E
verything in the pages of this magazine can
be traced back to Les Paul. First, consider
that he invented the solid-body electric
guitar. The Gibson model that has carried
his name since the 1950s is one of the most
iconic instruments in rock and has been favoured by
guitar greats including Jimmy Page, Pete Townshend,
Mick Ronson, Slash, Paul Kossoff... the list goes on.
A virtuoso player himself, Paul helped push the
boundaries of the guitar with flash and finesse. In his
hands it became a powerful new instrument, essentially
taking it from a horse-drawn buggy to a sports car. On
a much larger scale, the
whole idea of an album in
the modern sense, as
a studio production rather
than a captured live
performance, begins with
Les Paul. He invented
multi-track recording
(along with effects units
including reverb, echo and
delay), the home studio
and the very notion of the
artist as a producer. It’s not
a stretch to call Les Paul the Thomas Edison of rock. Or as
Slash put it: “Les was a total fuckin’ maverick.”
Paul was also a generous, personable guy who wore his
legend lightly. Right up until his passing at the age of 94 in
2009 he was teaching seminars, gigging regularly, trading
quips and licks with musician friends such as Keith
Richards and Eddie Van Halen, and working on new
inventions in his workshop at home in New Jersey. I was
fortunate enough to spend a few hours with him on two
occasions, and found him to be, for all his
accomplishments, remarkably modest.
That modesty probably had to do with
his Midwestern upbringing. Born Lester
Polsfuss on June 9, 1915 in Waukesha,
Wisconsin, he strummed his first guitar
when he was eight. Shortly after, he
dismantled that guitar. “From the second
I got my first guitar, I noticed things that
could be improved upon,” he told me.
“I corrected the obstacles and made it
easier to play. While other kids were out
ice-skating or playing ball, I was inside,
trying to learn about how sound waves
travel. I recognised I had a gift, but never
did I get where I felt like I was better than
anybody. I was just the kid who was
always taking things apart.”Soaking up the jazz, pop and country sound waves
from the family radio, he soon became an adolescent
one-man band. Performing under the name Rhubarb
Red, he sang, blew harmonica, beat a washtub and played
guitar at a local barbecue stand. By now he’d graduated
from his Sears & Roebuck acoustic to a more professional
Gibson L-5 hollow body. He said: “One night I was
playing, someone said: ‘Your voice is fine, your
harmonica is fine, but your guitar’s not loud enough.’
I went home determined to find an answer.
“First, I took a bit of steel railroad track and strung
a string along it,” he continued. “Underneath I put the
receiver part of the
telephone. I hooked it up
to the radio, and it worked.
I went running to my
mother and said: ‘I found it!
She said: ‘That’ll be the day
you see a cowboy on
a horse playing a piece of
railroad track!’ So that idea
went right out the window.
Next I tried a four-by-four
plank of wood with a string
stretched on it. That was the
very first time I ever made a solid body guitar. Everything
in the years after was refining that idea, or making a better
block of wood with a string on it.”
With his mother’s blessing, Les dropped out of high
school to pursue music. By then he was performing on
the radio on weekends in St. Louis. A year later he moved
to Chicago and made his first professional recordings,
dropping Rhubarb Red and shortening his birth name to
Les Paul. Moving on to New York, he and his trio wonVisionary, inventor, guitar wizard and inspiration to generations
of musicians, Les Paul didn’t only invent the electric guitar, he
also drew the blueprint for contemporary music as we know it.
Words: Bill DeMainMA
IN:^
REX
/SH
UTT
ERS
TOC
K;^ R
IGH
T:^ G
ETT
Y
Les Paul and Slash
performing at the House Of
Blues in Chicago in 1996.“You don’t have to play
a lot of notes, you just
have to play the right
notes. And that tells
the whole story.”
Les Paul
CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM 51