If you love music, and it’s likely you do if you’re reading this, you owe Les Paul a debt of gratitude. He has had an influence on musical instruments, style, recording and playback that dates back to the 1930’s, and his innovations have literally had a revolutionary effect on every type of recorded music we hear.
Les Paul, born Lester William Polsfuss, was born on June 9, 1915, to George and Evelyn (Stutz) Polsfuss, in Waukesha, Wisconsin. He expressed an early interest in music, to his mother’s great delight, and in tinkering with technology. At the age of eight, Les expressed fascination in a harmonica that a ditch digger was playing during his lunch break. When he said he couldn’t play, the man gave the harmonica to young Lester, and told him, “Son, you hang onto that mouth organ, and pretty soon you’ll have it licked! Don’t say you can’t till you prove you can’t.” Les would later acknowledge that that last sentence was “…the wisest counsel I was ever to have.” By the age of nine, he had begun playing the harmonica, on street corners and in local PTA contests. He also began experimenting with the scrolls of his mother’s player piano, punching extra holes into them in order to add musical parts. Thus began his contemplation of what would later become known as “sound on sound.” Though he was taking piano lessons, his teacher did not consider him a good student, and told his parents to save their money. The truth was, he had heard a guitar on a crystal radio, and he was intrigued to the point of distraction.
A major influence, then, in Les Paul’s life, was radio. Beyond the obvious musical influences, there was the obsession with the electronics and their potential. At the age of nine, he had built his first crystal radio, and he used to scan the dial looking for stations and new music. Some time later, his friend, Claude Schultz, loaned Les his carved wood Majestic radio, intending that they would listen to it together. Les scrounged around for old radio equipment, and spent time at a local radio station, soaking up what he could from their technicians. Before long, he had modified the radio and created his own pirate radio station, audible only to a few homes in the neighborhood, but providing Paul with a forum in which to practice announcing and speaking on the radio. Shortly thereafter, Les fabricated his first disc-cutting lathe, using the flywheel of a Cadillac and belts from a dental drill.
Les and Evelyn regularly went to hear a local favorite guitarist named “Pie Plant Pete,” who also did a local radio comedy on Chicago’s WLS. Les had the opportunity to meet the musician, who understood how intense the boy’s interest was in music, so he wrote out some guitar lessons for Les to study. When his interest remained strong, Les used money from his paper route to purchase a guitar of his own through the Sears and Roebuck catalog, at a cost of $3.95. Before long, he was playing locally with Pie Plant Pete. Since Les had red hair and freckles, his mother dubbed him “Red Hot Red,” and that was the name under which he began his career in music. He practiced guitar in all of his spare time, and developed a harmonica bracket that he could flip with his chin to get to another note, thus enabling him to more easily play guitar and harmonica at the same time. Since his performances were often outside, or in noisy environments, he began looking for a way to amplify his sound. One day, he experimented with wedging a phonograph needle into the wood of his acoustic guitar near the bridge, and then he plugged it into his radio to make an amplifier. He had just invented his first electric guitar, and he was rewarded when his tips tripled.
At the age of 17, Paul was invited to join a regional country band called Rube Tronson’s Cowboys. Shortly thereafter, he sang with Joe Wolverton, with whom he later formed the acoustic duet called Sunny Joe and Rhubarb Red. The two played together until 1933. They attended the World’s Fair, after which Paul stayed on in Chicago to work at WJJD, performing country music in the morning show as Rhubarb Red, and playing Django Reinhardt and Eddie Lang-styled jazz at night under the name of Les Paul. It was around this time that he began experimenting with the idea of a solid body electric guitar. His theory was that the solid body would cause the pickups and the body to remain still, so the strings would vibrate longer, thereby increasing sustain. A couple of years later, Rhubarb Red retired, and Les Paul went on to form a jazz trio with Jim Atkins and Ernie Newton. Les, his wife Virginia, and the other members of the trio moved to New York, and were regulars on Fred Waring’s radio show. At night, he went to Harlem to jam with great jazz performers, such as Art Tatum and Roy Eldridge. And in his spare time, if you can imagine he had any, he managed to convince the powers-that-be at the Epiphone factory on 14th Street to help him build the prototype of his solid-body electric guitar. The end result was dubbed “The Log,” and it consisted of a four-by-four inch chunk of wood, two pick-ups, an Epiphone neck, and two sides, which were bolted on, purely for the aesthetics. Paul was pleased with the resulting sustain, saying, “You could go out and eat and come back and the note would still be sounding.” An additional benefit to his design was that it helped to eliminate feedback, since the acoustic body no longer resonated. He had finally found the sound he had been looking for.
Les and his family moved to Los Angeles in 1942, hoping to team up with Bing Crosby. While there, he became friends with Leo Fender, with whom he shared an interest in guitar building. In the mid-1940’s, Paul approached Gibson with his invention, but they were uninterested, calling it “…a broomstick with a pickup on it.” However, when Fender introduced the Broadcaster, Gibson came looking for Les Paul. The collaboration produced a more elegant and stylish instrument, with the signature carved-top contours that defined Gibson guitars. Les Paul’s name was attached to the guitar, and his name went from being a pronoun to a noun: the Les Paul was born.
By 1945, Paul was working with Bing Crosby, and their recording of “It’s Been A Long, Long time” became a No. 1 hit. Crosby was an avid supporter of Paul’s inventive musical efforts, and had encouraged him to build a home studio. By this time, he was already using multiple discs to record the various tracks of his songs, and he did many of his own masters for record companies. He would record one part on one wax disc, then record the next part by playing along with the first wax disc. He would repeat this process until he had all of the tracks he desired. In the process, he recorded different tracks at different speeds and with delay. In this way, he developed his signature sound. In 1947, Capitol Records released “Lover,” which featured Paul playing eight different parts on electric guitar, and marked the first time multi-tracking had been used in a recording.
In 1945, Les met Colleen Summers, whom Paul describes as “a guitar hippie, and she followed me around from city to city.” The two began courting, and she eventually became his singer. Les gave her the stage name Mary Ford, and the two went on to become iconic figures. On New Year’s Eve in 1949, the couple married. In the 1950’s they had hit records such as “Mockin’ Bird Hill” and “Vaya Con Dios.” As well, they had a TV show called “The Les Paul and Mary Ford at Home Show,” which aired from 1953-1960. Many of the couple’s recordings employed overdubbing, which was impossible prior to Paul’s technology.
In 1948, Les and Mary were involved in a car accident on Route 66, outside Oklahoma City. When their car slipped on ice, it crashed through a guardrail and dropped 20 feet into a frozen creek bed. Ford’s pelvis was broken, and Paul’s arm was shattered in three places. The consensus among his doctors was that Les Paul would never play guitar again, and there was disagreement with respect to whether or not to amputate his arm. In the end, bone was grafted from his leg to rebuild his arm, and a steel plate was used to repair his elbow, which was set at a 90-degree angle, thumb pointed in, with the hopes that he would play again. His hopes were realized, and then some.
In creating a solid body electric guitar, Les Paul revolutionized popular music, because it made the guitar loud enough to make it the lead instrument in a band. He certainly didn’t stop there, though. After WWII, a captured German Magnetophon, which was a magnetic tape recorder, was brought to the U.S. by a GI named John Mullin. Because of customs requirements, he had to disassemble the machines in to make them small enough to bring home. After putting them back together, he demonstrated them at the Institute of Radio Engineers in San Francisco. The Ampex Corporation took an immediate interest in them and began producing their own version. The new technology was invaluable to the recording industry because it was erasable and could be used for playback immediately. When Bing Crosby brought Les Paul the second machine that Ampex produced, he immediately saw the potential it possessed. Paul developed a technology, later known as “Sel-Sync,” in which a previously recorded track could be played back at the same time that a new track was recorded. Over a three-year period, from 1953 to 1956, he collaborated with Ampex to develop the first eight-track tape recorder. In so doing, modern multi-track recording was born, thus making Les Paul responsible for the standard procedure in recording multiple voices and instruments in music today.
Les Paul’s music and inventions afforded him prosperity and fame, but the toll of touring and recording took a toll on his family. Les Paul and Mary Ford divorced in 1964. By this time, too, Paul’s own technology had forced him out of the limelight by making Rock ‘N Roll a viable musical form. To compound that, Paul started having health problems. An arm injury required surgery, and arthritis started working its way into his fingers. In 1969, a friend cuffed him on the ear and inadvertently broke his right eardrum, which resulted in some permanent hearing loss. In the late 1960’s, Les Paul went into semi-retirement and focused on inventing. One of the inventions to come out of this period was the Paulverizer, a remote control device for a tape recorder that plugs into the guitar, allowing the player to control numerous effects from his instrument. Many of the effects pedals that guitarists use today can be credited to Les Paul.
In 1974, Les Paul went back to professional playing, while serving as the musical director for the television show, “Happy Days.” In a single day, he recorded an album with Chet Atkins, in 1977, called “Chester and Lester.” In 1979, a quintuple coronary bypass precipitated another five-year break from performing. In an interview with Dave Dianen, Les recalled, “The doctor called me into his office. He said, ‘I want you to promise me two things. One, I want you to be my friend, and two, I want you to work.” When Paul replied in confusion, “I thought that’s what got me in here,” his doctor said, “Hard work never hurt nobody. I want you to promise me you’ll go back to the clubs.” Paul liked nothing more than playing in a small club, so he played Monday nights at Fat Tuesday’s in New York from 1984-1995. When his arthritis continued to plague him, he stopped playing again. He attempted to take medication to control the arthritis, but it gave him an ulcer. So he made the conscious decision to allow the arthritis to progress, and he altered his playing style in response. All of the fingers on his right hand are frozen below the joint where the fingers connect to the hand. And he still plays Monday night gigs, now at the Iridium in New York, across from Lincoln Center, with his trio. Afterward, he holds court, signing autographs, posing for photos with fans, ranging in age from their early 20’s on up, and he stays until everyone has their moment.
This fall, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame will pay tribute to the “father of the electric guitar” at the annual American Music Masters series. A tribute concert is scheduled for November 15 at Cleveland’s State Theater. Says Terry Stewart, Rock Hall President and CEO, “You have an inductee who in some ways maybe has had one of the biggest influences of all our inductees with the creation of his solid-body guitar, overdubbing…not to mention his musical styling and his ability to play. He’s become an idol and an icon to people in the rock world, as well as people in jazz and popular music.”
At 93, Les Paul is truly a living legend. Guitar greats such as Eric Clapton, Slash, Jimmy Page, Eddie Van Halen, Phil Keaggy, Duane Allman, and more have openly expressed their indebtedness to Paul’s inventions and musical style. He was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1977, into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1988, and into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 2005. The Smithsonian Institution dedicated a wing of their American Music Exhibit to Les Paul, and he is the recipient of numerous Grammy Awards. He remains a vital influence in the music and recording industry, and his contributions to the music we all enjoy are immeasurable.
