Public pays respects to electric guitar inventor....

By SCOTT BAUER, Associated Press Writer Scott Bauer, Associated Press Writer.

MILWAUKEE – Family members, longtime friends and music fans of all ages lined up Friday at a public visitation for Les Paul, the inventor whose creation of the first solid-body electric guitar helped pave the way for rock 'n' roll. Adam Bollinger never got a chance to see Paul play live.
But the 15-year-old from Plainfield, Ill., knows how important Paul was to rock 'n' roll. That's why he and his mom, Coleen Bollinger, drove two and a half hours to be among the first in line.
"It's just about me paying respects and being here for him," Bollinger said.

Billy Soutar, 46, met Paul in 1985 and struck up a friendship that lasted to Paul's death Aug. 13 in White Plains, N.Y., at age 94. "He was the kind of guy that no matter how big or lowly you were, he'd be interested in you," Soutar said. "I'm just a schmuck from Chicago who plays guitar. He took me into his house." Soutar, a musical instrument repairman, drove from Chicago on Friday morning to be at the closed-casket viewing at the Discovery World museum. It was the public's only chance to pay respects to Paul, and more than 100 people showed up in the first hour. Paul's closed casket was on display in a small theater in front of a row of windows overlooking Lake Michigan. His music played over loudspeakers. Paul's son Rus and other family members were on hand.

Most of the visitors were like Tim Glander, a music fan who never got to see Paul live.
"It's just my way of saying thank you to him," said Glander, 59, a former school music teacher who drove an hour from Whitewater, Wis. Paul's New York City funeral on Wednesday, like his burial at Waukesha's Prairie Home Cemetery following the visitation, was private. Milwaukee native Steve Miller, of the Steve Miller Band, was expected to sing at the burial service. Born Lester William Polfuss in 1915 to a German immigrant family in the Milwaukee suburb of Waukesha, Paul built his first crystal radio at age 9, about the time he first picked up a guitar.
Nicknamed the "Wizard of Waukesha," Paul built his first electric guitar prototype in 1929 and the first solid-body version 12 years later. Gibson began mass-producing a six-string electric guitar based on his design in 1952.

Versions of that guitar became the standard in rock music, used by such guitar heroes as Eric Clapton, Pete Townshend, Keith Richards and Jimmy Page. Paul also was a master in the studio, developing technology and recording techniques that set the standard in the industry. They included using tape echo, multitrack recordings and overdubs. He was a member of both the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the National Inventors Hall of Fame.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090821/ap_en_mu/us_les_paul_memorial

Les Paul & Mary Ford How High the Moon

Rock Hall Issues Statement Rregarding Les Paul's Death

In response to the death of 1988 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Inductee Les Paul, the Rock Hall has issued the following two statements:
“Without Les Paul, we would not have rock and roll as we know it,” said Terry Stewart, president and CEO of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum. “His inventions created the infrastructure for the music and his playing style will ripple through generations. He was truly an architect of rock and roll.”
“Les Paul was truly a unique human being,” said Jim Henke, vice president of exhibitions and curatorial affairs. “He was an artist who made his mark as a tremendously influential guitarist. He was also an inventor, the man responsible for the solid-body electric guitar and multi-track recording. Few people have accomplished as much as Les did in his legendary career. We will truly miss him.”
The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame honored Les Paul for the 13th annual American Music Master’s series in Cleveland – November 15, 2008.
About Les Paul
As a player, inventor and recording artist, Les Paul has been an innovator from the early years of his life. Born Lester William Polfus in 1915 in Waukesha, Wisconsin, the first instrument he learned to play was actually the harmonica at age eight. After brief experimentation with the piano, Paul picked up the guitar, not knowing he would one day shape the sound of songs composed by countless musicians around the world. By age 13 he was performing semi-professionally as a country-music guitarist and working diligently on sound-related inventions. With his newfound talent, Paul formed a trio and moved to New York. All the while he busied himself as a bandleader who could play both jazz and country music. After moving to Los Angeles, Paul and his trio backed Bing Crosby, and with Crosby’s encouragement, Paul built his first studio in his L.A. garage in 1945.
His career as a musician, however, nearly came to an end in 1948, when a near-fatal car accident shattered his right arm and elbow. Nevertheless, he instructed the surgeons to set his arm at an angle that would allow him to cradle and pick the guitar. Paul subsequently made his mark as a jazz-pop musician extraordinaire, recording as a duo with his wife, singer Colleen Summers (a.k.a. Mary Ford). Their biggest hits included “How High the Moon” (1951) and “Vaya Con Dios” (1953), both reaching #1.
Over the years, Paul had become frustrated that the audiences were not able to hear his guitar, so he set out to build one that they could. In 1941, he built “the Log,” his first attempt at creating a solid-body electric guitar. He continued to make refinements to this prototype throughout the decade. In 1952, his dream became a reality when Gibson introduced the solid-body guitar that bears Paul’s name. Because of his pioneering work, Paul is often called the “Father of the Electric Guitar.” The Les Paul guitar has become a staple instrument among discerning rock guitarists. This list of musicians associated with the Gibson Les Paul includes Duane Allman, Jeff Beck, Eric Clapton, Billy Gibbons and Jimmy Page.
In 1956, Les Paul introduced yet another technological innovation: the first eight-track tape recorder (designed by Paul and marketed by Ampex). Over the ensuing decades, Paul himself has remained active, cutting a Grammy-winning album of instrumental duets with Chet Atkins, Chester and Lester, and still indulges his inventor’s curiosity in a basement workshop at his home in Mahwah, New Jersey. In celebration of his 90th birthday, a staggering number of musicians came together to record Les Paul & Friends: American Made and World Played.
Les Paul was inducted into the Early Influence category of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1988. Today, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum has a permanent exhibit “The New Sound: Les Paul and the Electric Guitar” on the Museum’s second floor in the “The Architects of Rock and Roll” room. The exhibit highlights items loaned by Paul, including the first guitar he ever owned, a 1927 Sears Troubador acoustic guitar and many experimental guitars, including a reproduction of “The Rail” made out of a 2 1/2 -foot length of steel rail with a string held down by a screw at each end. In 2008, he was honored at the Rock Hall’s 13th Annual American Music Masters series® event.
Paul performed weekly – at New York’s Iridium Jazz Club – and indulged his inventor’s curiosity in a basement workshop at home in Mahwah, New Jersey up until his death on August 13, 2009. He was 94 years old.

http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/news.php?id=40991

Les Paul and his Trio - I Can't Get Started

On 12/18/06

Les Paul ready for Rock Hall tribute

Paul, known as the "Father of the Electric Guitar", will be honoured at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's annual American Music Masters series, a weeklong event that starts on Monday.
Paul is a rock 'n' roll da Vinci, part artist, part inventor, and at age 93 still performs weekly at the Iridium Jazz Club in New York City.
"It's therapy," Paul said on Thursday.
Paul recalled that the first time he heard a guitar on his mother's radio he knew he had to have one. By age 13, he was performing semi-professionally as a country-music guitarist.
He built a solid-body electric guitar in 1941 - an invention born from his frustration that audiences were unable to hear him play.
Paul remembers the moment when inspiration hit. He was playing at a barbecue stand somewhere between his hometown of Waukesha, Wisconsin, and Milwaukee when a man told him his guitar wasn't loud enough.
It took Paul 10 years to sell the Gibson guitar company on the concept.
"They thought it was a crazy idea to make a guitar come through an amplifier," he said.
In 1952, Gibson introduced the Les Paul model, which became the instrument of choice for musicians such as Duane Allman and Jimmy Page.
"We now could be king because you could turn the level up and you could be heard and you could play things that you could never have played acoustically," Paul said.
Paul's other innovations include recording techniques like close miking, echo delay, overdubbing and multi tracking. He also made his mark as a jazz-pop musician, recording hits like How High the Moon with his second wife, singer Mary Ford.
Paul was inducted into the early influence category of the Rock Hall in 1988.
He said he still tinkers with new ideas and is busy designing four new amplifiers and two new guitars for Gibson, including a model that beginners can afford but still fall in love with.
"Most of the people that I know that have a guitar love that guitar like they do their wife," he said.
Paul will perform at a tribute concert on November 15 that caps the American Music Masters series. He will be joined by a legion of guitar virtuosos, including Slash, Duane Eddy, Billy Gibbons and the Ventures.
"I'm very grateful to the generation that came after me and picked up the instrument and carried on with it," Paul said. "If it wasn't for them, I wouldn't be where I am."
http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=662449