Les Paul’s legacy is one of the weightiest in modern music’s history. Both an immensely popular recording artist and an innovative thinker, Paul’s contribution to music is undeniable. Though his style was mostly jazz and country, it was his work and ideas that pioneered the development of rock and roll. In fact, one might wonder if music would have evolved the same way over the last half century without him.
Born Lester William Polsfuss on June 9, 1915, Paul lived in Waukesha, Wisconsin during his early years. His family lived comfortably, as his German mother had relatives who owned a brewing company and made the Stutz Bearcat automobile. During his childhood, though, Paul’s parents divorced. It was after this that he developed a dedication to music.
At the age of eight, Paul began to learn the harmonica. He made an attempt to expand his talent to the banjo, but traded it for the guitar shortly thereafter. Paul, ever the innovative thinker even at a young age, actually invented the neck-worn harmonica holder. It allowed him to multitask instrumentally, as he was able to blow into the harmonica while strumming the guitar. Interestingly enough, the design Paul used for the harmonica is still used by holder manufacturers today.
Just five years later, at the age of thirteen, Paul found himself playing for a living. He was a triple threat; he could sing, play the harmonica, and play guitar. At seventeen, Paul quit school to start playing full time with the Wolverton Radio Band on St. Louis radio station KMOX.
From St.Louis, Paul moved on to Chicago in 1934. He pressed on with radio work under the name “Rhubarb Red”. Additionally, he played as a backing musician for Georgia White. It was during this time in his life that Les Paul, normally a blues and country player, got his first taste of jazz music. In the 1930’s, swing jazz was booming in Chicago. Big bands and jazz artists were making huge names for themselves, and Les Paul took notice. His idol at the time was jazz guitarist Django Reinhardt. Playing out of Europe, Reinhardt was a phenomenal jazz musician whose speed on guitar was unmatched. What’s more, he only had two fingers on his fretting hand. Paul admired his success and ability to overcome seemingly impossible obstacles.
In 1937, Les Paul formed his first jazz-syle trio with singer Jim Atkins and bassist Ernie Newton. They packed up and headed to the East Coast, specifically New York City, to make a name for themselves. In New York, Paul and his band got on with Fred Waring’s radio show – gaining them a good amount of exposure. The next year, Paul was married to Virginia Webb, and had two children with her between 1941 and 1944. Their marriage fell apart in 1949, and Paul moved on to focus on his career.
During the early 40’s, Paul began his effort to revolutionize the guitar. He didn’t much like the acoustic-electric guitars that were popular at the time. He wanted something more solid and maneuverable, and sought to make it. The first step in Paul’s process was called “the Log”. It was literally just a solid block of wood with strings, a neck, and an electrified pickup attached. He used the top of an Epiphone acoustic guitar for aesthetic. Already, his “Log” was an improvement on the acoustic-electrics of old. It held notes longer because there was no space inside the guitar that the strings’ vibrations had to fill. Additionally, it took care of the annoying electrical sound that comes through an amplifier when a string resonates too loudly, called feedback, which acoustic-electrics made. Since “the Log” had a solid body instead of a hollow one, there was nowhere for the strings to resonate. While modifying his instrument in 1940, Paul managed to electrocute himself severely. He moved to Hollywood for a lengthy two year recovery, and worked on producing radio music out there.
As World War II came to the United States in 1940’s, Les Paul found himself drafted by the U.S. Military. But instead of assigning him to combat duty, the Army had him play with popular recording artists overseas to boost troop morale. During the war, Paul played with the likes of Bing Crosby and did solo shows. In June of 1944, Paul got another big break. He was asked to play guitar for Nat King Cole in Los Angeles. The recording of this concert has since become a classic in the jazz world. For the rest of the 1940’s Paul continued his trio project while playing for Bing Crosby. Together, Paul and Crosby had a number one hit in 1945 with “It’s Been a Long, Long Time”.
In 1948, Paul’s right arm was practically destroyed in a severe car crash on an Oklahoma highway. Doctors originally though the arm would be immobile, so they set it in a position where he could still pick a guitar without moving it. Paul would recover fully just over a year later, though. The late ‘40s were a busy time for Les Paul. Since 1945, he had been working steadily with country music singer Mary Ford. Together they had several hit songs, including “How High the Moon” and “Bye Bye Blues”. In 1949, the two were married. They would adopt one child and have another before divorcing in 1963.
It was during this time that much of the development of Les Paul’s innovative multitrack recording technique took place. Paul first had the idea in the 1930’s, and had a way to make it happen. He had built a disc cutter assembly out of the flywheel on a Cadillac. Then, using hundreds of acetate discs, Paul would make recording after recording until he had the perfect layering effect for his songs. The result was a signature echoing effect that made his guitar sound almost like a bird singing. After unsuccessfully trying to sell the technique for a decade, a U.S. army electronics engineer named Jack Mullin picked it up. Mullin received financing from Bing Crosby’s radio show to further develop the technique, and eventually came up with the first reel to reel audio recorder. Paul used the invention, called the Ampex 200, to continue his multitrack experimentation. It hadn’t been used in this way before, and he helped Ampex develop new two and three track recorders in the 1950’s. Multitrack recording caught on to become the standard recording method in the music industry. As the innovator of the technique, Paul went so far as to personally finance Ampex’s development of the eight-track tape recorder in 1954. This allowed artists to make up to eight recordings to layer together, producing an entirely new sound. It revolutionized the way music was recorded, and has since become one of Paul’s chief accomplishments.
In addition to his multitrack work, Paul was also busy finding a place to bring his instrument innovation to fruition. Paul presented his “Log” solid body guitar idea, the one that he had been working on for a decade, to then Gibson president Ted McCarty in the late 1940’s. McCarty took the design and ran with it. Questions still remain about how the first Gibson Les Paul was specifically made. McCarty said that he and a team of engineers designed the guitar without Paul’s help. Paul contended that every facet of the guitar was his idea except for the carved and finished top. Either way, Paul and Gibson struck gold with the Les Paul guitar. Through much of the fifties, the guitar was a top seller. Paul himself was its chief endorser, as it was the only guitar he played in public.
In the early ‘60s, Gibson and Paul had a falling out of sorts. McCarty noticed that the sales of the Les Paul guitar were falling off, so he gave the design an overhaul. Instead of having just one cutaway, the new Les Paul had two. It had a much more aggressive and sinister look, and Paul himself wasn’t very fond of it. He even requested that his name be removed from the guitar, so Gibson renamed that version the SG. In the sixties, British rock artists such as Led Zeppelin and Eric Clapton popularized the original Les Paul design again. As sales picked back up, Les Paul jumped back on the Gibson bandwagon, and continued to endorse the guitar until the end of his life.
By 1962, Paul’s traveling lifestyle had taken its toll on his family. He and his wife were divorced over it, leaving Paul devastated, but still performing. Then, in 1965, he went into a state of semi-retirement. He intermittently did some studio work, releasing updates of some of his old hits on the album Les Paul Now. He also did some collaborating with contemporary guitarist Chet Atkins, releasing the album Chester and Lester in 1976. In the 1980’s, Paul came back to live performance; this time without the excessive travel. He put together a trio that played every Monday at the jazz club Fat Tuesdays, and later the Iridium Jazz Club. In 1983, Paul received a Grammy Trustees Award for his long list of achievements and innovations. Five years later, in 1988, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Paul continued his weekly trio sets through the 1990’s and 2000’s. Additionally, he made frequent calls to the WGN radio station in the town of his musical roots, Chicago.
The 21st century brought several more accolades to Paul’s long list of honors. He was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame for the design of the solid body electric guitar in 2005. A year later the National Association of Broadcasters inducted him into their own hall of fame for his immense radio work. As icing on the cake, the Audio Engineering Society made him an honorary member for his multitrack innovations, and he was presented with the National Medal of Arts in 2007. Exhibits were commissioned for Paul at both Discovery World in Milwaukee, and his hometown of Waukesha.
Les Paul passed away of pneumonia complications in White Plains, New York on August 12, 2009 at the ripe old age of 94. His friends and family were present at the time of his passing. Paul was buried two days later in Waukesha. Though he is no longer with us, Les Paul’s contributions to the world echo in our ears every time we listen to music. He was the creator of one of the most prominent guitars in history, and was instrumental in the development of how we hear music today. Every time a note is picked on a Gibson Les Paul, whether it be by a legend like Eric Clapton or a kid in his bedroom, a whisper of Les Paul’s genius is audible.