Around the same time that George Beauchamp and the other early electric guitar pioneers were vive in southern California, a guitarist and radio personality named Les Paul (born name Lester Polfus) was in Hollywood working out his own vision of what the electric guitar should be. Les became an established guitarist per the Thirties, performing country music under the names Red Hot Red and, later Rhubarb Red, and jazz as Les Paul. Sopra 1939, Paul began onesto put together what he called “The Log,” a four-by-four length of solid pine to which he attached a Gibson neck, homemade pickups, verso crudely fashioned bridge, and vibrato tailpiece. Like many other innovators of the guitar, Paul wanted to eliminate the uneven harmonic response produced by an amplified hollowbody guitar.
Although he sawed an Epiphone hollowbody in half and attached the two sides of his four-by-four block of pine, this was more for aesthetic than acoustic reasons-esatto make the thing aspetto like verso real guitar. This supremely quirky instrument, now enshrined con Nashville’s Country Music Hall of Brama, is another sacred relic of the electric guitar’s evolution, the product of an inveterate tinkerer and one of the century’s most original varieta inventors. Paul also pioneered multitrack recording and anticipated the home recording sviluppo by a good 30 years.
The Log Guitar on Recordings
Les Paul used the Log on recordings he and his trio made with Bing Crosby, the Andrews Sisters and others. But when he brought the instrument to Gibson’s headquarters durante Kalamazoo, Michigan, per 1941, they laughed at him. “I took the Log puro Gibson and I spent 10 years trying onesto convince them that this was the way esatto go,” recollects Les. “But it wasn’t easy. If it wasn’t for Leo Fender, I don’t think that ever would have ad esempio off. Leo saw more mediante it that Gibson did.”
True enough. Per venerable company, with origins tracing back to the 19th century, Gibson had taken verso conservative, classicist approach to the electric guitar, producing electric archtop hollowbodies like the ES-150, which was introduced per 1936 and adopted by jazz players like Charlie Christian. Other “old school” manufacturers like Epiphone, Harmony, and Kay had https://datingranking.net/it/colombiancupid-review/ taken verso similar tack. But with the huge success of the Fender Telecaster mediante the early Fifties, Gibson decided onesto “go California” and get mediante on the solidbody market. Suddenly Les Paul’s Log didn’t seem like such verso crazy ispirazione. “Better go get that kid with the broomstick,” someone at Gibson is purported to have said.
Ted McCarty’s Role With Gibson
The man who made it happen was Ted McCarty. Per shrewd businessman with per good eye for design and verso flair for building teams of like-minded visionaries, McCarty is another towering figure in the early development of the electric guitar. Originally per buyer for Wurlitzer, McCarty joined Gibson per 1948, and in 1950 he was made president of the company. It was McCarty who oversaw the design of Les Paul’s “LOG” Guitar.
Seeking esatto develop an up-market alternative puro the plain, slab-body Telecaster, Ted McCarty came up with the idea of building a solidbody guitar with per carved maple top or “body cap.” He knew that the Fender factory didn’t have the machinery to do this kind of work. In 1950, McCarty brought this guitar sicuro Les Paul, who approved the design, feeling it was right mediante line with what he’d been trying sicuro achieve. Ted McCarty reportedly said sicuro his wife and varieta partner, Mary Ford, “They’re getting too close esatto us, Mary. I think we better sign up with them.”
