Les Paul Interview: A Lifetime of Chasing Sound

By: Rick Landers
Photos By: Joseph A. Rosen

Jazz guitarist and inventor, Les Paul, brought us more than his electric “Log” guitar fashioned out of two pickups, and the triptych coupling of a slab of 4 x 4 lumber and the two halves from an Epiphone hollow body guitar. He also brought us more than a delightful legacy of jazz, but a mountain of amazing guitar techniques to examine and study.

His deep curiosity and rich inventiveness roamed the world of electronics and sound, luring him like sirens to seemingly insurmountable production and recording challenges. Good for us that Mr. Paul’s intense curiosity was welded to an equally tenacious and spirited drive.

Les is credited for his contributions to the development or invention of the electric guitar, the design of Gibson’s Les Paul guitar, multi-track recording, phasing effects and delay. And many friends and fans of his, have never heard about Les pulling cash out of his own pocket to pay Ampex to build the first 8-track recording machine.

In the early days, Les took on the nicknames of “Rhubarb Red” and “Hot Rod Red”, although his birth name is the one that stuck and the one we know him by. He was a pioneer and architect of modern music, as well as landed several spots on early television where he had his own show in 1951, “The Les Paul Show” and later “The Les Paul & Mary Ford Show” in ’54 and ’55 that highlighted the couple’s talents on the electric guitar, along with the humorous patter between them.

Although it’s been said Les couldn’t read music, his impression on modern music is well-defined and deep. When he reached his 90th birthday, he could lay claim to three Grammy Awards, a noted induction to the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame, and a wonderful tribute for his birthday at Carnegie Hall. Four years later, Les would pass on, but would leave a lifetime achievement in the world of music that will be unsurpassed for all time.

My first introduction to Les was by phone. Guitarist Frank Vignola passed me Les’s home number and suggested I give him a call. A few days later, I dialed his number and Les answered. We agreed to do the interview later than night, after he’d had supper and after I’d prepared questions for him. We would meet later at the Iridium in New York City, where he played, to do a photo shoot.

At the Iridium, I watched and listened as Les was fiddling with his guitar trying to get the right tone, or I’ll say the “perfect” tone.  After his sound check he left the stage and walked over to D.C. photographer, Michael G. Stewart, and me and asked, “Who are you fellas?” After we introduced ourselves, Les sat down and talked with us for nearly 45 minutes, before he had to prepare for his show and the PBS crew that was filming it that day for their DVD production, Les Paul – Chasing Sound.

A few years later, I would head back to the Iridium with New York City photographer Joe Rosen, to sit down with Les at a small table at the back of the club for our second interview. As he had been the first time we met, Les was gracious, intellectually engaging and had gentle ribald sense of humor.

This last conversation of ours took place a year before his passing and was delayed due to some reshuffling at the magazine where it was originally intended. So, Guitar International offers this never before published interview with Les Paul to our readers.

******

Rick Landers: You’re known as a very kind and generous man. Are those traits gifts from your parents or are they self-taught?

Les Paul: I think my parents are a very important part of it, the encouragement that they give you to fulfill some of your ideas, your dreams. The other one might be health, not that you’re not healthy, different problems, each case, you break your leg and you’re laying there in bed for three months with nothing to do.

And in many cases you may change your whole thoughts with three months, just because your leg won’t let you do anything else and you can concentrate on a thought. It’s amazing what it does. I think they all contribute to creating something, building something from a little kid on.

Rick: We had a longer interview back in 2005, so this is more of a catch up for us, to see where you are now. But who’s your favorite guitar player of all time?

Les Paul: Oh, I don’t have such a thing because they’re different in different ways. Used to be, when I started on the guitar, “Oh, you’re playing wrong; you can’t play that way. There’s only one way to play. That’s the correct way.” That’s a class where we were playing the guitar and it came down from that and so you play in different positions. I’d never play with a pick, you’d be crucified 40 years ago. For a guy to put a clamp on a guitar would be sacrilege [both laughing].

There were so many no-no’s in those days. I enjoy looking way back 80 years ago, how it was then. They’d say, “Lester, you can’t do that!” And today everybody’s doing it. That’s just one in a million.

Rick: I think you told me a story about when you were overseas and you were very sick and the doctor came in and asked what those were on the dresser, right, and they were picks.

Les Paul: He wasn’t gonna give me a prescription for my illness. [Both laughing] He says, “You’re playing with a pick, you’re just on the wrong track.” The illness became secondary, the pick was first.

Rick: Were you friends with Django Rheinhardt?

Les Paul: Oh, yes. Very dear friends right till the time we took care of his funeral, his family.

Rick: Did you?

Les Paul: Yeah, and we were just very close and understood each other.

Rick: He overcame what I’ll call a handicap, but he had hurt his fingers, when he was young, he burned his fingers.

Les Paul: He hurt them especially on his left hand, the use of the little finger, and so he had to monkey around with a couple of fingers. From burns to arthritis, the arthritis, my fingers are now in that. I always kidded Django, at least he wasn’t going deaf. [Both laughing] I’ve got two hearing aids. I’m one up on him.

Rick: You seem to be listening to your guitar pretty closely, [Les laughing] so you seem to be very still in tune with the guitar and the sound that you actually want to get out of the guitar.

Les Paul: Yeah, sure. Always. You want to get the best that you can get. If there is something wrong, you want to catch it now and not in the middle of a show. [Both laughing]

Rick: What projects are you working on now? Last time we spoke you were working on a compilation album.

Les Paul: There are about two or three things that are very exciting. One of them is I’m working on the Internet and these hearing aids are so good, when a guy picks up a Strat, he hears a Strat. He doesn’t hear a tin can and that’s something that exists in earphones. The hearing aids that you get today are something that either you hear that noise kind of loud behind us or you can press a button and eliminate that and more or less, just hear you, and that’s about the extent of the earphones today.

The hearing aid that I’m working on is something you can have where you’re in a party of people and you can listen to one person, which is what they already have, or working on. Let’s put it that way. Only a few have it, but they do have it.

The second thing is you want to have the intimacy of having a one-to-one conversation with a person and there are no interruptions from other…and that’s something of a normal sound, and that becomes very hard to hear.

Rick: How important should music be to the world?

Les Paul: Well, that’s a very vague question, but to me it’s important. It’s important that I’ve surrounded myself my whole life with music, and I don’t know what I’d do without it, and yet I retired in ’65 for 10 years. I never even looked at a guitar and didn’t miss it. Music became very much something buried to me and I just went in another direction and was managing other people. Teaching them to be cover stars and what they should do to make a successful career.

So that lasted for 10 years, and then I got a call from Chet Atkins and he says, “The both of us aren’t getting any younger, so why don’t we make an album together? I’ll play the violin and sing. You play the banjo and harmonica and you sing.” Well, I went to Nashville and we’re up in the hotel room and I think we played one number and I said “Don’t you think there’s something wrong with this picture?” [Both laughing] And Chet says, “What do you think we should do?”

I said, “Why can’t we just do what we do best? You play your country stuff and I’ll play my jazz stuff and we’ll mix them. I don’t believe there’s any law that says if you live in the south that you can’t enjoy [Frankie] Avalon or Dean Martin, or anything else. I don’t think the song is the important thing, it’s the rendition that’s the real thing that they’re listening to.”

Then I talked Chet into the idea of talking on the record, and that got us a Grammy. So, we made another one and the next thing you know, I’m about to go back into the business when I came down with a really serious heart problem. And with the heart problem, I can’t do this.

The doctor had just gotten in the room and says, “I want you to promise me two things, one, you’ll be my friend and promise me that you’ll work hard.” And I said, “I thought that’s what got me here.” And he says, “No, work never hurt nobody. My advice to you is to go to work.”

So I had a nurse bring me a bunch of paper. I drew a line down it, wrote all the things I didn’t like at the end of my life and the things I liked. The things I liked the most is when I was in the beer joints just jammin’ and no one was really serious about anything. I wasn’t surrounded with cameras and lights and stuff.

On my way to success, I said, “I don’t want to be a star. I want to be just one of the guys that are jammin’ in the joint.” And so we worked out a batch of tunes, did it like the way it was before, and it proved to be a great idea except that it didn’t do what I thought it was gonna do.

 

Rick: What was that?

Les Paul: Well, it remained a small audience, but it was full of very important people. Dan Rather’s coming down, Walter Cronkite, all of a sudden I’m looking at everybody that’s big in the business.

Jimmy Page, Eric Clapton, Alice Cooper, and on and on. Finally this thing started to get away from me and I said, “This is no longer what I intended. I intended to go sell more rock and roll and I remember Mary calling me and saying, “Well, maybe we could work something out and I could join you, but wouldn’t everybody think we were broke?” [Rick Laughing]

And I said “I’m not worried about them anyway, but if it would make you any happier, I’ll put our bank account in the window. So anyway, it went on. Finally the ulcer just got so bad that I was full of ulcers from the medication and I had to give it up for a year.

In a year I went back and thought it over again and when we opened the conversation we were talking about, sometimes setbacks give you a chance to think and then when you finalize your thoughts, you find out if you hadn’t broken your leg, you wouldn’t have thought of the right answer. So, what happened is I decided to go back to work. What happened was that the night we opened at the Iridium.

Rick: That was your first night?

Les Paul: Yes, the first night. A nurse came in and said, “I’m not staying for the show. You don’t know me. I have just a message to bring you.” And she said, “Would you mind sitting at the bar here?”

We’re right there at the bar and I said, “No, I’d love to.” So we sat down at the bar and she said, “Well, here’s the way it is. You’re not 30 years old and you don’t have a jazz quartet and your hands are not like they used to be. Your health is not like it used to be. You can’t play what you used to play. The fellow that commented to you so many years ago, that you should be you and don’t compete with yourself. Just be yourself.”

Rick: Good advice.

Les Paul: It was the greatest advice that I could ever wish to get, came from this lady, that was true. So what happened was, she left and I walked up on the stage with that in my mind and it never left my mind. That is, don’t try to be what you were, but what you are now. If Count Basie can only play one note, he picks the finest note to play on the piano you can find. So it isn’t a matter either of the quality, rather than the quantity.

In thinking it over, I decided to play what I could play best, which would be the runnin’ around that I used to do, or sort of an exhibitionist and more of a serious player. I’d just sit and choose the right note to go in the right place and simplify the whole idea of playing.

To my amazement, I found out there was another bit of good advice, both from the nurse and from what I did with it when she gave it to me, that nurse remained the same as the fellow that came way back when I was a little kid. I was playing, singing into my mother’s radio through a telephone and a fellow gave a note to the car hop saying, “A regular guitar is not loud enough. I could hear your voice, but the guitar’s not loud enough.”

He’s another one of those guys who come from out of nowhere, that, if your antenna’s up and you’re looking, you’ll find him. You’ll find him because that’s what you’re looking for. That’s an answer, too.

Rick: So you find that sometimes the space between notes is as important as the notes themselves?

Les Paul: Oh, if the correct note means you wouldn’t play, you would feel foolish playing just a big long run for no reason in the middle of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow,” so what’s it doing then? It’s there because of someone’s ego, because I want to show off. I want to impress another guitar player [Both laughing]. It happens all the time. I hardly ever hear a guitar player that isn’t trying to play fast or he forgets that there are other things to be played on that instrument.

Rick: One person, I heard said that if you can’t walk out of a gig and whistle the tune, the musician didn’t do his job. [Both laughing]

Les Paul: Isn’t that the truth? Back in the day, I was at The Blue Note in Chicago with Mary and we were starting out and I just got over my back problems at The Mayo Clinic, my first job was at The Blue Note in Chicago. So I’m with crutches and the whole darn thing and I’m up on the stage and I’m performing and everything. I found that there was a big difference with the response of our songs, some of our songs in particular. I became very aware of it, so I asked Mary if she’d like to go take a walk.

Mary and I took a walk between sets and I sprung it on her when we were leaning between a couple of cars. I said, “Mary, there’s a difference between playing “How High the Moon” on Monday night than there is on Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. The audience changes, but the tune doesn’t. Now what I’d like to do is I’d like to create the music that we play down at The Blue Note that’s the same on Monday night as it is on Tuesday night, Wednesday night, Thursday night, Friday night. So if Thursday night is the maid’s night out, Friday night is the guy that wants to get away from his kids [Both laughing].

Saturday night he just wants to get drunk. Monday night you have Artie Shaw, Benny Goodman, Ella Fitzgerald, Gene Autry [Laughs] and that’s another thing that came into the picture. The boss of the place was very upset because you never had a cowboy hat in a jazz joint. [Laughs] So, I hear him on the phone calling New York to get Louis Armstrong to take our place because we’re drawing cowboy hats, but they all liked the music. The thing is, it’s a good sign if you can make anybody happy.

Over a period of years, like down here at the Iridium here, we adjust to the people on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, whatever night it might be. It’d make no difference to us at all. So we happen to be dealing with people who come from China, they come from every place in the world. Some of them never heard of Les Paul and some of them are avid fans who’ve saved their money for the last three years, their money to come down here. If it wasn’t for me they wouldn’t be where they are, whatever they’ve got going, but they’re important people to me.

Now it’s as important for me on the stage to entertain that person that doesn’t understand a word of English, but she has ears and she can hear. Now if you wander away from the melody, God help you, because that’s all she’s got to hang on. [Both laughing]

Rick: Very true.

Les Paul: The sense of humor that you have, that comes through because of everybody else laughing, and many times I ask the person where they’re from. Some of them can hardly speak English, or they don’t speak any English, yet they enjoy the show very much. Okay, that’s what we learned from playing at The Blue Note in Chicago between Monday night and every other night of the week to make “How High the Moon” successful, and that applied to different cities, so it didn’t apply just to Chicago.

Rick: It was universal then.

Les Paul: It was universal. So as soon as we went to Rockford, Illinois, we made sure the song was just as successful as it was on the Wabash River and all around the country. So if we played Pittsburgh it’s no different than playing Waukesha, Wisconsin. It was great fun.

Rick: I’m gonna talk about your 1952 Les Paul. I’ve got a ’52, by the way, and I’ll tell you, the pickups are incredibly strong. In fact, they’re probably stronger than any other guitar I own, which just shocked me when I first got it.

Les Paul: Well, they got power. In ’52 the first guitars were made with a lot of errors, and until I got mine [Both laughing]. So they may have put a thousand out for all I know. I don’t know how many went out, but when I saw it, what are the chances that you’re gonna take a guitar and find out how much of it is maple, how much of it is this, how much of it’s that. You’re busy looking at a new instrument. You want it to sound good. You want to get on your way with it, everything.

The first thing that happens, I say, “Well, this pickup’s gotta come out.” So I said to my brother-in-law, “We don’t have any tools” so he says, “Well, you take a knife. You put it on the stove and heat it up till it’s red hot and then burn it out.” [Both laughing] At our little butcher shop up there we made that guitar, and the first thing I ran across was the fact that the top of the guitar, the two guitars were made backwards.

Rick: Oh, really?

Les Paul: Yeah. So the gold guitar, which was the cheaper guitar, was the most expensive to make and was the finer guitar of the two. The black guitar was made of plain mahogany that wasn’t as good of quality, but it sold for more. So they had the prices backwards, they were making them backwards and everything else.

I called them on the phone and they changed it. They said, “What are we gonna do about the thousand that are out there?” and I said, “I wouldn’t say anything about how many of them are gonna get a hot furnace and get a goddamn poker [Both laughing] and go in there and cook their guitars. I wouldn’t worry about it.” I said, “What we should do is get it right. Getting it right, why don’t you do this? Why don’t you make all the guitars with the maple top and a rosewood back, and have it the same on all of them? It’s easier to make and then you can’t get it mixed up.”

Rick: Rosewood back or mahogany back?

Les Paul: That’s mahogany, sorry. But, the rosewood fingerboard and the ebony fingerboard. So it came out good.

Rick: And also the wraparound of the strings: mine goes under the bar.

Les Paul: That’s another mistake.

Rick: But, you didn’t design it that way, right?

Les Paul: No, I didn’t design it that way, but the president wasn’t listening either. That’s one of the toughest jobs I’ve had [Both laughing] and of course I hear it every once in a while. There’s a sort of a rumble that’s in there that goes through…”Well, Les’ pretty tough.” I’m not tough, I just say, “Here’s the way it should be.” The whole deal started beautifully because M. H. Berlin who owned it, that’s a Chicago musical instrument company, Mann H. Berlin.

He was the overseer of all of it. He said to me, “I want you to make this guitar exactly like you wish it to be and don’t let anybody change your mind.” That’s what made it rough, because what I would say to the president of Gibson “Hey, you’re goofin’ me,” or “Change this thing around.” It didn’t look good, but it had to be done.

Rick: Yeah. You were pretty popular then with them? [Both laughing]

Les Paul: But, it all got straightened out, and gradually it all got turned around, so you’re talking about with the stop bar and the whole bit?

Rick: Yes. But, it sounds good. It still sounds good.

Les Paul: Oh, it sounds great, but you can’t muffle it with your hand.

Rick: Not really. But, it’s still a pretty guitar and a great design.

Les Paul: Yes, it was.

Rick: Now your log guitar?

Les Paul: That’s in Nashville.

Rick: Oh, it’s in Nashville?

Les Paul: Yeah, when I quit I had to go down to Nashville and so I said, “Steve, I’m quitting. I’m going to give my invention to the museum in Nashville.” So that’s where it went.

Rick: Is that the Gibson museum?

Les Paul: No, that’s the Nashville museum and I put that in there. I remember that was the same time that Chet asked, “Now that you’re resigning, can I have the name ‘Mr. Guitar’?” So he says, “Can I use your name, ‘Mr. Guitar’ that’s associated with you?” I said, “Yeah, I’m retired now, so you can have it.”

Rick: Yeah, a little premature of you. [Both laughing]

Les Paul: It was like the guitar pick when Django came to America. He says, “You got a guitar pick?” He didn’t have one. And so I had a handful in my pocket, I pulled them out and say, “Here’s all kinds of different ones,” and he picked mine.

Rick: Really?

Les Paul: When he picked mine, of course, for the whole trip everybody was so impressed with the pick he used, [Both laughing] and the pick happened to be a Les Paul pick. I get a call from Johnny Smith out in Colorado and he says, “Seeing as you’re retired, is there any chance I could have that pick and call it a Johnny Smith pick?” And so I say, “Absolutely, you’re welcome to it.”

Rick: Very generous of you to do that.

Les Paul: Well, I was quitting. [Both laughing]

Rick: I’ve got one more question, if you don’t mind. How would you like to celebrate your 100th birthday?

Les Paul: You know, I never thought of it?

Rick: Then it’s a good question.

Les Paul: It is, it’s a great question. Well, I think I’d celebrate it very much like my mother who’s glad to be here on earth. You’re very grateful. You’ve got to be very grateful. And to celebrate it would be to say, “Hey, you know, I can go on until the time comes when I’m not supposed to be here, and none of us know the answer. We only know that we all have a ticket.”

Rick: Yeah, that’s true. When it’s up, it’s up.

Les Paul: It ain’t funny, [Laughing] but it’s there. It’s a short, short way away from me and it comes up, and I’ve been taught all my life when it comes up, sweep it under the rug and that’s exactly what I do.

******

About Joseph A. Rosen

Joseph A. Rosen is a New York City based professional photographer whose work has appeared in Time, Newsweek, The New York Times, Sports Illustrated and more. Corporate clients include JP Morgan/Chase Bank, American Express, Nordstrom, PepsiCo and IBM. He has been a working and exhibiting professional since prior to his graduation from Carnegie-Mellon University with a degree in Photography and Related Studies in 1973.

His music clients are some of the greatest names in the industry from blues, R&B, soul, rock, Cajun/Zydeco, and jazz, the record companies for whom they record and their management groups. Joe has received the prestigious Keeping the Blues Alive in Photography and Art Award for 2002. The award is presented by the Blues Foundation of Memphis to an artist who has created a body of work which has brought the Blues to the public though photography and “made a significant contribution to the blues world.”