The Legendary Les Paul - Part III
Interview By Bob Goldman

Musicians Hotline is proud to bring you the third and final chapter in our Les Paul Interview. Very special thanks to Mr. Bob Goldman and of course Les Paul himself. I know I've thoroughly enjoyed this three part series and hope you have as well. Here's what Les Paul had to say:

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, or 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.

BG: If you were to totally design a new guitar from scratch, what would you design it as, or would you continue with the same guitar?
LP: Oh, I know what I would do.

BG: What?
LP: But I couldn't tell you (Laughs)

BG: I can't design one, don't worry.
LP: No, but my competition can.

BG: Are you planning on designing another guitar?
LP: Always.

BG: For mass marketing?
LP: Sure. I would be very proud if I could come up with a big step forward. Sure. We haven't made many steps forward.

BG: Do you think guitarists get carried away with too many effects?
LP: Let's say that they are all good effects, they come out good and the show is very successful. Then there are not too many effects. But, if you use just two of these and they are dogs, that's a difference.

BG: What new effects or amp simulators do you like?
LP: I haven't fooled with them. I assume they are doing just what they say they are doing, but I don't know how that can be true either.

BG: No one has ever brought them to you?
LP: Here's the way I want to answer that before I even try one. A fellow says to me, come on over and eat over here. If you want lemon pie you take this pill and you have lemon pie. If you eat this thing, you got ice cream and fat meat. Now there are simulators that do what they are supposed to do.

BG: But they're not the real thing.
LP: I don't think so.

BG: If I were the company that makes them, you would be on top of my list to see what you think.
LP: Sure. It is very possible that I would say, hey this rye bread doesn't really come out like rye bread, but I like it. So I'll call it rye bread because they do, but it's not rye bread at all. It's whole wheat. It doesn't matter if we accomplish something. There is the same thing with the microphones. So you only buy one microphone and you plug it in and you can simulate all of these things. We'll start out with an inexpensive $100.00 Shure microphone and now this is very threatening, but you get the best AKG, the best Telefunken, the best capacitance microphone you can. Then you put it up against one of the finest inexpensive microphones, which is a Shure, but that doesn't convince me in any way that you're going to, with a button, change this in to a Telefunken. There's no need for me to go out and buy one. Isn't that a little bit reasonable?

BG: Yes, that makes sense.
LP: You'll hear a difference, but it won't be the difference that they're telling you that you're hearing.

BG: Right.
LP: I guess I can tell someone that I'm six feet tall and they'll believe me.

BG: I tell people that and they believe me.
LP: (Laughs)

BG: Any particular prototypes that stand out in your memory?
LP: I remember all of them.

BG: Any of them stand out as favorites?
LP: There's a lot of them. They all contributed. A prototype contributes in three ways. It makes it better, it doesn't do anything, or it's worse.

BG: Or it tells you that something isn't going to work?
LP: Or it's going to tell you what you were curious about. You wanted to prove something or find something out. I've got the largest collection of guitars that don't work. (Laughs) They all work, but I didn't accomplish many of the things that they should have. I'm on this earth 85 years and there are certain things that bug the hell out of me because they're not there and they should be there, but I haven't come up with the idea and I don't see anybody else doing it either. We can ask for some things that are a little beyond our reach and that takes a long time to figure out and a completely new direction.

BG: About how many prototypes does it take for you to develop a guitar?
LP: Oh, sometimes its very quick. You just think of the idea. You're gonna wash your face, or clean your teeth or something, you go to the men's room and you come out of there and you say. I've got it and that's how long it took.

BG: How about the first Gold Top?
LP: The first Gold Top happened right in that office. They just said to me, "Les now that we've figured out the guitar, what color do you want and I said gold." The plant manager said, "For God's sake, why would you pick gold? It turns green, it's the worst color in the world to work with. You don't see gold guitars out there" and the President said, "Les are you sure what you want?" I said, "Yes." "Well then", he said, "make him his gold guitar" and when that was done, the President said, "Don't leave yet. We want to put two guitars out. What's the other one?" I said, "Make it black." That all made within 15 minutes. The president said, "Why black Les?" I said, "Because they could see your hands moving when you're on the stage." They just figured gold and black are two great colors and they would remain this long.

BG: Little did they know that they would be known as the "Gold Top"?
LP: Yeah, and it's just something. I could have said silver, I could have said anything, but I guess I said gold because it means rich. 

BG: So the Gold Top with the woods that you put together and the pickups and everything, that was done pretty quickly?
LP: Yeah. Everything about that guitar was good, that gold guitar. That's why it's hanging around.

BG: How involved were you with the development of the guitar? It seems like this was your guitar.
LP: Sure.

BG: The Les Paul Juniors in the '50's.
LP: Yeah.

BG: Remember the P-90's with the dog ears on them? They were the only guitars with the pickups screwed directly into the wood. Was that done on purpose or was that an accident or convenience?
LP: I imagine that the first thing it would be, was it was less expensive and how many times do you move the thing anyway?

BG: Find the spot and that's it.
LP: Find the spot.

BG: Do you think this is a better way of mounting the pickups, straight in to the wood?
LP: No, no I would think that the more that you make contact with the tow together, the pickup marries to the wood, not only do you get your buttons when they are moving on your shirt transmitted to the pickup, but so is everything else. You tap the fingerboard, it's going right to your pickup. No, I would isolate it as much as possible. The ideal way would be 100% isolation.

BG: Do you think that guitars are losing their place in music history?
LP: No-no. Guitar Player Magazine called me, this has got to be almost 40 years ago. They called me and said, "Les we're having a big discussion here about the synthesizer and we've come to the conclusion that soon guitars will become extinct because of the synthesizer" and I said, "I don't buy that at all" and they said, "Well what do you think about the synthesizer?" "I think it's like an airline dinner." "It goes through you?" (Laughs) "You don't know what you ate. That egg is not really an egg, it's a make believe egg and so is the rest of it."

BG: They're almost gone already.
LP: That's good.

BG: Do you see any other instrument being the next big instrument?
LP: As an instrument no, but that doesn't mean it's not right around the corner.

.

-Photos courtesy of Bob Goldman-

Return to: