Les Paul's "House of Sound"

[jwargowski]

Just returned from a trip to Milwaukee - they're currently showing and exhibit at the Discovery Center entitled "Les Paul's House of Sound" - Les was a native of nearby Waukesha, Wi (also my hometown). The exhibit is small, but gives great insight into one of the most creative inventors of our time ... and a damn good musician. The exhibit runs through December, though they are looking for a permanent home for it. He certainly was not a luthier, but he certainly built some functional guitars!
Link to some photos ... http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2 ... 1446485819

[antipodean]

He certainly was not a luthier, but he certainly built some functional guitars!

Just like his contemporary, Leo Fender!

[beatlefreak]

Thanks for the heads up, Jim.

[jingle_jangle]

Les actually used "The Log" for a number of years (6 or 7?) before it was replaced by the first of the guitars that Gibson put his name on. Like Leo Fender, he was an inveterate tinkerer. He built his own record-cutting lathe, using the flywheel from an old car for flatness and mass--that's lateral thinking!

I have a Les Paul/Mary Ford collection (birthday gift from George!) LP, and in the cover publicity still, he's holding The Log. Photo dates from '50-'51, just before Gibson and he got together to "build" the first--unplayable trapeze-tailpieced--Gold Top. Les liked (and used!) his Kaufmann Vib-Ro-La.

Last picture in this series shows a LP Personal with a set of prototype low-impedance pickups and God knows what sort of wiring inside. This guitar weighs in at about 12 pounds.

[jwargowski]

They had that record cutting lathe on display as well as a few prototype multitrack recorders. They also had some amazing prototypes that he used for experimenting with pickup placement - basically a fully adjustable table guitar, with movable pickup holders, movable bridge and nut, and one other guitar made completely from a section of iron train track - just crazy stuff. Wish I had taken some more pictures, but they have to be seen in person, in context to be understood completely. They also had a great assortment of vintage Gibson L4's - his early guitar of choice, which he was able to pick and choose from the factory ... most of which he disemboweled in his early experiments. Talk about someone who was driven to find the sound in his head - tweaking a few knobs and setting a couple effect presets somehow seems so cheap and dishonest in comparison.

[bassduke49]

And being in the Milwaukee area, I often see news anchors on TV talk about Les Paul, "the inventor of the electric guitar . . . " Drives me nuts. It's now part of the lore around here, and it's difficult to make people understand that Les didn't invent the concept, he developed it into the popular "solid body" electric. I think the thing he did best was his use of overdubbing and double-speed recording (well, I guess it was really half-speed recording, then double-speed overdub . . . you get the picture). Anyway, he's a great fellow, and music today wouldn't be anything like it is without his contributions.