Les Paul
Les Paul
Lester William Polsfuss, known as Les Paul, was an American jazz, country, and blues guitarist, songwriter, luthier, and inventor. He was one of the pioneers of the solid-body electric guitar, which made the sound of rock and roll possible. Paul taught himself how to play guitar and while he is mainly known for jazz and popular music, he had an early career in country music. He is credited with many recording innovations. Although he was not the first to use...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionGuitarist
Date of Birth9 June 1915
CityWaukesha, WI
CountryUnited States of America
A guitar is something you can hold and love and it's never going to bug you. But here's the secret about the guitar - it's defiant. It will never let you conquer it. The more you get involved with it, the more you realize how little you know.
.. the guitar is just a wonderful instrument. It's everything: a bartender, a psychiatrist, a housewife. It's everything, but it's elusive
When you just get mixed up & there's too much going on, then it's time to pick up your guitar.
Paint pictures with sound. First, find your white-the deepest, roundest sound you can play on the guitar. Then, find your black-which is the most extreme tonal difference from white you can play. Now, just pick the note where you've got white, pick it where you've got black, and then find all those colors in between. Get those colors down, and you'll be able to express almost any emotion on the guitar.?
This guitar is such a pal. It's a psychiatrist. It's a doggone bartender. It's a housewife. This guy is everything. Whenever I find that I've got a problem, I'll go pick my guitar up and play. It's the greatest pal in the whole world.
I don't know of a guitar player that has only one guitar. They're never happy with one. I'm never happy with just one of them. I woke up and ended up with six, even if you can only play one at a time!
I think the most important thing about playing is to walk out with confidence, look the people right in the eye and say 'Here I am,' and go and do your thing. As soon as they know you're confident, they're confident. As long as you adjust to them you're not in trouble. You should eyeball them, find out what they want, and give it to them. They didn't pay to come out and look at the tapestries.
If you're in the U.S. and talk to someone on the phone who's in Iraq, you'll experience sound delay. It isn't long, but the sound has to go to a satellite and back, it's used for everything. I'm proud to have that be something I invented.
Now I need to take a piece of wood and make it sound like the railroad track, but I also had to make it beautiful and lovable so that a person playing it would think of it in terms of his mistress, a bartender, his wife, a good psychiatrist - whatever.
If I have to go around telling everyone how great I am, then there's something wrong with my act.
One minute we're over here, the next minute we're doing something completely different. But it's interesting because you are producing so many things you couldn't do with analog.
Of the whole bunch of guys who play hollow body guitar, I think Herb Ellis has the most drive
As far as I'm concerned, I'm just a guitar player, and my job is to go out there and play and entertain and do my thing.
I have younger friends who don't work, and they aren't doing so well. My secret is to keep going, keep working.