VOLUME 44

Doug Keeley

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The Wizard from Waukesha

His innovative ideas and experimentation were critical to the development of the solid-body electric guitar... the core of the "sound of rock and roll".

He developed many of the key effects, techniques and equipment that have become standard in the recording industry today.

And as a musician, he was not simply talented, but also wildly experimental... with playful trills, chord sequences and fretting techniques that made him unique.


Lester William Polfuss was born on June 9, 1915, in Waukesha, Wisconsin. By the age of 10 he had become proficient at banjo, guitar and harmonica, and at only 13 he was already earning a living with a country band playing roadhouses and bars, sometimes under the stage name "Rhubarb Red".




He fell in love with jazz, though, formed the Les Paul trio, and moved to New York City, where he backed singers like Bing Crosby and the Andrews Sisters and eventually becoming a musical regular on NBC. He became very successful, known for his unique, bouncy style and lightning-fast runs up and down the fretboard.

Les faced the challenge all guitar players at the time did - how to be heard over the horns (and the audience!). At this time, the only options available to amplify guitars were hollow-body style (basically an acoustic guitar with a pickup), which produced feedback if turned up too loud.

Les decided that he could solve the problem if he built the guitar with a solid body instead of hollow. So, in 1941, he built a guitar from a 4x4" wooden log mounted with strings, a pickup and a plug. Then, "just to make it look a bit more like a guitar", he cut an acoustic guitar body in half and screwed the top and bottom of his "log".

The resulting instrument looked like Frankenstein's monster, but it could sustain a single note to sound like a horn, and it didn't feed back.

Les took it to the Gibson Guitar Company and tried to convince them to manufacture a prototype. They looked at what he had built and laughed. This wasn't an instrument - it was a scrap heap with a broom handle! They weren't putting the Gibson name on something like that!

Les was undeterred and continued tinkering and improving his instrument. Then in 1949 Gibson's rival, Fender, brought out two solid-body electric guitars, and Gibson decided they needed a solid-body in their own line-up... and they wanted the now famous Les Paul's name on it.

The resulting guitar, the Les Paul Standard, began production in 1952 and remains essentially unchanged today. After almost 60 years it is still Gibson's top selling electric... and an icon of rock history, favored by many of the greats including Jimmy Page (Led Zep), Billy Joe Armstrong (Green Day) and U2's The Edge.

To be honest, Les Paul himself didn't have much input into the final design of the guitar that bears his name; Gibson can take full credit for that part of the magic. But he clearly showed Gibson where their thinking needed to go, and what the instrument could do if they took it far enough.

But Les Paul's genius wasn't limited to the instrument itself. Not by a long shot.

He was one of the earliest and most brilliant pioneers in the use of multi-track recording, echo and delay effects. In fact, it's fair to say that the way that music is recorded today owes a tremendous and fundamental debt to his innovations.

He was the first musician to really see the real possibility of multi-track recording because it allowed him to basically accompany himself - recording a track and then playing along to it to create additional tracks.

In 1948, he released a recording ("Brazil") that had begun as an experiment in his garage, featuring Les playing no less than eight different guitar parts! This was the first time that multi-tracking had been used to create a recording like this. Many years later, with Sergeant Pepper, The Beatles took what Les Paul started to a whole new level, and music has never been the same since.

That same year as this breakthrough recording, Les was critically injured in an automobile accident. Doctors told him that his right elbow would have to be fused into a single position, so he pleaded with them to set it at such an angle that he could still play the guitar. It stayed in that position for the rest of his life.

Throughout the 50's, Les and his musical partner (and wife) Mary Ford had a series of highly successful radio and TV shows and an impressive list of song hits, including "Tennessee Waltz", "How High the Moon", "Bye Bye Blues", and "I'm Sitting on Top of the World,".

He retired from performing during the 60's to focus on recording innovations, but by the mid-80's had returned to the stage.


He was still a recognized musical force in his 90's, winning a Grammy in 2006 for the live recording called "Les Paul & Friends" ... a special concert in which he was joined some of rock's best-known musicians, paying tribute to the master. To the end, Les Paul never stopped innovating.



He changed the guitar - and music - forever. Popular music, especially rock, would not be what it is today without his innovative solid body guitar.

He revolutionized the way music is made and recorded. Multi-tracking. Delay & Echo. High-performance pickups. The first 8-track recording studio. Live audio looping. The technical innovations Les developed, with no electronics training whatsoever, are the foundations of today's music recording industry.

But what I love most about Les Paul is this: he started playing to live audiences at age 13. Just a few months ago, at the age of 93, he was still playing a weekly gig at a New York jazz club. And every show was packed.

I had the pleasure of seeing him live at the NYC club in the late 90s, and was amazed to see kids 75 years younger than him clamoring for his autograph - often getting him to carve it into the back of their own Les Paul.

Les Paul transcended style and multiple generations in a way that very few people ever have in any walk of life.
To still be cool at 93 - now that's something to strive for!

 

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