Les Paul
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Background information

Birth name: Lester William Polsfuss
Also known as: Wizard of Waukesha, Red Hot Red, Rhubarb Red
Born: June 9, 1915 Waukesha, Wisconsin, United States
Genres: Jazz, Pop
Occupations: Musician, Songwriter, Inventor
Instruments: Guitar, Banjo, Harmonica
Years active: 1928 - Present
Notable instrument: Gibson Les Paul

Les Paul (born Lester William Polsfuss on June 9, 1915) is an American jazz guitarist and inventor. He is a pioneer in the development of the solid body electric guitar which ''made the sound of rock and roll possible.'' His many recording innovations include overdubbing, delay effects such as ''sound on sound'' and tape delay, phasing effects and multitrack recording. In 2003, he was named the 46th best guitarist of all time by Rolling Stone although many seasoned rock artists feel he should have been rated much higher because of his longevity and guitar achievements and innovations.

Biography

He was born in Waukesha, Wisconsin to George and Evelyn Polfuss. His birth name was first simplified by his mother to Polfuss before he took his stage name of Les Paul. He also used the nickname Red Hot Red. Paul first became interested in music at the age of eight, when he began playing the harmonica. After an attempt at learning to play the banjo, he began to play the guitar. But before he played guitar he played piano. By 13, Paul was performing semi professionally as a country music guitarist. At the age of 17, Paul played with Rube Tronson's Cowboys. Soon after, he dropped out of high school to join Wolverton's Radio Band in St. Louis, Missouri on KMOX. But his fame almost came to an end when he was hurt in a near fatal car accident. After the crash, doctors told Paul that they'd have to set his arm such that he would not be able to bend it again. He had them position his arm at a ninety degree angle so he could still play guitar. In the 1930s, Paul worked in Chicago in radio, where he performed jazz music. Paul's first two records were released in 1936. One was credited to Rhubarb Red, Paul's hillbilly alter ego, and the other was as an accompanist for blues artist Georgia White.

Electric guitar innovations

Paul was dissatisfied with the electric guitars that were sold in the mid 1930s and began experimenting with a few designs of his own. Famously, he created ''The Log,'' which was nothing more than a length of common 4' by 4' fence post with bridge, guitar neck, and pickup attached. For the sake of appearance, he attached the body of an Epiphone hollow body guitar, sawn lengthwise with The Log in the middle. This solved his two main problems: feedback, as the acoustic body no longer resonated with the amplified sound, and sustain, as the energy of the strings was not dissipated in generating sound through the guitar body.

The Les Paul Trio

In 1938, Paul moved to New York and landed a featured spot with Fred Waring's Pennsylvanians radio show. Paul moved to Hollywood in 1943, where he formed a new trio. As a last minute replacement for Oscar Moore, Paul played with Nat King Cole and other artists in the inaugural Jazz at the Philharmonic concert in Los Angeles on July 2, 1944. Also that year, Paul's trio appeared on Bing Crosby's radio show. Crosby went on to sponsor Paul's recording experiments. The two also recorded together several times, including a 1945 number one hit, ''It's Been A Long, Long Time.'' In addition to backing Crosby and artists like The Andrews Sisters, Paul's trio also recorded a few albums of their own on the Decca label in the late 1940s.

Les Paul and ''the Les Paul''

In 1941, Paul designed and built one of the first solid body electric guitars (though Leo Fender also independently created his own solid body electric guitar around the same time, and Adolph Rickenbacher had marketed a solid body guitar in the 1930s). This prototype guitar is known as ''The Log'' because the solid core is a pine block whose width and depth are a little more than the width of the fretboard. Gibson Guitar Corporation designed a guitar incorporating Paul's suggestions in the early fifties, and presented it to him to try. He was impressed enough to sign a contract for what became the ''Les Paul'' model (originally only in a ''gold top'' version), and agreed never to be seen playing in public, or be photographed with, anything other than a Gibson guitar. That persisted until 1961, when Gibson changed the design without Paul's knowledge. He said he first saw the ''new'' Gibson Les Paul in a music store window, and disliked it. Though his contract required him to pose with the guitar, he said it was not ''his'' instrument, and asked Gibson to remove his name from the headstock. Gibson renamed the guitar the ''SG'', and it also became one of the company's best sellers. It has been said that Les had ended his endorsement contract with Gibson because he was going through a divorce, and didn't want his wife to get all of his endorsement money. Later, Paul resumed his relationship with Gibson, and endorses the instrument even today (though his personal Gibson Les Pauls are much modified by him, Paul always uses his own self wound pickups on his guitars). To this day, the Gibson Les Paul guitar is used all over the world, by both novice and professional guitarists. Also designed was the Epiphone Les Paul, with the same outer look, and much cheaper.

Multitrack recording innovations

In 1947, Capitol Records released a recording that had begun as an experiment in Paul's garage, entitled ''Lover (When You're Near Me)'', which featured Paul playing eight different parts on electric guitar, some of them recorded at half speed, hence ''double fast'' when played back at normal speed for the master. (''Brazil'', similarly recorded, was the B-side.) This was the first time that multi-tracking had been used in a recording. These recordings were made not with magnetic tape, but with wax disks. Paul would record a track onto a disk, then record himself playing another part with the first. He built the multi-track recording with overlaid tracks, rather than parallel ones as he did later. There is no record of how few ''takes'' were needed before he was satisfied with one layer and moved onto the next. Paul even built his own wax cutter assembly, based on auto parts. He favored the flywheel from a Cadillac for its weight and flatness. Even in these early days, he used the wax disk set up to record parts at different speeds and with delay, resulting in his signature sound with echoes and birdsong like guitar riffs. When he later began using magnetic tape, the major change was that he could take his recording rig on tour with him, even making episodes for his 15 minute radio show in his hotel room.

In January 1948, Paul was injured in a near fatal automobile accident in Oklahoma, which shattered his right arm and elbow. Doctors told Paul that there was no way for them to rebuild his elbow in a way that would let him regain movement, and that his arm would remain in whatever position they placed it in permanently. Paul then instructed the surgeons to set his arm at an angle that would allow him to cradle and pick the guitar. It took him a year and a half to recover.

Top 40 with Mary Ford

In the early 1950s, Paul made a number of revolutionary recordings with his wife, Mary Ford, who sang. These records were unique for their heavy use of overdubbing, which he did by recording to disc and bouncing from one disc to the other. The couple's hits included ''How High the Moon'', ''Bye Bye Blues'', ''The World Is Waiting for the Sunrise'', and ''Vaya Con Dios''. These songs featured Mary harmonizing with herself, giving the vocals a very novel sound.

After World War II, Jack Mullin brought the German Magnetophon (tape recorder) back to the U.S.A. in pieces, reassembled and first presented it to Bing Crosby, who used it for his radio program in the late 1940s. The Ampex company, with Crosby's backing, created the Ampex Model 200, the world's first commercially produced reel to reel audio tape recorder. Bing Crosby gave Les Paul what was only the second Model 200 to be produced and Les immediately saw its potential both for special effects, like echo and flanging, and its suitability for multi-track recording, for which he is considered the father. Using this machine, Paul developed his tape multi-track system by adding an additional recording head and extra circuitry, allowing multiple tracks to be recorded separately and asynchronously on the same tape. Paul's invention was quickly developed by Ampex into commercially produced two track and three track recorders, and these machines were the backbone of the professional recording studio, radio and TV industry in the 1950s and early 1960s.

In 1954, Paul continued to develop this technology by commissioning Ampex to build the first eight track tape recorder, at his expense. The machine took three years to get working properly, and Paul says that by the time it was functional his music was out of favor and so he never had a hit record using it. His design, later known as ''Sel-Sync,'' (Selective Synchronization) in which a specially modified recording head could either record a new track or play back a previously recorded one, was the core technology for multi-track recording for the next thirty years.

Like Crosby, Paul and Ford also used the now ubiquitous recording technique known as close miking, where the microphone is less than six inches from the singer's mouth. This produces a more intimate, less reverberant sound than is heard when a singer is a foot or more from the microphone. It emphasizes low frequency sounds in the voice due to the microphone's proximity effect and can give a more relaxed feel because the performer isn't working so hard. The result is a singing style which diverged strongly from un-amplified theater style singing, as might be heard in musical comedies of the 1930s and 1940s.

Radio program

Paul had hosted a 15 minute radio program, The Les Paul Show, on NBC in 1950, featuring his trio (himself, Ford, and rhythm player Eddie Stapleton) and his electronics, recorded from their home and with gentle humour between Paul and Ford bridging musical selections, some of which had already been successful on records, some of which anticipated the couple's recordings, and many of which presented dazzling re-interpretations of such jazz and pop selections as ''In the Mood,'' ''Little Rock Getaway,'' ''Brazil,'' and ''Tiger Rag.'' Several recordings of these shows survive among old time radio collectors today.

During his radio shows, Paul introduced the legendary ''Les Paulverizer'' device, which multiplies anything fed into it, like a guitar sound or a voice. This even became the subject of comedy, with Ford multiplying herself and her vacuum cleaner with it so she could finish the housework faster. Later Paul made the myth real for his stage show, using hidden equipment which over the years has become smaller and more visible. Currently he uses a small box attached to his guitar; it is not known how much of the device remains off stage. He typically lays down one track after another on stage, in-sync, and then plays over the repeating forms he has recorded. With newer digital sound technology, such an effect is available commercially. To this day, no one knows exactly how the Les Paulverizer works.

In the late 1960s, Paul went into semi-retirement, although he did return to the studio occasionally. He and Mary Ford (born Iris Colleen Summers) had divorced in December 1964, as she could no longer tolerate the itinerant lifestyle their act required of them. Paul's most recognisable recordings from then through the mid-1970s were an album for London Records, Les Paul Now (1967), on which he updated some of his earlier hits; and, backed by some of Nashville's celebrated studio musicians, a meld of jazz and country improvisation with fellow guitar virtuoso Chet Atkins, Chester and Lester (1977), for RCA Victor. In 1978, Les Paul and Mary Ford were inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. He received a Grammy Trustees Award for his lifetime achievements in 1983. In 1988, Paul was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame by Jeff Beck, who said, ''I've copied more licks from Les Paul than I'd like to admit.'' Les Paul was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in May 2005 for his development of the solid body electric guitar. In 2006, Paul was inducted into the National Broadcasters Hall of Fame. He was named an honorary member of the Audio Engineering Society.

By the late 1980s, Paul had returned to active weekly live performances in New York City. In 2006, at the age of 90, Les Paul won two Grammys at the 48th Annual Grammy Awards for his album Les Paul & Friends: American Made World Played. He also performs every Monday night, accompanied on piano by John Colianni, at the Iridium Jazz Club, on Broadway in New York City, despite the arthritis that has stilled all but two of the fingers on his left hand.

Documentary and Museum Exhibit

A biographical, feature length documentary, titled ''Chasing Sound: Les Paul at 90'', made its world premiere on May 9, 2007 at the Downer Theater in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Paul appeared at the event and spoke briefly to the enthusiastic crowd. The film is being distributed by Koch Entertainment and was broadcast on PBS on July 11, 2007 as part of its American Masters series. In June 2008, an exhibit showcasing his legacy and featuring items from his personal collection opened at Discovery World in Milwaukee. Paul played a concert in Milwaukee to coincide with the opening of the exhibit.