crowd with his quicksilver runs and clever arrangements, even though arthritis has robbed him of much of his dexterity. The secret, Paul says, is that his music is as much in his head as in his fingers. "If you have only two fingers [to work with], you have to think, how will you play that chord?" he says. "So you think of how to replace that chord with several notes, and it gives the illusion of sounding like a chord." Les Paul's magic has always had as much to do with his brilliant mind as his guitar-playing prowess.

A FEW LES PAUL FACTS

· The first guitar Paul ever owned, a 1927 Sears Troubadour

· Les Paul's first Gibson guitar, a 1928 Gibson L-5

· "The Plank," Les Paul's first attempt at creating a solid-body guitar, which is/was made from . . .a two-by-four piece of lumber with a door hinge as the bridge.

· The first Les Paul Electric Guitar, 1952

First instrument: Harmonica

Big break: With Fred Waring's Pennsylvanians. Paul had a regular spot during the big band's radio shows from 1938-1941. Incidentally, Waring was no slouch himself with appliances; he helped invent and market the Waring blender.

Played with: Waring, Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, Nat King Cole, Dick Haymes, the Andrews Sisters, Helen Forrest, Chet Atkins, Al Di Meola and many more.

Hit songs: "It's Been a Long, Long Time" (with Crosby); "Brazil"; "Mockin' Bird Hill," "Vaya Con Dios" and "How High the Moon" (with Mary Ford)

Non-musical influences: Jack Benny, Groucho Marx, "all those great comedians. It wasn't just showmanship, but a whole way of handling your career."

Quote: "I learned a long time ago that one note can go a long way if it's the right one, and it will probably whip the guy with 20 notes."

LES PAUL, THE INVENTOR part interview with Pop Matters

PM: Let's do a little history, for the readers who might not know much about you. You started off self-taught, right?
LP: Right. I started off playing harmonica. There was a ditch-digger playing harmonica outside our home when I was eight, and I stared him right out of his harmonica. I started playing that, and made it rock. But a harmonica wasn't enough. So I went to banjo and piano, and finally ended up with guitar.
PM: Who is the greatest guitar player you ever heard in your life?
LP: There have been a lot of great ones, but I think it would be Django Reinhardt and [Andres] Segovia.
PM: Who were the biggest influences on you as a young guitarist?
LP: Eddie Lang. He was the first one that I heard that really influenced me. My brother and I hitchhiked to Milwaukee, went to Orth's Music Store there, and asked the guy who was really great, and he played Eddie Lang for us. We listened to him over and over and over. That was how I learned; there were no teachers back then, only music stores. Waukesha didn't have anything like that. Now, another one to come along was Nick Lucas, and he was wonderful too. But Eddie Lang -- he was the boy.
PM: I want to just run down some of your inventions for some of our readers who might not know just what you've accomplished. You were the first to use multitracking on a pop recording.
LP: Right.
PM: Were you the first to use multitrack recording for any reason?
LP: If anyone else did, it wasn't an eight-track. I invented the eight-track recorder. So yeah, before that there was no multitracking, there was no stereo.
PM: And this was because of a recorder someone brought back after the war?
LP: Right. There was a mono tape machine that people brought back from Luxembourg that used what we called a "paper tape." This was Colonel [Dick] Ranger and Jack Mullins who brought this back and showed it to me. And I got Bing connected with it. So I was in the garage in L.A. and Bing pulled up in front and said "I've got something in the car for you." I didn't know what it was -- I thought it was a load of Kraft cheese. But it was this recorder. He says, "Have fun," and he turned around and left. I started playing around with it, and Mary was doing laundry and I came in yelling, "Mary, I got it! I got it! That stuff we've been trying to do on disc, I know how to do it on tape!" That was 1949, and it was the first sound-on-sound. Multitracking came later -- I just happened to pick eight for the number of tracks.
PM: You invented the first solid-body electric guitar.
LP: Yes.
PM: The first bass guitar.
LP: Yes.
PM: You invented the use of echo.
LP: Yes.
PM: Delay.
LP: Yes.
PM: Reverb.
LP: Yes.
PM: What am I leaving out?
LP: Phasing!
PM: [Laughs.] Sorry for laughing, but man, that's a lot of things you're responsible for.
LP: I laugh about that myself sometimes.
PM: Are you shocked when you think about all this stuff you invented?
LP: Sometimes, but nobody listens. Sometimes I'm listening to the radio and I hear something and I say, "Hey, honey! Did you hear that? I invented that!" But no one's listening. [Laughs.]
PM: I imagine that many guitar players have made the pilgrimage down to the club to try to play with the master. Is there anyone who can come close to sounding like you?
LP: There have been some pretty good attempts at it. The closest is Jeff Beck. He's as good as anybody.

BIOGRAPHY / PROFILE

One of the most important figures in the development of the electric guitar and studio recording techniques. b. 9 June 1915, Wankesha, Wisconsin, USA. Paul began playing guitar and other instruments while still a child. In the early 30s he broadcast on the radio and in 1936 was leading his own trio. In the late 30s and early 40s he worked in New York, where he was featured on Fred Waring's radio show. He made records accompanying singers such as Bing Crosby and the Andrews Sisters. Although his work was in the popular vein, with a strong country leaning, Paul was highly adaptable and frequently sat in with jazz musicians. One of his favourites was Nat "King" Cole, whom he knew in Los Angeles, and the two men appeared together at a Jazz At The Philharmonic concert in 1944, on which Paul played some especially fine blues. Dissatisfied with the sound of the guitars he played, Paul developed his own design for a solid-bodied instrument, which he had made at his own expense. Indeed, the company, Gibson, were so cool towards the concept that they insisted their name should not appear on the instruments they made for him. In later years, when it seemed that half the guitarists in the world were playing Les Paul-style Gibson guitars, the company's attitude was understandably a little different.
Paul's dissatisfaction with existing techniques extended beyond the instrument and into the recording studios. Eager to experiment with a multi-tracking concept, he built a primitive studio in his own home. He produced a succession of superb recordings on which he played multi-track guitar, among them "Lover", "Nola", "Brazil" and "Whispering". During the 50s Paul continued his experimentation with other, similar recordings, while his wife, Mary Ford (b. 7 July 1928, d. 30 September 1977), sang multiple vocal lines. Other major record successes were "The World Is Waiting For The Sunrise", "How High The Moon", which reached number 1, and "Vaya Con Dios", another US number 1 hit. By the early 60s Paul had tired of the recording business and retired. He and Ford were divorced in 1963 and he spent his time inventing and helping to promote Gibson guitars. In the late 70s he returned to the studios for two successful albums of duets with Chet Atkins, but by the end of the decade he had retired again. A television documentary in 1980, The Wizard Of Wankesha, charted his life and revived interest in his career. In 1984 he made a comeback to performing and continued to make sporadic appearances throughout the rest of the decade. He was even performing at the guitar festival in Seville, Spain, in 1992. A remarkably gifted and far-sighted guitarist, Paul's contribution to popular music must inevitably centre upon his pioneering work on multi-tracking and his creation of the solid-bodied guitar. It would be sad, however, if his efforts in these directions wholly concealed his considerable abilities as a performer.

Discography:
with Mary Ford Hawaiian Paradise (Decca 1949)**, Galloping Guitars (Decca 1952)***, with Ford New Sound, Volume 1 & 2 (Capitol 1950)***, Bye, Bye Blues (Capitol 1952)****, with Ford The Hitmakers (Capitol 1955)***, with Ford Les And Mary (Capitol 1955)****, with Ford Time To Dream (Capitol 1957)***, More Of Les (Decca 1958)***, with Ford Lover's Luau (Columbia 1959)***, with Ford Warm And Wonderful (Columbia 1962)***, with Ford Bouquet Of Roses (Columbia 1962)***, with Ford Swingin' South (Columbia 1963)***, Les Paul Now (Decca 1968)***, with Chet Atkins Chester & Lester (RCA Victor 1975)***, with Chet Atkins Guitar Monsters (RCA Victor 1978)****.

Compilations:
with Ford The Hits Of Les And Mary (Capitol 1960)****, with Ford The Fabulous Les Paul And Mary Ford (Columbia 1965)***, with Ford The Very Best Of Les Paul And Mary Ford (1974)****, with Ford The Capitol Years (Capitol 1989)****, The Legend And The Legacy 4-CD box set (Capitol 1991)****, with Mary Ford Blowing The Smoke Away From A Trail Of Hits (Jasmine 2000)**, with Ford The Collection . . Plus (See For Miles 2001)***.

Videography:
He Changed The Music (Excalibur 1990), Living Legend Of The Electric Guitar (BMG 1995).

Bibliography:
Les Paul: An American Original, Mary Alice Shaughnessy. Gibson Les Paul Book: A Complete History Of Les Paul Guitars, Tony Bacon and Paul Day.

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