LES PAUL THE MAN
Lester William Polsfuss was born on June 9th 1915 in Waukesha, Wisconsin to parents George and Evelyn, his mother later changed the name to Polfuss. And from an early age the music and inventive thinking that would see him become one of the most important figures in the music world took hold.
His first dabble into music was poking holes in player piano rolls adding notes to the tracks, then about the age of 12 he constructed his first homemade guitar, amp and P.A. setup using a record players pickup and parts from a radio and telephone. These were made so he could accompany his own singing and harmonica playing at a local burger joint.
After owning a Sears guitar in 1928 he got his first Gibson an L-5, shortly after he would start construction on his first recording machine..
A year later at only 13 under the name "Red Hot Red" Les Paul hit the road with a travelling cowboy band during school break, not long after he would turn fully profesional land in Chicago and get the name "Rhubarb Red" from "Sunny" Joe Wolverton in 1930.
While in Chicago he finally adopted the name Les Paul, recording and playing with blues singer Georgia White round the clubs. Around this time he started to get serious about guitar design and building joining up with local luthiers the Larson brothers, he had the brothers build him a solid maple topped guitar with two pickups.
Then in 1941 came the famous "Log", this was almost exactly as it was named a four inch by four inch pine block with a Gibson neck, two pickups, a vibrato bridge and two wings from an Epiphone hollowbody archtop attached.
Work on the "log" had begun in 1939 at the Epiphone factory, where nobody was at all impressed with Paul's invention. In 1941 Les took the guitar along to Gibsons base in Kalamazoo Michigan where they basically laughed him out of the building, and kept on laughing for the next decade.
During the 1940's Les also comes up with designs for a synthesizer and invents "The Les Paulverizer" the first tape looping machine.
Then in 1950 scared by the popularity of the new Fender Broadcaster M.H. Berlin the president of C.M.I. Gibsons parent company says "Get me the guy with the pickups on the broomstick", leading to Les authorising his name to be used on the Gibson Les Paul first sold in 1952.
Through the following years Les Paul continued to not only write and perform influential music but also invent such tools as the eight-track tape recorder, he's retired then come out of retiring and been honored by many organizations and in 2005 celebrated his 90th birthday still gigging, still recording and still designing and building new gadgets.
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