Les Paul

Les Paul ( born June 9, 1915 in Waukesha, Wisconsin, USA; † August 13, 2009 in White Plains, New York; actually Lester William Polsfuss ) was an American guitarist, who was instrumental in the development of modern recording techniques by he did pioneering work in the field of " Multitrack Recordings" and a number of echo and reverb effects. He was also instrumental in the development of the electric guitar; designed by him and built by the company Gibson solidbody electric guitar is one of the most famous models ever, and is named after him Gibson Les Paul.

Biography

Les Paul was born on June 9, 1915 in the small town of Waukesha in the U.S. state of Wisconsin as Lester William Polsfuss, later the family simplified the name to Polfus. His parents were George and Evelyn Polsfuss. Les Paul's interest in music started around the age of eight, when he began playing the harmonica. His next instrument was the banjo, but he soon moved to guitar. Age of 13, he entered semi- professionally as a country - music guitarist. Around the same time, the young Les Paul operated even as an electronics hobbyist who apart screwed microphones and record players to see how they worked, and then built an amplifier for his guitar and a simple recording device with the help of books from the public library. At 17, he played in the band Rube Tronson 's Cowboys Country. A short time later, he left high school to join Wolverton 's Radio Band in St. Louis.

In the 1930s Les Paul worked in Chicago for a local radio station, where he played jazz music. His first two records released in 1936. One of the albums was released under the alias Rhubarb Red, a name under which Les Paul played hillbilly music. On the second album, Les Paul was heard as a member of the backing band of the Blue artist Georgia White.

Unhappy with the quality electrical guitars, as they were the mid-1930s available, Les Paul began to design their own instruments. In 1934 he gave the instrument makers Larson Brothers in Chicago to their astonishment the contract to build a guitar with no f-holes. The company pointed Les Paul points out that such an instrument would not forward the sonic resonances. However, that was exactly what Les Paul intended. The instrument should not vibrate, so as to be insensitive to the electrical gain for the effect of the feedback. Les Paul provided the guitar with two pickups constructed by him.

1938 Paul moved to New York and got a job at the radio show Fred Waring 's Pennsylvanians. 1943 Paul moved to Hollywood, where he founded a trio. As a last- minute replacement for Oscar Moore, Paul played with Nat King Cole and other musicians at the " Jazz at the Philharmonic " concert in Los Angeles on July 2, 1944. During the same year he performed with his trio on the radio show of Bing Crosby. Crosby then financed the recording experiments by Les Paul. Paul and Crosby took on a shared title in 1945 and had even a number 1 hit with the song It's Been a Long, Long Time. In addition to working as a backing band for artists such as Crosby and the Andrews Sisters Trio Paul also took up a number of their own albums in the late 1940s.

1941 designed and built the prototype of the Les Paul solid body electric guitars that should gain worldwide fame later., He used the premises and tools of the company Epiphone put to him by their factory spaces available on Sunday. The instrument received from him the nickname "The Log" ( German: wooden block), since the body of the guitar was a plain, about 10 cm by 10 cm thick block of wood, to which Les Paul pickups, bridge and a normal guitar neck anbrachte. That solved his two main problems: feedback, as the acoustic body no longer resonated with the electrically amplified sound and echoed, and maintenance, because the force of the strings no longer in ausschweifte caused by the guitar body tone. After negative reactions of the audience because of the unusual appearance of this guitar Paul parted one of his Epiphone guitars of the length gradually embellished his " block " with the body halves.

Mid-1940s, Paul offered his "Log " design of the company Gibson. However, this was initially unimpressed by the concept of a solid-body guitar and until the beginning of the 1950s it came to cooperation. In 1952, one the Les Paul model on the market.

1947 Capitol Records released a recording that had begun as an experiment in the garage of Paul. The title was Lover ( When You're Near Me ), and Les Paul played on this recording eight different electric guitar parts. It was the first time that multi-tracking method came into use when recording. These recordings were made ​​not with magnetic disks, but with wax disks. Paul took a track on a disc and played it with a new part, which was in turn absorbed. He thus made ​​multi-track recording with superimposed parts, rather than to play in parallel, as he did later.

In January 1948 Les Paul suffered in a car accident in Oklahoma serious injury to his right arm and his elbow, its mobility could not be restored. Paul instructed the surgeons to set his arm in a position that would allow him to hold a guitar and play. It took one and a half years, until Paul was restored.

In 1949 he married the singer Mary Ford, with whom he recorded a number of very successful records in the 1950s. Among their biggest hits were the title How High the Moon, and The World Is Waiting for the Sunrise. The special feature of these recordings was the use of technical effects such as overdubbing and tape delay, most of which were designed by Paul himself. Les Paul, who ( is the Gibson Les Paul is named after him ) also with guitar construction and recording technology focused, developed a reverberation method, which can be heard for the first time at his home on January 4, 1951 -rehearsed recording of How High the Moon and since then the heard the usual sound effects in recording technology. He settles How High the Moon eight identical tracks with delay above the other, he had to take a degeneration of quality in purchasing. Paul's version came in the charts, where it stayed 25 weeks and remained nine weeks at number one on 23 March 1951. No other duet remained for nine weeks on the first rank in the U.S. charts. His version also reached the first shot of a white performer Rank One of the Rhythm & Blues charts. Les Paul's version sold 1.5 million copies. The musical success brought Les Paul and Mary Ford an own TV show from 1953 to 1960 successfully on U.S. television ran under the name The Les Paul and Mary Ford at Home Show.

In 1954, Paul continued to develop his inventions, as he commissioned the Ampex company at his own expense, to build an 8- track tape recorder. His idea, later under the name "Sel - Sync", in which a recording head to record a new track and at the same time could play recorded tracks previously was the trend for the future of multi-track recording technology. In this process had a reproducing head of the recording head can be temporarily used, which was then called (SEL -sync) clock head ( TK) or the sync header.

In the late 1960s, Paul moved back more and more from the music business, though he returned from time to time into the recording studio, so for example for the album Lester and Chester with Chet Atkins. In 1964, he divorced Mary Ford, who could no longer bear the nomadic lifestyle they had led.

1978 were honored Les Paul and Mary Ford with the inclusion in the " Grammy Hall of Fame". In 1983 he was awarded the Grammy Trustees Award in recognition of his life's work. 1988 Paul was inducted into the "Rock and Roll Hall of Fame". The laudation was Jeff Beck, who admitted: "I've copied more licks from Les Paul than I'd like to admit. " Was in the same year ( "I have more licks from Les Paul copy, as I 'd like to admit. " ) Les Paul honored with the SEAMUS Lifetime Achievement Award. In May 2005 - just before his 90th birthday - was followed by the inclusion in the " National Inventors Hall of Fame " for the development of the solid-body electric guitar.

Since 2004 Les Paul entered weekly in Iridium Jazz Club on Broadway in New York. He often mentioned during his appearance: "When I introduce myself to people, they are to note that I am not a guitar and also not dead always surprised ".

American Made, World Played, which started the 91- year-old in duet with many other famous guitarists like Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, Peter Frampton and Richie Sambora: 2005 album Les Paul & Friends appeared. For this album, he was honored in 2006 with two more Grammys, in the category " Best Pop Instrumental Performance " for the title Caravan and in " Best Rock Instrumental Performance " for the title 69 Freedom Special.

13 August 2009 Les Paul died at the age of 94 years in a New York hospital of a lung inflammation.

Discography

Hit- Singles

  • Lover ( When You're Near Me )
  • How High the Moon
  • Vaya Con Dios
  • Bye Bye Blues
  • I'm Sitting on Top of the World

Albums

  • The Les Paul Trio
  • Swingin 'South
  • Lover 's Luau
  • Warm and Wonderful
  • New Sound
  • Hits of Les and Mary
  • Les Paul Now!
  • Chester and Lester - album with Chet Atkins
  • Les Paul & Friends: American Made, World Played

Literature / source

  • John Sievert: Les Paul Add: Thu Menn (eds.): Guitar Player Presents - Secrets from the Masters. San Francisco, GPI Books, 1992
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