Les Paul
Les later went on to become famous for his performances with the Les paul Trio during the
1930's and 1940's, and eventually produced a number of hits with his wife and singing partner
Mary Ford. He was instrumental in the development of the first modern 1/4" tape machine produced
by Ampex and funded by Bing Crosby, but when he syncronized 8 Ampex tape machines and used them
for making multi-track recordings with wife Mary Ford he truely made recording history. His use
of echo, delay, reverb and many other electronic effects were instrumental in the development of
recording technology and in their day were advertised as "The New Sound". Even now many of the
techniques he utilized in his original multi-track recordings of songs like "Waiting For the Sun"
and "How High the Moon" are still unknown.
In 1949 with the sucessful release by Fender of the solid body "Broadcaster" Gibson took a
second look at Les Paul's original idea for a solid body guitar and after much re-design in 1952
released what is probably the guitar of choice for most rock and roll guitar players today the
"Les Paul". These contributions alone would be enough to justify Les Paul's place in history as
the "Father" of the solid body electric guitar. But in 1999 at the age of 84 Les released two
new recordings with the Les Paul Trio, and performs every monday night at Iridium, a jazz club
in Manhatten where he is playing better than ever. Never satisfied he keeps working in his Mawah
New Jersey Lab where he still winds his own pickups and builds his own guitars ever in search
of the perfect sound.
