Les Paul

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Lester William Polsfuss (June 9, 1915 – August 12, 2009), known as Les Paul, was an American jazz, country, and blues guitarist, songwriter, luthier, and inventor.

He was one of the pioneers of the solid-body electric guitar, and his techniques served as inspiration for the Gibson Les Paul.

Paul taught himself how to play guitar, and while he is mainly known for jazz and popular music, he had an early career in country music.

He is credited with many recording innovations.

Although he was not the first to use the technique, his early experiments with overdubbing (also known as sound on sound), delay effects such as tape delay, phasing effects and multitrack recording were among the first to attract widespread attention.His innovative talents extended into his playing style, including licks, trills, chording sequences, fretting techniques and timing, which set him apart from his contemporaries and inspired many guitarists of the present day.

He recorded with his wife, the singer and guitarist Mary Ford, in the 1950s, and they sold millions of records. Among his many honors, Paul is one of a handful of artists with a permanent, stand-alone exhibit in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

He is prominently named by the music museum on its website as an "architect" and a "key inductee" with Sam Phillips and Alan Freed.

Les Paul is the only person to be included in both the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the National Inventors Hall of Fame.

Early life

Paul was born Lester William Polsfuss in Waukesha, Wisconsin, to George and Evelyn (Stutz) Polsfuss, both of German ancestry. His only sibling, Ralph, was seven years older. Paul's mother was related to the founders of Milwaukee's Valentin Blatz Brewing Company and the makers of the Stutz automobile. His parents divorced when he was a child. His mother simplified their Prussian family name first to Polfuss, then to Polfus, although Les Paul never legally changed his name. Before taking the stage name Les Paul, he performed as Red Hot Red and Rhubarb Red.

At the age of eight, Paul began playing the harmonica. After learning the piano, he switched to the guitar. During this time he invented a neck-worn harmonica holder, which allowed him to play both sides of the harmonica hands-free while accompanying himself on the guitar. It is still manufactured using his basic design. By age thirteen, Paul was performing semi-professionally as a country-music singer, guitarist, and harmonica player. While playing at Waukesha area drive-ins and roadhouses, Paul began his first experiment with sound. Wanting to make his acoustic guitar heard by more people at the local venues, he wired a phonograph needle to his guitar and connected it to a radio speaker. As a teen Paul experimented with sustain by using a 2-foot piece of rail from a nearby train line. At age seventeen, Paul played with Rube Tronson's Texas Cowboys, and soon after he dropped out of high school to team up with Sunny Joe Wolverton's Radio Band in St. Louis, Missouri, on KMOX.

Personal life

Les Paul married Virginia Webb in 1937. They had two children, Les Paul Jr. (Rusty) (1941–2015), and Gene (1944), who was named after actor-songwriter Gene Lockhart.

After getting divorced in 1949, Paul married Mary Ford (born Iris Colleen Summers). The best man and matron of honor were the parents of guitarist Steve Miller, whose family was from Milwaukee. Paul was Miller's godfather and his first guitar teacher. Ford gave birth to their first child on November 30, 1954, but the girl was born prematurely and died when she was four days old. They adopted a girl, Colleen, in 1958, and their son, Robert (Bobby), was born the following year. Paul and Ford divorced in December 1964.

Paul and Ford maintained a house in Mahwah, New Jersey, and after their divorce Ford lived there until her death in 1977.

In 1995, Paul established the Les Paul Foundation, which was designed to remain dormant until his death. The Les Paul Foundation inspires innovative and creative thinking by sharing the legacy of Les Paul through support of music education, recording, innovation, and medical research related to hearing. The Foundation established the Les Paul Innovation Award in 1991 and the Les Paul Spirit Award in 2016.

On August 12, 2009, Paul died of complications from pneumonia at White Plains Hospital in White Plains, New York. After hearing about his death, many musicians commented on his importance. Slash called him "vibrant and full of positive energy", while Richie Sambora called him a "revolutionary in the music business". The Edge said, "His legacy as a musician and inventor will live on and his influence on rock and roll will never be forgotten." On August 21, 2009, he was buried in Prairie Home Cemetery, Waukesha, Wisconsin.

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Career

Paul and Wolverton first arrived in Chicago in 1934, where they continued to perform country music on radio station WBBM and at the 1934 Chicago World's Fair. Paul learned jazz from Chicago's Southside while in Chicago. He appeared on radio for country music as Rhubarb Red. He was Les Paul, playing jazz at night. He met pianist Art Tatum, whose appearance inspired him to play piano rather than playing jazz on the piano. In 1936, his first two records were released, and Paul's hillbilly alter ego "Rhubarb Red" was credited to his humble appearance. He also served as an accompanist for other bands under Decca's control. During this period, he began adding new sounds and even adopted Les Paul's stage name.

Paul's guitar style was heavily influenced by Django Reinhardt's music, which he adored greatly. Following World War II, Paul sought out and made acquaintances with Reinhardt. When Reinhardt died in 1953, Paul paid for a portion of the funeral's cost. One of Paul's most prized possessions was a Selmer acoustic guitar given to him by Reinhardt's widow.

Paul formed a trio in 1937 with rhythm guitarist Jim Atkins (older half-brother of guitarist Chet Atkins) and bassist/percussionist Ernie "Darius" Newton. They left Chicago for New York in 1938, landing a prominent spot on Fred Waring's radio show. Chet Atkins revealed later that his brother, who was home on a family visit, gifted him with a much-priced Gibson archtop guitar that Les Paul had left for Jim. Chet recalled that it was the first high-quality machine he had ever owned.

Paul nearly succumbed to electrocution after jamming in his apartment basement in 1941. He moved to Chicago where he spent two years of recovery. In 1943, he travelled to Hollywood, where he appeared on radio and formed a new trio.

In 1943, he was sent to the United States Army as a member of the Armed Forces Radio Network, supporting artists such as Bing Crosby and the Andrews Sisters, as well as performing in his own right.

In the inaugural Jazz at the Philharmonic concert in Los Angeles, California, on July 2, 1944, Paul Moore, as a last-minute replacement for Oscar Moore, performed with Nat King Cole and other artists. His solo on "Body and Soul" is a display of his admiration for and mockery of Django Reinhardt, as well as his creation of original lines.

Paul's trio appeared on Bing Crosby's radio show last year. Paul's recordings were sponsored by Crosby. They performed together many times, including "It's Been a Long Time," which was a No. 0 on the charts. In 1945, the first one was struck. In the 1940s, Paul made several albums for Decca. During a tour in 1946, the Andrews Sisters recruited his son to open for them. Paul's fingers while playing guitar, according to their boss, Lou Levy, it was like watching a train go by. Vic Schoen, the company's conductor, maintained that his playing was always original. "He'd tune into the passages we were singing and lightly play the melody, often in harmony," Maxine Andrews said. We'd sing these fancy licks and he'd stay up with us note for note in exactly the same way as we did, with almost every voice contributing our fourth. But he never once pulled our attention away from what we were doing. He did everything he could to make us sound better. He made music that resembled the Andrews Sisters in the 1950s, when he recorded Mary Ford's vocals on several tracks.

Paul shattered his right arm and elbow as a result of several injuries in a near-fatal automobile accident on a icy Highway 66 west of Davenport, Oklahoma, in January 1948. Mary Ford was driving the Buick convertible, which fell off the side of a railroad overpass and into a ravine. After visiting relatives, they were moving from Wisconsin to Los Angeles. Doctors at Wesley Hospital in Oklahoma City told Paul that they were unable to repair his elbow. They had other options, amputation. Paul was flown to Los Angeles, where his arm was set at an angle—just under 90 degrees—allowing him to cradle and pick the guitar. It took him almost a year and a half to recover.

Les Paul's experiments with the railway rail in 1940 revived his experiments. This time, he created "The Log," a one-off solid-body electric guitar with a bridge, neck, strings, and hand-wound pickup. Paul at Epiphone Guitar Factory built the Log after-hours, and it is one of the first solid-body electric guitars ever built. He linked the body of an Epiphone hollow-body guitar sawn in the middle with The Log in the middle for the sake of appearance. This solved his two biggest issues: feedback, as the acoustic body no longer resonated with the increased sound and sustain, as the string's energy was not dissipated in producing sound through the guitar body. These instruments were always evolving and updated over the years, and Paul continued to use them in his music long after the production of his eponymous Gibson model.

In 1941, Paul approached Gibson Guitar Corporation with the prospect of a solid-body electric guitar, but Gibson showed no enthusiasm until Fender began selling Esquire and Broadcaster guitars (the Broadcaster was renamed the Telecaster in 1952).

Ted McCarty of Gibson was the chief designer of the guitar, which was based on Paul's plans and later dubbed the Gibson Les Paul. Gibson also entered into a Les Paul promotional and financial contract, owing to his royalty on sales. In 1952, the guitar went on auction. Paul continued to make design suggestions.

The original Les Paul model had dropped in 1960, so a more modernistic version was introduced (today called the SG), but then with the Les Paul name. Paul was dissatisfied with Gibson's latest guitar, despite the new appearance and serious issues with the body and neck. Paul stopped promoting and using Gibson guitars from 1964 to 1966, which was about the time his divorce was complete, due to a pending divorce from Mary Ford.

Paul continued to push technological advancements, but they weren't always fruitful commercially. Paul was issued U.S. Patent 3,018,680 for a pickup in which the coil was physically attached to the strings. He introduced an aluminum guitar with the tuning knobs below the bridge in the mid-1940s. It was the first "headless" guitar, as it had no headstock and string attachments were at the nut. Paul's guitar was so sensitive to the heat from stage lights that it would not keep time. However, he did a few of his hit songs with it. Others, including Ned Steinberger, developed this style.

Gibson's Epiphone brand produces a less expensive version of the Les Paul guitar.

When Paul first started playing with sound in elementary school, he tried punched holes in the piano roll for his mother's child piano. His mother congratulated him on a song she had heard on the radio in 1946, but not Paul. Paul was inspired by this experience to work in his Hollywood garage recording studio, creating his own style, his New Sound. In 1948, Paul shocked the music world by his debut with his New Sound.

Paul recorded several songs with Bing Crosby, most notably "It's Been a Long Time," which was a number-one hit in 1945.

After a recording session, Bing Crosby suggested that Paul build a recording studio so he could make the sound he wanted. On North Curson Street in Hollywood, Paul opened his studio in the garage of his house. Many vocalists and musicians wanted the benefit of his experience. His experiments included microphone placement, track speed, and recording overdubs. These techniques resulted in a clarity that had never been present in this sort of multitrack recording. People began to think of his recording methods as instruments, whether you're looking for a guitar, bass, or drums.

When playing back at normal speed for the master, Capitol Records released "Lover (When You're Near Me)", on which Paul performed eight different parts on electric guitar, some of which were recorded at half speed, hence "double-fast." This was the first time he had used multitracking in a recording. "Lover" and "Brazil" were two of his early multitrack recordings, which included "Lover" and "Brazil" on acetate disc. He turned a track onto a disc, and then filmed himself playing another role with the first. As he did later, he made the multitrack record with overlaid tracks rather than parallel ones. By the time he had a success, he had discarded more than five hundred recording discs.

Using the flywheel from a Cadillac, a dental belt, and other items from his father's car repair shop, he had designed a disc-cutter assembly as a youth. Years later in his Hollywood garage, he used the acetate disc layout to capture parts at various speeds and with delay, resulting in his signature sound of echoes and birdsong-like guitar riffs.

In 1949, Crosby gifted Paul with one of the first Ampex Model 200A reel to reel tape recorders. Paul made sound on sound recording by inserting an additional playback head, which was not present on the conventional erase/record/playback heads. This enabled Paul to play along with a previously released track, both of which were mixed into a new one. The Ampex was a monophonic tape recorder with just one track along the entire width of a quarter-inch tape, and, as a result of the fact that the original recording was permanently replaced with the new, mixed recording, it was "destructive." He eventually improved this game by using a tape machine to play back the original recording and a second to record the joint track. The original recording was saved on this site.

Paul developed the flange effect in 1952, where a sound phase changes in and out in harmonic tone. On his album "Mammy's Boogie," the first example of this can be heard.

Paul was inspired by film recordings' discovery to create the stacking of eight tape recorders. He collaborated with Ross Snyder on the build of Ampex's first eight-track recording deck for his home studio. Rein Narma built him a custom 8-channel mixing console. In-line equalization and vibrato effects were present in the mixing board. He called the recorder "The Octopus" and "The Monster" in his mixing console. Comedian W. C. Fields, who was the first person to hear Paul perform his multi-tracked guitar experiments, inspired the word "octopus." Les recalled, "He came to my garage to make a little record (in 1946). "I played him the acetate of 'Lover' that I'd made." "My boy, you look like an octopus," he said as he heard it.

Paul met country-western singer Iris Colleen Summers in the summer of 1945. Rhubarb Red and The Ozark Apple Knockers with Mary Lou began working together on Paul's radio show. Mary Ford, a stage name, was suggested by Paul later in the evening. In 1949, the two married in Milwaukee.

"How High The Moon," "Bye Blues," "Song in Blue," "Don'cha Hear Them Bells," "The World Is Waiting for the Sunrise" and "Vaya Con Dios were among their hits. Ford harmonized with herself and Paul played multiple layers of guitars on multiple tracks, and Paul played multiple layers of guitars.

The singer's mouth was less than six inches (15 cm) away from the singer's mouth when they used the recording technique known as close miking. This gives a more natural, less reverberant sound than when a singer is 1 foot (30 cm) or more away from the microphone. When using a pressure-gradient (uni- or bidirectional) microphone, it emphasizes low-frequency sounds in the voice, giving a more relaxed appearance as the performer isn't working as hard as hard. The result is a performance style that deviated from the unamplified theater style of the 1930s and 1940s musical comedies.

They also performed semi-comic routines in the music hall style, with Mary imitating whatever line Les decided to improvise.

In 1950, Paul hosted The Les Paul Show on NBC Radio, starring his trio (himself, Ford, and rhythm player Eddie Stapleton) and his electronics. The show was produced live from their home and with light humor between Paul and Ford, some of which had already been on record, some of which had never been popular on radio, and some of which included re-interpretations of such jazz and pop favorites as "In the Mood," "Brazil," and "Tiger Rag." Many of these shows are still on display and are available from various sources.

Since Paul used magnetic tape, he could go on tour with his recording equipment, recording episodes for his fifteen-minute radio show in a hotel room.

The show premiered on television a few years ago with the same theme tune, but with "Vivaya Con Dios" as the theme tune, the trio was removed and retitled "Les Paul & Mary Ford at Home. It was sponsored by Warner-Lambert's Listerine mouthwash during 1954–1955, and then it was syndicated until 1960. The five-minute film, which featured only one or two songs, aired five times a week, and was used as a brief interlude or fill-in for programming schedules. Since Paul created the entire show himself, including audio and video, he maintained the original recordings and was in the process of restoring them to new quality standards until his death.

Paul introduced the fictional "Les Paulverizer" unit, which multiplies anything fed into it, such as a guitar note or a voice, during his radio shows. It was Paul's way of showing how his single guitar could be expanded to become a group of guitars. With Ford multiplying herself and her vacuum cleaner with it, she could complete the household duties faster. Later, Paul made a real Les Paulverizer that he attached to his guitar. Paul was able to access pre-recorded layers of songs during live performances so he could imitate his recording on stage.

Paul went into semi-retirement in 1965, although he did return to his studio occasionally. After she became sick of touring, he and Ford divorced at the end of 1964. Les Paul Now (1968), one of Paul's most famous recordings from then to the mid-1970s, released an album on which he reimagined some of his earlier hits. Paul performed the first guitar piece, and George Barnes arranged the additional tracks while Paul engineered in his home studio. Chester and Lester (1976) and Guitar Monsters (1978), both for RCA Victor, feature a blend of jazz and country improvisation, backed by some of Nashville's most popular studio players.

For RCA, Paul produced the album Poe Through the Glass Prism in 1969. The album featured songs based on Edgar Allan Poe's writings for the northeast Pennsylvania band The Glass Prism. According to Billboard's Hot 100, the album "The Raven" was released.

With a big pick that was easier to hold in his arthritic hand, Paul continued to perform at slower speeds as years went on. Les Paul & Friends: American Made World Played, a 90-year-old boy, received two Grammy Awards at the 48th Annual Grammy Awards for his album Les Paul & Friends: American Made World Played in 2006. He appeared every Monday night at the Iridium Jazz Club in Manhattan, with guitarist Lou Pallo, bassist Paul Nowinski (and later, Nicki Parrott), and guitarist Frank Vignola, and pianist John Colianni. At Fat Tuesdays, Paul, Pallo, and Nowinski all performed.

Richard Stein, the composer, sued Paul for plagiarism, alleging that Paul's "Johnny (is the Boy for Me)" was based on Stein's 1937 hit "Sanie cu zurgălăi" (Romanian for "Sleigh with Bells"). The Romanian Musical Performing and Mechanical Rights Society initiated a counter version of "Johnny" by Belgian musical group Vaya Con Dios in 2000, which prompted a new intervention by the Romanian Musical Performing and Mechanical Rights Society.

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