The sound did get stronger, but, as Paul would recollect in Modern Guitar magazine in 2005, “I ran smack into the problem of feedback.” To amplify the sound, he tried using a phonograph needle, a telephone mouthpiece and a radio speaker. Paul crafted his own crude version of an amplified guitar as a teenager. None of those names would become as famous as Les Paul, who was born Lester William Polfuss on June 9, 1915, in Waukesha, Wis. Well-known pioneers were looking to amplify a guitar as early as the 1920s, among them Doc Kauffman, Adolph Rickenbacker and George Beauchamp, whose “Frying Pan” is considered the first solid-body electric guitar. “He wasn’t the inventor of the solid-body electric guitar, but he certainly made it famous.” of Music Merchants, a trade group for the music-products industry. “When most people think of the electric guitar, they think of Les Paul,” said Dan Del Fiorentino, historian for the National Assn. Through the years, the guitars with Paul’s name on them became so popular that he was routinely - and wrongly - cited as the inventor of the electric guitar, an error that spoke to the ubiquity of his brand. They include an early solid-body electric guitar as well as new ways to create multiple tracks and echo effects for recordings, which he applied with memorable effect to his recordings with his then-wife Mary Ford. Still, it is Paul’s innovations that put him in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Richards, of the Rolling Stones, said Thursday that “all of us owe an unimaginable debt to his work and his talent,” while Joe Satriani, whose searing solos sound like cosmic noise compared with Paul’s vinyl hits, put the nonagenarian’s passing in terms that even the youngest music fan could understand: “He was the original guitar hero.” Keith Richards, Jimmy Page, Jeff Beck, Eddie Van Halen and Slash are just some of the players who have raised and praised the guitar during their careers. The six-string became such an American institution that, like Levi Strauss, Jack Daniel’s and John Deere, it became more a symbol than a mere brand name. Still, the rock demi-gods of the 1960s and ‘70s adored Paul for what he handed them, the Gibson Les Paul electric guitar, a beast of an instrument that has endured through the years whether the band on stage was Led Zeppelin, the Sex Pistols or Green Day. Les Paul was often called rock royalty, but for the people who knew the man before his death Thursday at age 94, that term often inspired a gentle chuckle.īorn in Wisconsin in 1915, Paul was a Midwestern jazz man who went on to make high-polish 1950s pop recordings, a style of music that was snuffed out by the reckless energy of rock ‘n’ roll.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. Archives
January 2023
Categories |