July 6, 2003

Rules? What Rules?
By LES PAUL as told to K. LEANDER WILLIAMS

The phone still rings all night. It's been like that ever since I can
remember. Musicians know that I'm a night person, so when someone's
got a technical question -- how do you hold the guitar pick for this,
how do you finger that chord? -- they call. Back when Jimi Hendrix
opened Electric Lady Studios, he was on the phone all the time; we
talked about how to mike a guitar amplifier and where he should place
the mike in the studio.

I had come across Jimi sometime before at a roadhouse spot in New
Jersey called the Allegro. I know the year was 1965 for two reasons:
the Gibson Guitar Corporation and I were in the middle of what I call
our divorce, and second, Simon and Garfunkel had a hit on the radio,
''The Sounds of Silence.'' I came up playing with the best of the best
jazz and pop musicians in the 30's and 40's, and I believe if you want
to stay at the top of anything, you've got to remain curious. That's
why I dropped by places like the Allegro. Right now I'm trying my
damnedest to keep up with the latest computerized recording equipment.

The afternoon I first saw Jimi, he was playing a Les Paul Black
Beauty, left-handed. Man, was he all over that thing! Black was the
second color I asked Gibson to make when they went into production on
the first Les Paul model solid-body electric guitars in 1952. I've
found that people hear as much with their eyes as with their ears, and
visually, a black guitar really accentuates the movements of a
guitarist's fingers. Jimi was auditioning that day. My son had been
helping me distribute some of my records, so he was waiting in the
car. But when I walked in and heard this guy wailing -- he had that
guitar wide open -- I decided to stick around for a while. It was the
afternoon; the place was pretty empty, so the bartender was watering
down the drinks. I never got Jimi's name. I asked -- the bartender
didn't know. Then I realized my son's still in the car! I go out there
and tell him that we're going to swing back after we finish dropping
off records. When we got back to the Allegro, Jimi was gone. I said to
the bartender, ''Where is that guy? . . . Did he get the gig?''

''Are you kidding?'' the bartender said. ''He was too loud. We threw
him out.'' Luckily the guy had snapped a picture, probably because I
was interested. I have the photo on the wall. It took me years to come
across him again.

The music life hasn't gotten much easier than when I was on the road.
I wouldn't have had it any other way, but it's not like the person who
works 9 to 5. It helped that my wife at the time, the singer Mary
Ford, was beside me and we had our kids.

I still think that there's nothing like being onstage, but recently I
had a thought that startled me. There was a birthday party for me at
the Iridium jazz club last month, the place I've been appearing every
Monday night for about eight years now, ever since the other club I
played regularly, Fat Tuesday's, closed down. I looked out in the
audience -- many young enough to be my grandchildren -- and found
myself wondering how in the hell they knew who this old guy was. It's
not as if I have a hit record; it's been years since I was even on the
charts. When I asked some folks between sets, I got the same answers
I've been getting for years: they own a Les Paul, or a son has one and
plays it too loud. I always apologize. It might have had to do with it
being my 88th birthday and all, but I kept feeling that there's got to
be some other reason that I've managed to be this fortunate. But maybe
it's a question no one can answer.

What I'm sure of is that it ties into the one thing that people
invariably ask me: Why am I still at it? The short answer is that I
like being around people, especially all these gifted players who come
to sit in with us, the Jimmy Pages and Paul McCartneys and Eric
Claptons and Al Di Meolas. It's true that I can't really keep up
because of the arthritis in all of my fingers; two fingers on one hand
are useless and three on the other. Lots of young guys still ask me
how to do things, though, which is harder nowadays because so much has
happened in popular music that I can't really offer advice on what to
play anymore. I was never much for rules, anyway; otherwise I probably
wouldn't have invented anything or gone so far in music. It makes me
think of Wes Montgomery, the great guitar player who used his thumb
instead of a pick. Thank the heavens that no one was around to tell
him what to do when he was learning, because if they had, he might
have ended up sounding like me or someone else -- and we'd never have
had him to admire. To this day, no one has come up with a set of rules
for originality. There aren't any.

Copyright 2003 *The New York Times Company

I saw & met Les Paul at the Iridium abour four years ago. He was really
nice, funny, and put on a good show. And he's still better than me,
arthritis, pacemaker & all.

There's a recording video series hosted by Eddie Kramer and about half of
the first tape is an interview with Les Paul. Worth the price of the series
alone. What amazed me was it took him like 3 months to invent delay and he
invented the multi-track in one. It's amazing listening to him describe
trying to figure out how to create delay. It really didn't even have a name
at the time. Of course now it seems like a no brainer and it should have
been easy but this guy was truly exploring uncharted territory.


"Greg" wrote in message
om...
July 6, 2003

Rules? What Rules?
By LES PAUL as told to K. LEANDER WILLIAMS

The phone still rings all night. It's been like that ever since I can
remember. Musicians know that I'm a night person, so when someone's
got a technical question -- how do you hold the guitar pick for this,
how do you finger that chord? -- they call. Back when Jimi Hendrix
opened Electric Lady Studios, he was on the phone all the time; we
talked about how to mike a guitar amplifier and where he should place
the mike in the studio.

I had come across Jimi sometime before at a roadhouse spot in New
Jersey called the Allegro. I know the year was 1965 for two reasons:
the Gibson Guitar Corporation and I were in the middle of what I call
our divorce, and second, Simon and Garfunkel had a hit on the radio,
''The Sounds of Silence.'' I came up playing with the best of the best
jazz and pop musicians in the 30's and 40's, and I believe if you want
to stay at the top of anything, you've got to remain curious. That's
why I dropped by places like the Allegro. Right now I'm trying my
damnedest to keep up with the latest computerized recording equipment.

The afternoon I first saw Jimi, he was playing a Les Paul Black
Beauty, left-handed. Man, was he all over that thing! Black was the
second color I asked Gibson to make when they went into production on
the first Les Paul model solid-body electric guitars in 1952. I've
found that people hear as much with their eyes as with their ears, and
visually, a black guitar really accentuates the movements of a
guitarist's fingers. Jimi was auditioning that day. My son had been
helping me distribute some of my records, so he was waiting in the
car. But when I walked in and heard this guy wailing -- he had that
guitar wide open -- I decided to stick around for a while. It was the
afternoon; the place was pretty empty, so the bartender was watering
down the drinks. I never got Jimi's name. I asked -- the bartender
didn't know. Then I realized my son's still in the car! I go out there
and tell him that we're going to swing back after we finish dropping
off records. When we got back to the Allegro, Jimi was gone. I said to
the bartender, ''Where is that guy? . . . Did he get the gig?''

''Are you kidding?'' the bartender said. ''He was too loud. We threw
him out.'' Luckily the guy had snapped a picture, probably because I
was interested. I have the photo on the wall. It took me years to come
across him again.

The music life hasn't gotten much easier than when I was on the road.
I wouldn't have had it any other way, but it's not like the person who
works 9 to 5. It helped that my wife at the time, the singer Mary
Ford, was beside me and we had our kids.

I still think that there's nothing like being onstage, but recently I
had a thought that startled me. There was a birthday party for me at
the Iridium jazz club last month, the place I've been appearing every
Monday night for about eight years now, ever since the other club I
played regularly, Fat Tuesday's, closed down. I looked out in the
audience -- many young enough to be my grandchildren -- and found
myself wondering how in the hell they knew who this old guy was. It's
not as if I have a hit record; it's been years since I was even on the
charts. When I asked some folks between sets, I got the same answers
I've been getting for years: they own a Les Paul, or a son has one and
plays it too loud. I always apologize. It might have had to do with it
being my 88th birthday and all, but I kept feeling that there's got to
be some other reason that I've managed to be this fortunate. But maybe
it's a question no one can answer.

What I'm sure of is that it ties into the one thing that people
invariably ask me: Why am I still at it? The short answer is that I
like being around people, especially all these gifted players who come
to sit in with us, the Jimmy Pages and Paul McCartneys and Eric
Claptons and Al Di Meolas. It's true that I can't really keep up
because of the arthritis in all of my fingers; two fingers on one hand
are useless and three on the other. Lots of young guys still ask me
how to do things, though, which is harder nowadays because so much has
happened in popular music that I can't really offer advice on what to
play anymore. I was never much for rules, anyway; otherwise I probably
wouldn't have invented anything or gone so far in music. It makes me
think of Wes Montgomery, the great guitar player who used his thumb
instead of a pick. Thank the heavens that no one was around to tell
him what to do when he was learning, because if they had, he might
have ended up sounding like me or someone else -- and we'd never have
had him to admire. To this day, no one has come up with a set of rules
for originality. There aren't any.

Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

In article writes:

I saw & met Les Paul at the Iridium abour four years ago. He was really
nice, funny, and put on a good show. And he's still better than me,

The first time I saw Les Paul was many, many years after I'd heard
him. He was in the "Les Paulverizer" phase and he put on a fabulous
show. The fact that his guitar playing blew me away was almost the
anti-climax. He reminded me of the kind of stage presence that Doc
Watson had in the '70's, before he got to be really well known. He
knew how good he could play and he made sure that everyone noticed it,
but he always made sure that that wasn't the only thing you remembered
about the show, whether it was a story, a song, or just a comment he
made from the stage.



--
I'm really Mike Rivers - )

"Ricky W. Hunt"
There's a recording video series hosted by Eddie Kramer and about half of
the first tape is an interview with Les Paul. Worth the price of the series
alone.

When I was a kid my best friend's older brother used to stand there with
his Tele copping Les Paul and Otis Rush licks because that's what Beck and Page
were doing. He played in the Gold Rush Blues Band; they opened for Zep in
Hawaii on their first world tour.

It's largely his fault there is an unattainable guitar tone in my head I
have yet to hear again, but Les Paul and Otis Rush definitely deserve blame
too... ( And Fender tube amps just don't smell the same anymore either. )


Will Miho
NY Music & TV Audio Guy
Fox And Friends/Fox News
"The large print giveth and the small print taketh away..." Tom Waits

WillStG wrote:

"Ricky W. Hunt"
There's a recording video series hosted by Eddie Kramer and about half of
the first tape is an interview with Les Paul. Worth the price of the series
alone.

When I was a kid my best friend's older brother used to stand there with
his Tele copping Les Paul and Otis Rush licks because that's what Beck and Page
were doing. He played in the Gold Rush Blues Band; they opened for Zep in
Hawaii on their first world tour.

It's largely his fault there is an unattainable guitar tone in my head I
have yet to hear again, but Les Paul and Otis Rush definitely deserve blame
too... ( And Fender tube amps just don't smell the same anymore either. )

I can't help you with the tone in your head. But if you miss the old smell
of the fender tube amps, just go spill some cheap beer on them once a week
while you are playing. That old fender smell will be back in no time. :-)

-_Dale

Dale Farmer

...if you miss the old smell
of the fender tube amps, just go spill some cheap beer on them once a week
while you are playing. That old fender smell will be back in no time. :-)

Been there, Trust me, that ain't it.


Will Miho
NY Music & TV Audio Guy
Fox And Friends/Fox News
"The large print giveth and the small print taketh away..." Tom Waits

oo... ( And Fender tube amps just don't smell the same anymore either. )


Will Miho
NY Music & TV Audio Guy
Fox And Friends/Fox News
"The large print giveth and the small print taketh away..." Tom Waits


Funny that you remind me of that.

I sold Fenders for many years, and that was a combination of tube heat, the
vinyl and the glue that was used to build the amps.

The other thing I remember was the smell of a new box of Fender picks when
they were made of cellulose. ( put a match to one of those and discover why
they were changed)
Richard H. Kuschel
"I canna change the law of physics."-----Scotty