The Les Paul Interview
Part 1

With Dana Paul Perna, joined by Kathy Baruffi from CNBC

Dana Paul Perna: What we get to we get to and I hope we will go another time for the rest.

Les Paul: Shoot!

DPP: For the sake of my readers, because they'll never believe that I am actually sitting here talking to you, what is your name, when were you born and where were you born?

LP: Well, my name is Les Paul. I was born in Waukesha, Wisconsin in 1915, so I'll be 92 in a couple of months on June 9th.

DPP: Well, we'll run this feature in June to correspond with your birthday! (which we are, therefore, HAPPY 92nd Birthday to you, LES PAUL !!!!! from all of us at Classical Domain Long Island. Sorry that it had to wait until July but we hope all of you enjoy it anyway.)

LP: Thank you!

DPP: Your innovations REALLY changed the direction of music — the solid body electric guitar, and Multitrack tape recorder. You were responsible for the evolution of audio recording technologies and aspects of it — and an architect of Rock 'n Roll, even though you are considered one of the true luminaries of Jazz.

When did you realize that you had developed the solid-body electric guitar?

LP: Right at the beginning. It's a little story where I was playing halfway between Waukesha and Milwaukee and I was just at the beginning of my career. It was at a barbecue stand and I built a PA out of my mother's radio and sang and played into the telephone, so I had the telephone on a broomstick; the base that was the microphone in the night stand.

And I put it in a cinder black and I sang and I played thru my mother's radio and the cars would come in and the people would enjoy — I hope — the music. And some critic in the rumble seat of a car wrote a note which he gave to the carhop who gave it to me and said: “Hey, Red, your jokes are funny, your songs are cool...” whatever, “...but your guitar's not loud enough.”

That probably, if I only wished I knew who that person was, he changed my life. I went home and decided to make an electric guitar. In making this thing, I used the other part of the telephone which is the receiver, which had two coils, pair of magnets. So the idea came to me — which direction is the correct direction, a piece of railroad track or a piece of soft pinewood? That would be the two extremes that would lead me in the right direction.

When I heard the sound of the piece of wood, soft wood, I had the receiver coil plugged underneath into my mother's radio and then compared it with a string plucked and heard on a piece of railroad track. Wooo! I went running to my mother saying I found the greatest idea, to make an electric guitar as loud as you want it to be, and it's so clear. It's all that you could imagine is to reproduce that string and then be able to color it, change it, modify it anyway you wish. This is like a dream! And my mother said:

“The day you see a cowboy on a horse playing a railroad track...”

She blew me out of the water with that one.

Well, the bottom line is what do you do in a case like that? And I thought further about it and, the more I thought about it, the better it was. If you want something that you can hug, that you can hold; something you can love, something that wouldn't give you a bad time but would be a great bartender, mistress, psychiatrist — whatever you wish — it would be great. So I knew it was a piece of wood that I had to make sound like a railroad track. So I designed the guitar out of a 4-by-4 log, took it to the guitar manufacturers and they thought it was a joke. They laughed at it, they laughed at me and they called me the character with the broomstick with the pick-ups on it. So, for ten years I kept prodding...

DPP: Was that Gibson or was that a different company?

LP: ALL the companies. I went to Epiphone, I went to Leo Fender — Leo Fender saw it just prior to him going into his thing — but all the manufacturers of musical instruments, they got their chance at this thing.

Finally, Gibson called me and said have you got that stuff? Can you bring it to Chicago? We'd like to talk to you. I came there and they wanted a demonstration of it and the more they saw it and saw the demonstration, the more they were ready to put the instrument out. They made four !

DPP: four prototypes.

LP: No, they made four — two for them and two for us — Mary and I, and they weren't sure of the instrument.

DPP: Wow, and you proved to them that it would —

LP: Oh my goodness, and what a change it has been for the world.

DPP: and for that we have to bless you, man!

LP: I've been blessed!

A photo of the Gibson Les Paul Guitar; an instrument that changed the world

DPP: I'm just glad to even be here. Well, then you've already answered questions four and five so moving on to one I wanted to ask you. When you realized you found the guitar finally manufactured, did you get the feeling as though, this is it or?

LP: No, I just knew that, so convinced that this is the way to go that it was no surprise to me — it was a joyful thing that they would come around to it. But I've seen that life was that way anyway, that, when I invented the multitrack machine, the first sound-on-sound recording — NONE of it was ever expected to — I'm always someone to whom they say, well, it's a gimmick and one time around the block and that will be the end of it. Today, a kid has one in his bathroom, his bedroom, in his basement, or in the garage, but you can rest assured that he has the guitar and he has a multi recorder.

DPP: And speaking about that, how did the idea for the multitrack tape recording machine come to you?

LP: It just flashed in my mind when I was doing — we were doing a television show from our home.

DPP: that was your TV show in the fifties with Mary and you?

LP: Yeah.

DPP: was that live or, you filmed them, then they?

LP: We filmed it.

DPP: because those are on YouTube. For some of our readers to know, they can or may read this and then go there, to YouTube, to see what we are talking about. Sorry to interrupt but — go ahead.

LP: YEAH! In fact we're now just cleaning up the masters and everything.

DPP: GOOD!

LP: It's great! It's 140 shows that we did, that's —

LP / DPP: — a lot of shows

LP: There were seven years of television and radio, five times a day, five times a week.

DPP / Kathy Baruffi: W O W!!!

LP: Radio and TV, so, just saturated the entertainment world with the guitar and the multitrack recording.

DPP: I interrupted when you were getting to the multitrack, so, you were doing the show and - go ahead –

LP: While I was doing the show, there was a break and I happened to be with my hands behind my head, resting. While they're setting up for the next shot, my manager come in, rough up my hair. He says, “what are you dreaming up now?” I said “you wouldn't believe what I just thought up — how to make a multi track tape recorder.”

“What are you gonna do about it?”

“Well, I'm gonna start right here. I'm gonna grab a plane and go to California and talk to the guys in Hollywood.”

They (the guys in Hollywood) said it wouldn't work. OK, so I had a free flight on my plane ticket and Mary's ticket to go to San Francisco.

So I say to my friend, “what's the name of that tape company up there in San Francisco?” Ampex. I got on the phone, says “I want to talk to the President” and I GOT ‘EM!

“Mr. Paul, how soon can you get here?” I says we'll be up this afternoon. We went up there, and I would say, within two hours we were laying out the plans for the first tape machine; multi track tape machine which is gonna change the world.

DPP: Absolutely did, man — Absolutely did!!!

LP: and with the delay and the echo and all the different effects that came before that, but was included in that. It was a great time period for us.

DPP: how long did it take to develop the machine once the ball got rolling?

LP: It was '53, that's when I had the idea; by '54 we were well into building it. We got it in 1956, then we rebuilt the machine because it didn't work right. So, by '57, we were well on our way with the first tape machine.

Of course, others like Atlantic Records, Ray Charles, and on and on and on — ALL — Nashville — everybody went crazy to get the machine.

DPP: Capitol Records —

LP: Oh, yeah, yeah. But they didn't know what to with the tape machine!

DPP: and now you got 10 and 15 year olds who are workin' on their computers, typing away on their 24 track virtual mixing boards on their lab tops in the latest genesis of what you developed.

LP: I was at RCA here in New York. We were walking down the hallway and I saw a canvas over a multitrack machine. The engineer — his name was Harry — said to me “Look what you've done” — and there's this machine standing in the hallway. I said, “No, what have I done?” He says, “Well, you built a machine, but now we have a problem finding a Les Paul and Mary Ford!” Somehow, they didn't expand their minds to the fact that this multitrack machine did not have to do just with Les Paul and Mary Ford, but you could do everything with it. You could use it to go to the moon. I'm sure they had multitrack machines to get to the moon.

DPP: Well, they could use them, probably. My next question, we switch from the technological side of things. You worked with many of the greatest jazz artists in Jazz history. Are there any musicians or singers with whom you worked that you particularly enjoyed?

LP: Oh there are so many — there was the Art Tatums, there was the Coleman Hawkins, there was — it just doesn't end.

DPP: You worked with Bing Crosby, of course. How was that experience?

LP: Bing Crosby was, probably, my mentor. He, not only was a dear friend but what I learned from my working with Bing, whether it was recording, we got very close to each other. He wouldn't go and do his show unless I was in the control room where I could advise him as to what was wrong or what was good, and things like that. So we'd have many meetings and discussions.

I remember one time when he called me and he said, “I need some advice.” I said “when do you want me?”

“As soon as you can get here.”

So I flew there and we drove around up in the mountains there by San Francisco area and solved the problems. And I'm on my way back home and that was that.

But what I learned from working with Bing was how he recorded and how he thought and how he accomplished what he did ” he was probably my teacher ” my mentor.

DPP: And, of course, that is your guitar heard at opening of I'll be Home for Christmas. That's your little —

LP: Yeah, and the big one It's Been a Long, Long Time is, when we did that, it launched my career. It got me into this basement! I wouldn't be in this basement if it weren't for Bing.

DPP: You performed at the inaugural concert of Jazz at the Philharmonic. Can you tell me anything about that landmark in Jazz and American music History?

(Note to our readers unfamiliar with it, the “Philharmonic” refers to a concert hall once located in Los Angeles, not to any symphonic organization or performing orchestra for which the term is more commonly associated.

Jazz at the Philharmonic (or JATP) was the title of a series of concerts and subsequent recordings produced by Norman Granz. The first concert was held in 1944 at Philharmonic Hall in Los Angeles, and featured Illinois Jacquet, Jack McVea, J.J. Johnson, Shorty Sherock, Nat King Cole, and Les Paul. Jacquet in particular created a sensation as did an impromptu “chase” sequence between Nat King Cole and Les Paul.

After a few more similar concerts in Los Angeles, Granz began producing annual tours in 1946. These featured Swing and bop musicians playing in small groups. There were among the first high-profile performances to feature racially integrated bands, and Granz cancelled some bookings rather than have the musicians perform for segregated audiences.)

LP: Well, that was a very special thing. I was working in my backyard and Norman Grantz and Nat Cole came in and they were sitting in on the patio. They asked me if I was busy on such and such a day and I said I can do it — what happened to Oscar? (He is referring to Oscar Moore, the guitarist of The King Cole Trio, the legendary small combo jazz trio of which Nat Cole was the leader, award winning pianist and vocalist. After the group ended, Nat kept the “King” as his middle name, hence becoming Nat King Cole.) Well, he's found some chick and he's got himself locked up in a hotel room, and they're sliding pizzas to him under the door and we can't communicate with him.

So I said sure, sure — but I have to talk to Meredith Willson because I'm still in the service.

DPP: Oh, that's right, he (Willson) was doing that service show then. (Note: that's Meredith Willson, the composer of The Music Man)

LP: This was for the armed forces, but none of the guys wore uniforms and they weren't in the service but I was so they let me —

DPP: Did you play the show in uniform?

LP: I took the uniform off; they allowed me to take the uniform off.

So Nat and I got into this chase —

DPP: YES, I was going to ask you about the famous chase —

LP: Isn't that something?

DPP: Oh, wow, what a — landmark —

LP: That was probably the most exciting

DPP: It just happened on the spot?

LP: YES. We didn't have much to talk about or anything, just showed up on the job and started to play. All of a sudden he (Nat) plays a run — so I copy his run. He plays another run and I copy it, and there we start what we call, you know, chasing each other. And that chase was just so great, and to see a thousand people standing on their SEATS and throw their hats in the air and SCREAM. And the reaction was so phenomenal that I never in my life saw such a reaction as there was with that chase.

DPP: For those of us who only heard it on the recording, thank God because someone flipped the record switch on. Incredible!

LP: But no one — I have not — I asked Norman Grantz before he died if he had any pictures of the session. NONE. And you know that a thousand people there, many people took pictures. Well, they didn't have cameras and cellphones like they have today, but even back then, I'm sure there are pictures out there.

DPP: I'll put it out there on this site and if people will find any, we'll definitely pass it on to you.

THEREFORE TO ALL YOU READERS OUT THERE, IF YOU HAVE ANY PHOTOS FROM THIS EVENT, PLEASE E-MAIL US AT THE SITE'S CONTACT LOCATIONS AND LET US KNOW SO WE MAY PASS THIS INFORMATION ON TO LES PAUL. THANK YOU !!!

LP: You know what I wonder about so much is that how did they ever get their hats back?

DPP: That's a good question. Oh, that's one of the greatest —

LP: then Bing said to me you got to do this on our show – the Kraft Music Hall Show. I said “Bing, it won't work. This is all impromptu. We would chase ourselves forever; it's gonna sound contrived.” I said this was an event that would never take place again in our lifetime.

DPP: Was it fun to work with Nat?

LP: Nat was a fantastic piano player. You know what made Nat so good is that he was a vocalist and, being a vocalist, he knew when NOT to play and be knew when to play. Where he learned, he learned this in Chicago when I was in Chicago and so we used to play together in Chicago.

DPP: You did?

LP: Oh, yes – but then there was the racial problems and so you couldn't play in clubs, you couldn't do these things that we're doing today. He had to go his way; I had to go my way. It was a shame because, we'd get in a cab and pull up to the Roosevelt Hotel in New Orleans and we'd get out and say:

“Nat, come on”

“No, No” and Nat says “No use me getting out of the cab here. They won't let me in the hotel.”
“But you're working here..”

He's coming in to follow us. He had to live on the other side of town.

(Nat) “I come in, go to work and then I'm out of there.”

— and that's the way it was in those days. We had a lot of racial problems, so, in Chicago, we'd break all the rules. When we went jammin', this is where I loved to go. We'd go to the Southside of Chicago where the Black people were and they were he ones who knew how to play JAZZ! And so, I want to see Fletcher Henderson, I want to see Coleman Hawkins, I want to PLAY with those guys. THAT'S where I would go. And if I wanted good country music I would go to Nashville — THAT WAS T H E N!

DPP: and you got your chance to work with Chet Atkins —

LP: Chet Atkins was 30 years later —

DPP: Yeah, but I'm just saying —

LP: eventually got to meet Chet and a couple of Grammys.

DPP: Oh, yeah — that's one of my favorite records.

LP: Thank you!

DPP: My pleasure — I should have brought it with me and have you sign it. Just to see if this it true, you had gotten into a car accident and told your doctor to mend your bones so you could still hold the guitar. Is that true?

LP: That's true, this arm is fixed. (pointing to his right arm)

DPP: Oh, so you can play the guitar, OK.

LP: Well they —

DPP: it's urban legend; I just wanted to make sure it's true.

LP: the doctor came to me and he said where do you want it? I said, aim it at my naval, and that's what he did.

To Part 2 of the Les Paul Interview