Technological advancements happen quickly. In a relatively short time, we went from being unable to fly to soaring on jet airplanes to landing on the moon. In the same time span, capturing sound with a needle and playing it back was made possible, magnetic tape was invented, and the ability to overdub an endless amount of tracks and manipulate the sounds digitally occurred. With a curious mind, a musician from Waukesha, Wisconsin, developed new techniques and discovered new sounds along the way. Let’s take a look at five fascinating facts about Les Paul.
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He Built a Crystal Set Radio
As a child, Paul was interested in music and electronics. He would experiment with punching extra holes in his mother’s player piano to create other parts. He would cover his mistakes with Band-aids.
One day, Paul was with a friend, winding wire around a paper towel roll. He wondered what the boy was doing. He was building a crystal radio, the crudest radio receiver possible. It only requires the power of a radio signal to produce sound.
Paul became infatuated with it and listened constantly. It was on his crystal radio that he first heard the music of a guitar. He saved up money from his paper route and purchased a six-string from Sears, Roebuck & Co.
He wanted to accompany himself on the harmonica but had to invent a holder for the small mouth organ. A wire coat hanger was bent, and he secured the instrument in front of his mouth as he played the guitar.
“Red Hot Red, the Wizard from Waukesha”
Now, Paul was able to perform. He configured two of his mother’s radios into a PA system and made his own microphone. His acoustic guitar was not loud enough to keep up with the vocals and harmonica. He jabbed a phonograph needle into the face of his guitar and used the horn to amplify the vibration.
At this point, Paul had only learned to play simple chords. He saw Joe Wolverton performing with Rube Tronson’s Cowboys using the instrument above the third fret. After the show, Paul bugged Wolverton to show him a few things. Two weeks later, the band returned. Paul showed Wolverton what he had come up with on top of what he had been shown. Wolverton had Paul play for his boss. Tronson hired Paul on the spot. The Wizard of Waukesha was thrilled until he discovered he was replacing Wolverton.
Playing with the Jazz Greats in Chicago
Wolverton moved to Missouri and lured Paul away from Tronson’s outfit with the promise of starting a radio station. The duo performed as Sunny Joe Wolverton and Rhubarb Red on KMOX in St. Louis. They moved to Chicago in 1934 and played regular shows. Rhubarb Red would become Les Paul when he moonlighted and took gigs with artists such as Louis Armstrong, Coleman Hawkins, Art Tatum, and Roy Eldridge.
In 1937, Paul teamed up with rhythm guitarist Jim Atkins (older half-brother of Chet) and bass player Ernie Newton to form the Les Paul Trio. They moved to New York City in 1938. They went to bandleader Paul Whiteman’s office to audition but got a door slammed in their face. Fred Waring happened to walk in, and the trio auditioned while he waited for the elevator. The bandleader was so impressed he hired them on the spot. The trio was a regular attraction at Waring’s shows, and they backed The Andrews Sisters and Judy Garland.
Paul Invented Overdubbing
In 1945, Bing Crosby was backed by The Les Paul Trio on “It’s Been a Long Long Time.” Paul was frustrated with the recording process. Crosby encouraged him to build his own studio to have more control over the situation. Crosby gave Paul one of the first Ampex Model 200A reel-to-reel tape recorders. Paul experimented with close-mic techniques and sound-on-sound recording. He eventually linked eight Ampex tape machines, creating the first eight-track studio. In 1948, Paul was in a near-fatal car accident. He asked his doctor to set his broken arm in a position to allow guitar playing. He met Colleen Summers, and they began performing together. Her name was changed to Mary Ford, and they were signed to Capitol Records. Paul utilized his new studio trickery to produce The New Sound. The duo had a string of hits that lasted all through the ’50s. The biggest were “How High the Moon” and “Vaya Con Dios.”
A Solid Idea
Paul was always trying to improve his guitar sound. He added a pickup to an acoustic guitar, and as the string vibrated, the top of the guitar would vibrate, moving the pickup up and down. Paul deduced that only one element should have motion. What if the pickup was mounted on something solid that was stable and didn’t vibrate? He experimented with a 4 x 4 mounted to a guitar neck. It did exactly what he hoped. It provided a stable, concentrated, sustain, and Paul knew he was on to something. The problem was visual. It didn’t look like a guitar, and audiences reacted negatively. Paul added “wings” to the instrument. He cut up a hollow guitar body and screwed the sides onto the 4 x 4. Overnight, audiences reacted favorably to the instrument, and Paul loved the meaty tone he was achieving. In 1951, after years of urging, The Gibson Guitar Co. agreed to produce a line of solid-body guitars. They did not want to call them Gibsons, so they agreed they would be called “Les Paul” models.
Paul continued innovating the recording process. He linked eight more machines together to produce a 16-track studio. He constantly tinkered with his guitar effects, inventing a “Les Paulverizer,” which allowed him to record loops and overdub himself on stage multiple times.
In 1988, he was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and in 2005, the National Inventors Hall of Fame.
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