RT @mrjyn http://bit.ly/lofiw #video #followfriday #youtube AND Follow @mrjyn http://twitter.com/mrjyn OR @nichopoulouzo …Les Paul - Spinal Tap Jam
Hey, guitar freaks: Is there a name for “one of” Les’s signature ‘lix’ @ 1:57 1:58 1:59 ? it’s like a harmonic, hammer-on, skiboodabadabble, but i know thereunto’ll be some guy from Berkley or somewhere who knows the technical jargon?
And while you’re at it, guy from Berkley: did Les Paul invent it? And while you’re chicken’ that out: What are 10 guitar ‘techniques’ that are unique-to, or that were invented and employed-by Les Paul?
thanks
NICHOPOULOUZO
“I was playing an apologetic, sweet little instrument that was always in the background. It had a lot to say but nobody could hear it. I was playing a little drive-in barbecue stand outside of Waukesha, and one of the guys in the rumble seat wrote a note to the carhop and said, ‘Red, your voice, your jokes, your singing, your harmonica is fine, but the guitar’s not loud enough.’ I went home to my mother and said, ‘Mom, one of the critics at the barbecue stand just lit the light for me that the guitar has to be amplified also.”‘
LES PAUL
Birthname: Lester William Polsfuss
Age: 91; born June 9, 1915.
Now lives in: Mahwah, N.J.
Innovations: Developed prototype for solid-body electric guitar produced by Gibson; developed recording techniques such as close miking, multitracking and use of echo and delay; introduced first eight-track tape player in 1950s; built early model synthesizer.
Paul wears one modern gadget when he performs. What looks like a standard hearing aid actually doubles as a miniature wireless monitor speaker that allows him to better hear his band onstage.
“He’s always looking at new technologies,” Marty Garcia, president of Future Sonics, which makes the ear monitors. “He’ll call me at 9 o’clock at night and we’ll be on the phone for hours.”
Arthritis in his left hand prevents Paul from playing the lightning-fast scales for which he was known in his heyday, but he has adapted his style to combine chords and single-note runs. He nearly lost his right arm in a car accident in 1948, but persuaded doctors to set it at an angle that would allow him to still play the guitar.
“I said, ‘Aim it at my navel and I’ll be just fine,”‘ he recalled. “The rest is history.” Paul is an engaging raconteur with an extraordinary ability to recall the details of his more than seven decades in show business — like the time in the 1970s when he was approached by country-and-western star Chet Atkins…”Chet said, ‘I’ll play my violin and sing and you’ll play your banjo and your harmonica and we’ll do all the things we’re not known for,”‘ Paul said. “Well, I was terrible on the harmonica, terrible on the banjo and I sang just as bad as I always do. And Chet was no better, so between the two of us we were horrible. I said to Chet, ‘Don’t you think we should do what we can do best?”‘ The result was a Grammy-winning album, one in an almost endless number of awards and accolades Paul has received. He is likely the only person who has been honored by separate national halls of fame for broadcasting, inventing, song writing and rock ‘n’ roll. The story of Paul’s role in the development of the solid-body electric guitar in the 1940s has become part of rock folklore: how he fashioned an early version out of a piece of railroad track before settling on a more manageable size and weight. (Around the same time, Fullerton, Calif.-based Leo Fender was developing an electric guitar that remains Gibson’s chief competitor.)
Once Paul developed a reliable prototype, he immediately began to experiment with altering the basic sounds of the guitar, and laid the groundwork for the reverb pedals, flanges and other effects guitarists use today.
Gibson began mass-producing the Les Paul model in 1952, and it eventually became the instrument of choice for generations of rock musicians, many of whom grew up unaware that its brand name refers to a person.
More than 80 years later, his influence on popular music is incalculable, largely due to his early use of recording techniques such as multitracking, delay and echo. His 90th birthday at Carnegie Hall in 2005 drew a diverse roster of guitarists including Peter Frampton, Jose Feliciano, Steve Miller and Edgar Winter, and he collaborated with Frampton, Jeff Beck, Eric Clapton and others on a rock album, Les Paul & Friends: American Made, World Played.
Waukesha (Wis.) County Historical Society, in the town where he grew up.
The Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History also is discussing an exhibit. “He has far more artifacts of interest and significance than any one institution could take,” said John Fleckner, the Smithsonian museum’s senior archivist. “There’s no question that we would welcome a donation of materials from someone as significant in so many different ways as him.”
Duration : 0:5:31
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