The Legendary Les Paul - Part II
Interview By Bob Goldman

Here is the second part of the Les Paul interview which took place at the Irridium Jazz Club on 63rd Street in New York City. I am still transcribing this because Les Paul is kind of Like E.F. Hutton. When he talks you just keep quiet and listen. He is so full of information that even after an hour and fifteen minutes of tape with him, I still think I was just scratching the surface. After all the Les Paul Guitar is still the most desired electric guitar in the history of guitars.

Since writing this article, I am starting to get that itch again to get another Historic '59 Figure Top Reissue. My first one came from Vic Dapra's Guitar Gallery and now I am talking to Vic, Steve Mesple at Wildwood Guitars, Keith Gregory at Gruhn Guitars and Ronn David at Vintage World to find my next guitar. Recently at the The GreatAmerican Guitar Show I met Edwin Wilson, the Gibson Historic Program Manager who will also help me in finding my guitar. I mention all of these people because they make a living because of Les Paul. They sell Les Pauls, the Holy Grail of electric guitars.

At 85 years old Les Paul still plays two shows every night at the Irridium. He said he plays as his arthritis therapy, but after you see him play it is obvious, he just loves to play and entertain. He could have been a stand up comedian if he wasn't such a great guitar player. He is quick with a joke and can play circles around anyone on the guitar. Something unique about Les Paul is that he is a legend in two areas. One as a great guitarist and the other is because of his inventions. He is the Thomas Edison of the guitar and music industry. Going to see him is a requirement for any real lovers of the guitar and it is worth the trip to New York to see him play.

BG: What changes going back to vintage guitars are for the better?
LP: I don't have an opinion on that. Some are good, some aren't. You got to go back and find out. See what the jury says.

BG: Any of the Historic Les Pauls that you like or dislike?
LP: I sure like the L-5 from back in the 20's it had that sound, but you have to find an orchestra to go with it and that orchestra doesn't exist anymore and they wouldn't write that type of music and so that day is gone but, the memories are there.

BG: How about the Les Paul Standards and Gold Tops that they are making?
LP: In some cases I have a few that just have that magic sound that I can associate with a particular record that I made and strive to try to get that exact sound again or a very similar sound to that. Again that's hard.

BG: Do you prefer the Gold Tops or the '59 Sunburst reissues?
LP: I got plenty of each. The original gold in '52 was the first one they ever came out with was the Gold Top. The second one to come out with was the black. And the mistake that was made was the trapeze tailpiece and they got that somehow in the shop turned upside down so it wasn't right. So maybe 1,000 of those went out. These were great sounding guitars and that was the Gold Top. Then the Black came out and we couldn't understand why the black ones sounded different than the Gold. It wasn¹t until we finally had to tear one of the guitars apart to drill some holes and do something and my brother in law came to me. In fact, he did it when we were stuck in Stroudsberg, up in a mountain during the winter time and we didn't have any tools and so he just heated up a screwdriver on a stove until it was red hot and he burned it out. When he burned it out he came to me and he said, "Hey Les, look what's here", and they had an all mahogany guitar which was the most expensive and the one that cost more to make was the cheapest. So they had it just backwards. And then we said we want to change it. Once we have it that way, why don't we leave it that way? Well we discussed that. We tried it and we found that there were people that wanted it all walnut. They liked it better. So there's a lot of rules to be broken too.

BG: Basically personal tastes?
LP: Yeah.

BG: Do you like the idea that they are coming back with the Historic line?
LP: Yes, of course.

BG: Do you think any of them are more accurate than others, or do you think that they are pretty dead on like the older guitars?
LP: Today they make a better guitar and everything about it is better today than it was then. Basically you get better tuning pegs, everything without going through the whole nine yards, it's basically better. Improved. Better and more consistent.

BG: I know Gibson retooled the factory in 1999.
LP: I didn't know that, but I¹m glad you told me. That's great.

BG: To get the '59 dead on with the pickups exactly where they belong and everything exactly right. They are using a different finish exactly like the old one.
LP: See we do have the great fortune that we can learn by our mistakes and everything and then sometime some things get away from you and you'll find why was that thing that we were doing back then better than what we are doing now. Somewhere along the way you stepped off the curb. You have to get back on the sidewalk.

BG: Here is the classic argument with the Les Paul as far as which sounds better. The heavy ones or the lighter ones.
LP: Well I don't think it goes in the heavy or the light, although I have some extreme built guitars that definitely prove that not the heavier that they are, well it goes with weight too, that the guitar with the most mass, the guitar that will sustain the greatest usually ends up being a heavier instrument and so if you want great sustain, you come out with what I first started with which was railroad track and string a string on it and then you get the sound of that string and very little from the railroad track and
that versus something that vibrates.See the problem with a guitar is that you got that thin neck that's going out there with a rod in it. It's like an airplane wing. It's just hanging out there and of course when you pluck a note it vibrates and when it vibrates it creates its own personality and sometimes you like to have that out there and have a guitar that doesn't argue with you, compliment you or anything else. We don't want no comment from the neck.

BG: Kind of like what people want from their wife.
LP: (Laughs) Kind of like what people want from their wife.

BG: I know with the Historics, they say if it weighs to much they reject the wood. Like it can only weigh about nine pounds I think.
LP: I don't know.

BG: I was told this by them. When they sell them, they have the weights with them and I remember walking through stores picking up guitars and saying it doesn't weigh enough, I don't want to play it.
LP: That's right. The best guitar I got happens to be one that's a prototype and that son of a bitch is heavy. But once I drag it up on my lap, I'm happy to have it there because it's singing out a lot more stuff than the other ones are. Then you go to the other extreme, go make one out of balsa wood and find out. Just go extreme and go from ice cream to fat meat. Try that one on and tell me which you like.

BG: I told a lot of stores if you get a 25 pound Les Paul to give me a call.
LP: (Laughs) You're funny. You should see Mary when I designed the first one and I said, Mary I want you to play one of these and we were in Sailors Lake, Pennsylvania and we just burned out the place with the bridges and everything. These are two prototypes that we whittled out up in the hills of Stroudsburg and Mary put this around her neck and she says, my God I can¹t even lift this. It'll kill you.

BG: You put it around her neck and she fell over?
LP: Yeah and she says now you got nothing under your arms at all just this tiny little guitar. She's used togreat big Dreadnoughts. She was used to anything, but a tiny guitar and one that heavy and so it took her maybe a couple of months before she could be accustomed to it. Then she went back to her guitar that she liked very much and rejected it. She never did go back and I'm the same way. Once you go there it's OK, but you have to be converted and that goes for anybody. There's certain jazz players out there today that if they don't feel that acoustics moving their cavity and their body and they want their arms wrapped around a big huge body. If they don't have all that. Have this thing barking at them from the F-holes, they don't feel that it's right, but then once you prove to them that you take both of those guitars. One a plank of wood and one that's got the most acoustical all the work that¹s possible to make this perfect acoustically and then you record both of them with an orchestra or with other people and you tell me which one is which.

BG: You hear it?
LP: No you don't. You put the pickup underneath it and you listen to this one and you listen to the other one and you say, what the hell am I going through here. Then why do we waste our money spending $30,000.00 to make a body perfect with the resonance when you get one and if the neck happens to vibrate right. You got maybe the same or better sound coming out of an ironing board and it blows a lot of theory out the window.

BG: Sometimes it's the ugly duckling that sounds better.
LP: That's right, rules are to be broken for sure.

BG: Which kind of leads us to the next question here. You know how the big move right now is with the plain tops, figure tops and the quilt tops? Is there any difference in the sound or is it just pure cosmetics?
LP: Cosmetics.

BG: That's it?
LP: Yeah.

BG: So I spent an extra $1,000.00 for nothing.
LP: Not for nothing. When I was a kid one thing that I did when I went to bed was make sure that guitar or guitars were put in a position that when I opened my eyes, that was the first thing that I saw. And I'm in this little $5.00 room and that was important that I wake up and I look with one eye and there was that big beautiful guitar. I love the instrument and it's a great psychiatrist, good housewife.

BG: I also heard someone say that with quilt tops, the wood isn't as hard so it doesn't sound as good.
LP: I didn't hear that, but it's possible. I really don't know.

BG: Plain tops are just as good as any?
LP: As far as I'm concerned, you just hand me the guitar. If it sounds good I don't particularly care what it looks like, how old it is, how near it is. Sometimes I hear the guy say I got a 1952 and I think its great from the standpoint of making money and it has a higher value.

Look for Part III in next month's issue.

-Photos courtesy of Bob Goldman-

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