Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh
Speaker 1: the Jet Clark. There's Charles w Chuck, Benny and the
Speaker 1: Bryant and Jerry's over there and she's just Jerry. This
Speaker 1: is Stuff you should Know. Darry's captain fantastic. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a good one. We're talking about the piano player.
Speaker 1: What about how about Mr Roboto? Sure? Okay, Jerry, Mr
Speaker 1: Roboto Rowland great? So um, how are you doing? Man?
Speaker 1: I think you're probably pretty jazzed about this one, do
Speaker 1: you think? Yea, Dad, Yeah, I'm pretty excited about this one.
Speaker 1: As a musician and guitar nerd uh. And we we
Speaker 1: definitely want to shout out at the beginning. The inspiration
Speaker 1: behind this, and a lot of the research for this
Speaker 1: came from the great book called The Birth of Loud.
Speaker 1: It's not there's not a colon on the cover, but
Speaker 1: it's implied. Should we get a different jingle for implied colon? Um? Yeah,
Speaker 1: but it should could be like a down kind of
Speaker 1: thing burn Okay. The Birth of Loud, Leo Finder, Les
Speaker 1: Paul and the guitar pioneering rivalry that shaped rock and
Speaker 1: Roll And this was from Ian Ports in twenty nineteen,
Speaker 1: and it is a if you're a guitar player, just
Speaker 1: get the book. You probably already read it, but if
Speaker 1: he hadn't get it because it's great. Yes, um, hats
Speaker 1: off to him. Hats off to Dave Russ for helping
Speaker 1: us out with this one as well too. Totally they
Speaker 1: did a great job. So um, well it's a two
Speaker 1: part right, Yeah, we were gonna too parted up because
Speaker 1: it's that big, it's that important of a thing. It's
Speaker 1: really easy for people like me, who um, you know,
Speaker 1: appreciate music but also appreciate music to you know what
Speaker 1: I mean, um, to kind of overlook the just the
Speaker 1: the epic story behind electric guitars. It's almost like like
Speaker 1: I didn't think they were always there, and I knew
Speaker 1: roughly when they've been invented, and I think I kind
Speaker 1: of knew kind of who invented it, but I didn't
Speaker 1: realize just what a sweeping effect and impact that electrifying
Speaker 1: certain kinds of guitars had on the world. Like it's
Speaker 1: it's it's one of the most impactful inventions ever made.
Speaker 1: Oh absolutely, uh. And then when you look at this
Speaker 1: story and read that book, especially Um the Gentleman Les
Speaker 1: Paul and Leo Fender. It's a remarkable story and that
Speaker 1: they were very similar in some ways, they were very
Speaker 1: very different in a lot of ways. They they both
Speaker 1: ended up with um permanent injuries that affected their craft. Um.
Speaker 1: When one was up, another might be down a little um.
Speaker 1: And and this goes to the guitars as well. When
Speaker 1: the the Fender brand was up, it seems like the
Speaker 1: less Paul was down. When the Less Paul was up,
Speaker 1: Fender was down. And it's really they both kind of
Speaker 1: tried to take credit for things that they didn't really
Speaker 1: invent at times. So it's it's really interesting when you
Speaker 1: look at the story of these two dudes and this
Speaker 1: era of innovation and invention and just how remarkable it
Speaker 1: was and for the people who are really unfairly left
Speaker 1: out that had maybe even more to do with it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because there's a lot of hands that went into the
Speaker 1: creation of the electric guitar as we understand it today,
Speaker 1: a lot of people, a lot of unsung people. Uh,
Speaker 1: these guys just happened to be two the ones who's
Speaker 1: whose names you know, became synonymous with electric guitars. But
Speaker 1: there's also not to say like they didn't deserve to
Speaker 1: have that kind of recognition too. They really did contribute,
Speaker 1: even if they did kind of like you said, take
Speaker 1: credit to some extent for things they didn't necessarily do specifically. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's one of those inventions that if you ask someone
Speaker 1: who invented the electric guitar, you have to follow that
Speaker 1: up with a lot of questions in order to answer it.
Speaker 1: Is it the person who invented the electric guitar pickup
Speaker 1: which made it possible to electrify something? Or is it
Speaker 1: the first person to stick that pick up on a
Speaker 1: chunk of wood instead of a big hollow guitar? Or
Speaker 1: is it the first person to actually build one that
Speaker 1: worked that you could sell to people. Um, you just
Speaker 1: can't answer that cleanly and say this person invented the
Speaker 1: electric guitar. Like five or six people invented the electric guitar. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And if you're just a normal like non you know,
Speaker 1: guitar person, you probably regretted asking that question. Now you
Speaker 1: just say, is that freedom rock? Hey man? Yeah, that
Speaker 1: ran through my head more than once. For sure. Turn
Speaker 1: it up. So, UM, I guess we should get started.
Speaker 1: Um with you want to start with Leo Fender. Yeah, so, um,
Speaker 1: Aaron's Leonitas Fender. Webster's defines Fender as Leonitas Fender. He
Speaker 1: doesn't have a good name. And he's one of these
Speaker 1: guys you said that. He and Les Paul, who will
Speaker 1: meet in a little while, we're very different. And Um,
Speaker 1: Leo Fender wasn't just different from Less Paul. He was
Speaker 1: different from a lot of people. He was what you
Speaker 1: would call an engineer. And if you have a parent
Speaker 1: who is an engineer, or a friend dad, or you're
Speaker 1: an engineer, you know that engineers are different, kind of different.
Speaker 1: They're cut from a different cloth. And and Leo Fender
Speaker 1: was definitely an engineer from what I can tell. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I totally thought about your dad during this. Um. Leah
Speaker 1: was born on August nineteen o nine in Orange County, California,
Speaker 1: and his first injury that affected his craft was his eye.
Speaker 1: When he was um between seven and eight. He lost
Speaker 1: an eye when he fell off his dad's vegetable truck
Speaker 1: and had a glass eye from there on out. Um,
Speaker 1: you know it's it's not like losing an year, which
Speaker 1: we'll get to that later. Um, if you're an engineer
Speaker 1: who works in generally in sound, but when you're working
Speaker 1: on small circuit boards and stuff like that, losing one
Speaker 1: eye is certainly going to affect your work well. Plus
Speaker 1: also he apparently was self conscious about it, which is
Speaker 1: just just at my heart. Can you imagine a little
Speaker 1: a little eight year old Leo Fender who's like, you know,
Speaker 1: can't look up, He's looking down at the ground all
Speaker 1: the time while he's talking to you because he's self
Speaker 1: conscious about his class ali that it's just heartbreaking. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And like he said, he was an engineer, little electrical
Speaker 1: circuit board nerd Uh. He would take things apart and
Speaker 1: put him back together from an early age. He there's
Speaker 1: a great story from the book when he was about
Speaker 1: ten years old. Uh, he got underneath the car and
Speaker 1: the driveway and basically took a look at it, what
Speaker 1: was going on, went inside and sketched out not only
Speaker 1: just what it exactly looked like, but how it all
Speaker 1: and could explain how it all together to make that
Speaker 1: car move, Yeah, which is astounding. That's like prodigy kind
Speaker 1: of stuff. Like he was an engineering prodigy is another
Speaker 1: way to put that. Not you know, even even among engineers,
Speaker 1: that's pretty remarkable, and especially as a kid to do
Speaker 1: it too. Um, and then what makes him even more
Speaker 1: remarkable as an engineer And for all the things that
Speaker 1: he accomplished, he never had any formal training as an engineer.
Speaker 1: He just kind of became one just by beat. Doing
Speaker 1: things that engineers do. Was like taking things apart, putting
Speaker 1: them back together, inventing new stuff, improving things that he
Speaker 1: thought could be improved. He just kind of learned by doing,
Speaker 1: which is you know, that's that's old school, very old school.
Speaker 1: Get in there and tink her away, right. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: if you don't have overalls on, what are you doing?
Speaker 1: You know what I mean? Now? Was your dad always
Speaker 1: tinkering with things in the house to know? He was
Speaker 1: more like, um, I've had to like make drawings all
Speaker 1: day at work. Leave me alone, Maybe bring me an
Speaker 1: old Milwaukee Tallboy before you leave. But if there was
Speaker 1: anything that went wrong in the house, you know, my
Speaker 1: mom would be like can you fix that? Can you
Speaker 1: fix this? And he could fix it all. Yeah, no problem,
Speaker 1: I can fix nothing. Yeah. He was like, um, he
Speaker 1: was too busy leading um cub scout meetings that I
Speaker 1: was not a part of any longer. It's a tinker.
Speaker 1: He was too busy. Well, it sounds like you guys
Speaker 1: found a great way to not spend time together. Well,
Speaker 1: I would bring a beer. That's how I got to
Speaker 1: spend time. Uh. So Leo was really fascinated with radios
Speaker 1: early on as a child. He would build his own.
Speaker 1: He got a broadcast license when he was in high school,
Speaker 1: and before you know it, he had kids and neighbors,
Speaker 1: adults even that would come over to have him fix
Speaker 1: their radios, and to the point where he had a
Speaker 1: little repair shop and there in Folds in California, where
Speaker 1: the big Fender factory ended up being. Yeah, I guess
Speaker 1: it started out at that radio as the radio repair
Speaker 1: shop and just kind of grew from there, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: as a radio shack. Isn't that cool? A literal radio shack? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I guess so. I I think that the good people
Speaker 1: at radio Sheck would have had a problem with it
Speaker 1: had you called it that, But it was that. You
Speaker 1: could have made a case like, no, no, radio shack
Speaker 1: is the rip off. This is the radio shack, and
Speaker 1: the judge had been like, shut up, shut up, shut up,
Speaker 1: you're all going to jail. Um. So he was building radios,
Speaker 1: he started working on PA systems, public address systems, which
Speaker 1: I don't know what that is. It's always people are
Speaker 1: getting on me now for saying, like everyone knows what
Speaker 1: that is. It's what the principal talked on. Yeah, or
Speaker 1: anytime you have a microphone attached to speakers, that's a
Speaker 1: public addresses. Yeah, that's funny because it has been a
Speaker 1: little while since since somebody called you out on that
Speaker 1: because you stopped saying if you've been living under a rock,
Speaker 1: But now they're they're they're meeting you wherever you're at.
Speaker 1: As far as that, I think you either have to
Speaker 1: completely stop or just give up caring. One of the two. Well,
Speaker 1: I explained what a PA system was, So maybe I'm
Speaker 1: on the right track. I think you did great with that.
Speaker 1: So this is in he started to become obsessed with
Speaker 1: where we're just gonna call the big challenge, which was basically,
Speaker 1: you have to think back to a time where music
Speaker 1: was not electrified. They were singing through microphones. The they
Speaker 1: did have um lap steel guitars were electrified. That was
Speaker 1: technically the first electric guitar was the lap steel. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the Rickenbacker frying pan I saw, Yeah, that was kind
Speaker 1: of the very first thing. And in fact, the the
Speaker 1: guy who started Rickenbacker, George bow Champ, he was the
Speaker 1: inventor of the electric pickup. So so I gotta thank
Speaker 1: him big time for kind of bleeding the way. Yeah.
Speaker 1: He basically he yeah, he laid the foundation that who
Speaker 1: knows how long it would have taken. But I just
Speaker 1: want to like explain to people who are like me
Speaker 1: who don't understand this kind of stuff, just real quick,
Speaker 1: with a pick up. Yeah, the pickup is the heart
Speaker 1: of what makes the electric guitar electric. And it basically
Speaker 1: works through um the electro magnetus him where you loop
Speaker 1: a bunch of like copper wire around some magnets, and
Speaker 1: then when you move the strings above those magnets, it
Speaker 1: actually affects that magnetic field and produces an electrical signal.
Speaker 1: That electrical signal goes from the pickup through the chord
Speaker 1: to the p a where it's amplified, and now you
Speaker 1: have an electric guitar. And that's the guy who came
Speaker 1: up with this astoundingly impressive invention, because not only did
Speaker 1: it work, he figured out how to make it pretty
Speaker 1: small right out of the gate, like that frying pan.
Speaker 1: Um electric lap steel guitars ugly but it was small
Speaker 1: and compact. It wasn't like those early computers that took
Speaker 1: up an entire room. He like figured out how to
Speaker 1: make it, you know, useful right out of the gate.
Speaker 1: It was a big, big innovation from what I can tell. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And another way to think of h if you know
Speaker 1: nothing about guitars of the pickup is it's like the
Speaker 1: microphone for the guitar. Uh, and you when you're when
Speaker 1: someone is playing a guitar, it's that little horizontal uh
Speaker 1: usually sort of uh, not oval, but it's square and
Speaker 1: then rounded. I don't know what that shape is. What's
Speaker 1: that called ellipsoid? Is that real? Yeah? It's like that
Speaker 1: means that what it really is? Uh? Yeah, I think so.
Speaker 1: All right here it's the little ellipsoid underneath the strings. Uh.
Speaker 1: Sometimes they're covered up. Uh. Sometimes they're left open, like
Speaker 1: on Fender guitars, they're left open. Um. There's something called
Speaker 1: a humbucker pickup, which uh. Fenders have a tremendous amount
Speaker 1: of hum and buzz when you plug them in because
Speaker 1: it's only one magnet. Humbuckers had two sets of magnets
Speaker 1: that canceled the hum out from each other and those
Speaker 1: are usually but not always, covered up with a little
Speaker 1: steel plate. Right, So humbuckers just two pickups so that they,
Speaker 1: like you said, they cancel out the electrical noise from
Speaker 1: the other equipment that it picks up right, Yes, and
Speaker 1: that's what I prefer. Although do you have a rick
Speaker 1: and bocker? I prefer and have quite a few Gibsons. So, um,
Speaker 1: when we say, like the electric guitar, you just hit
Speaker 1: upon something when we were talking about the frying pan.
Speaker 1: The frying pan was the world's first electric guitar. It
Speaker 1: was from nine thirty one. It had pickups, um, it
Speaker 1: had amplified sound, but it was a lap steel guitar. UM.
Speaker 1: So very shortly after that we had what other people
Speaker 1: would call the world's first electric guitar. This is where
Speaker 1: the answer where you're like, well, who invented the electric
Speaker 1: guitar comes from because what a lot of people were
Speaker 1: recognized as an electric guitar came after and it was
Speaker 1: from Gibson I think in N six where it looked like,
Speaker 1: you know, a normal guitar, but it was electrified, like
Speaker 1: the classic acoustic guitar, but an electrified version. And he said, well,
Speaker 1: why doesn't that qualify as the first electric guitar, because
Speaker 1: it doesn't. For our purposes for this episode, that's still
Speaker 1: not the first electric guitars we're talking about. What we're
Speaker 1: talking about is, as we'll see, what's known as the
Speaker 1: first solid body electric guitar. That's what we're really driving at.
Speaker 1: So if you're sitting there, you know, and you're just
Speaker 1: crump crumpling your your issue of Guitarist magazine right now
Speaker 1: and losing your mind, sell down, because I just spelled
Speaker 1: it out for everybody. Okay, Yeah, And so getting back
Speaker 1: to where we kind of got off track in a
Speaker 1: good way, but getting back to the big burning question,
Speaker 1: and the big problem was with these they called them
Speaker 1: Spanish guitars, but we call them acoustic guitars now that
Speaker 1: had those electric pickups in them. They were really prone
Speaker 1: to feedback because they had this big hollow cavity behind
Speaker 1: the hole or it. You know, it usually had what's
Speaker 1: called f holes, and that sounds funny, but if you
Speaker 1: look at them, there to shape like an ornate sort
Speaker 1: of curse of f I'm glad you said it. So
Speaker 1: because of these big hollow acoustic guitars with these pickups
Speaker 1: and early amp technology they would just feedback like crazy
Speaker 1: anytime you try to get any volume. So, yeah, those
Speaker 1: pickups wouldn't differentiate between the vibrations from the string that
Speaker 1: you were intended or the reverberated vibrations from inside the
Speaker 1: hollow body of that that Spanish style guitar, and so
Speaker 1: it just sounds awful, right, So that was the thing
Speaker 1: that Leo Fender was obsessed with. He was like, how
Speaker 1: could because you know, it's hard to imagine, but at
Speaker 1: the time, the guitar was not a lead instrument, and
Speaker 1: it was there were occasionally like guitar solos and stuff
Speaker 1: that you could uh insert into a recording or you know,
Speaker 1: they recorded lives, but you could put on a recording,
Speaker 1: but like if you were playing live in a in
Speaker 1: a venue, the guitar was very much in the background
Speaker 1: because you couldn't turn it up loud enough to cut
Speaker 1: through the vocals and the drums, the piano, the horn sections.
Speaker 1: These were all really loud live instruments. And he was like,
Speaker 1: Leo Fender was like, we've got to be able to
Speaker 1: amplify this sound such that it doesn't feedback to where
Speaker 1: you can actually hear the guitar in a concert hall. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so like it can stand on its own rather than
Speaker 1: a company's you know whoever the horns or get drowned out.
Speaker 1: Like that was the point of like Fender and later
Speaker 1: on Les Paul's quest is to make the guitar its
Speaker 1: own thing, and to basically do that by making it
Speaker 1: really loud and sound really good when it is loud.
Speaker 1: Oh man, this is getting good. It's a good time
Speaker 1: for a break, I think right. I think so too. Man.
Speaker 1: All right, I'm gonna go take a cold shower and
Speaker 1: I'll be right backs and shock alright, chuck, So we're back.
Speaker 1: So Leo Fenders on this quest, he's figured out there's
Speaker 1: a big problem here that if you want to make
Speaker 1: a guitar loud, you have to make it not an
Speaker 1: acoustic guitar. But he one of the things about him
Speaker 1: was he wasn't a musician, and like he didn't clamp
Speaker 1: onto this this problem of creating the electric guitar, figuring
Speaker 1: out how to make an electric guitar because he necessarily
Speaker 1: cared about the music. And he also later on it
Speaker 1: turns out he didn't like rock and roll, which would
Speaker 1: be kind of ironic. He was a country western dude
Speaker 1: from southern California, kind of like Nicolas Cage's character and
Speaker 1: Valley Girl exactly. Belly Girl that was him basically is
Speaker 1: based on Leo Fender. That's my that's my theory. Uh yeah,
Speaker 1: So Fender didn't play, but here's something that was very
Speaker 1: cute that story from the book. He would go to
Speaker 1: local music halls during live performances with his He always
Speaker 1: had this little tool kit on him, I think, much
Speaker 1: like your dad's slide role, and he would jump up
Speaker 1: on stage and tweak the amps during the middle of
Speaker 1: performances and people there would be like, what is this
Speaker 1: guy doing? And in the band sometimes and say, hey, everybody,
Speaker 1: this is Leo Fender. He's the one that makes it
Speaker 1: sound just right. And uh he would like during during
Speaker 1: the show, would kind of get a screwdriver out and
Speaker 1: mess with the amps. That's pretty cute, It's very cool.
Speaker 1: Uh yeah. He'd be like, oh, you want me to
Speaker 1: turn it up, man, I'll turn it up for you,
Speaker 1: dirty hippie. All right? Should we go to Mr Les Paul? Yeah? So,
Speaker 1: um Fender, we should just just recap real quick. Fender
Speaker 1: has has stumbled upon the big problem with electric guitars,
Speaker 1: the reverb with a classical guitar. So he's thinking about that.
Speaker 1: And now we meet Chuck Les Paul who was born
Speaker 1: Lester Paul Fuss in nineteen fifteen and Waukesha, Wisconsin. He
Speaker 1: was a Wisconsin boy like Ed Geene was as well,
Speaker 1: but not nearly as Grizzly. No, but a guitar wizard
Speaker 1: like ed Geene. Right, a little known fact about ed Gaine. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so before we get into his childhood, this is the
Speaker 1: real important distinction between Leo Fender and less Paul. Leo
Speaker 1: Fender did not play instruments, was an engineer at heart
Speaker 1: and love to figure out problems for other people. Less
Speaker 1: Paul all was uh the height of his game, the
Speaker 1: most popular guitar player in the world and with a
Speaker 1: string of number one hits. Uh. He was also a tinkerer,
Speaker 1: but he was like, I need to make my guitar
Speaker 1: sound better for me, so I can get better and
Speaker 1: sound better. Yeah, that was his goal all along. But
Speaker 1: you know, it takes a special kind of person to
Speaker 1: say like, Okay, well then I need to figure out
Speaker 1: how to make that happen. I need to figure out
Speaker 1: how to make an electric guitar rather than oh, what
Speaker 1: can I do. I need to I need somebody to
Speaker 1: do this for me. Somebody needs to invent this, right,
Speaker 1: I need to collaborate somebody. He was like, I'm I'm
Speaker 1: gonna go try to figure this out myself. And he
Speaker 1: really like, I didn't realize what a guitar got he
Speaker 1: was and that he he was like this. Um. I
Speaker 1: think at one point he had like four hits or
Speaker 1: four spots on the Billboard top charts. UM. Like he
Speaker 1: was really a popular musician. UM about midway through his career.
Speaker 1: But even from a young age, he started out playing
Speaker 1: like he was a performer. And I think he's also
Speaker 1: credited Chuck with being the person um because he played
Speaker 1: country western too. He also played the harmonica. His act
Speaker 1: was called rubar Bread and it was just him and
Speaker 1: he played the guitar and the harmonica. And he figured
Speaker 1: out long before Bob Dylan every came along. But that's problematic.
Speaker 1: You technically need four arms for that. So he fashioned
Speaker 1: a harmonica holder that he could wear while he was
Speaker 1: playing the guitar, just like Bob Dylan. More later on,
Speaker 1: he was the kid who invented that years before. Yeah,
Speaker 1: maybe this is another one of those things where it's
Speaker 1: like did he invent it or did he see it
Speaker 1: and make one on his own? But not taking anything
Speaker 1: away from the guy. He was also a kid taking
Speaker 1: apart electronics in his house putting them back together. He
Speaker 1: really knew what he was doing, and he also had,
Speaker 1: you know, like every guitar player, that same big problem
Speaker 1: was when he played, he would be up there and
Speaker 1: he could sing through that microphone, although he didn't sing
Speaker 1: that much. He did when he was a kid, but
Speaker 1: later on he realized he wasn't not like a pro singer.
Speaker 1: Harmonica sounded good through the mic, but the guitar was
Speaker 1: still in the background, and he knew that was an issue. Yes,
Speaker 1: apparently um as this as legend has it, he was
Speaker 1: playing a show at a barbecue stand. Um and I
Speaker 1: think it was a regular potentially a regular show. He
Speaker 1: could his harmonica sounded fine when he was singing. It
Speaker 1: was broadcast fine because he had a microphone, but nothing
Speaker 1: was working for the guitar was He was drowning it
Speaker 1: out himself. So he realized that if he took the
Speaker 1: phonograph needle, the electrified phonograph needle from his his parents
Speaker 1: phonograph and attached it to the guitar and then attached
Speaker 1: to that to a radio, he could actually amplify his guitar.
Speaker 1: So he figured this out I think at like age thirteen, Um,
Speaker 1: because he wanted to improve his barbecue stand chops and
Speaker 1: tips and tips. He supposedly his tips tripled as a result.
Speaker 1: But um, you know that's pretty impressive stuff. I would
Speaker 1: not have thought about that at the as at the
Speaker 1: tender year on the age oft. Yeah, I mean that's
Speaker 1: where the tinkering comes in. And I'm sure it didn't
Speaker 1: sound great to our ears now, but at the time,
Speaker 1: you have to put yourself in the place of like
Speaker 1: literally having never heard something like this happen. Uh, it was.
Speaker 1: It had to have been like a revelation to actually
Speaker 1: hear that guitar coming through a speaker, especially if you
Speaker 1: lived in Waukesha, Wisconsin. You've never heard anything like that
Speaker 1: in your life. But he was very much opposite of
Speaker 1: Leo Fender and his personality. He was very gregarious, very outgoing,
Speaker 1: made a lot of friends. Uh, could also be a
Speaker 1: little brash. Was not a great husband to his two wives,
Speaker 1: which we'll get to, but he was He was always
Speaker 1: sort of the life of the party and he loved
Speaker 1: performing in front of people, whereas Leo Fender really kind
Speaker 1: of wanted to be at the background unless he was
Speaker 1: very quietly getting on stage. Um. Unless Paul from the
Speaker 1: very beginning, once he could afford regular guitars, I think
Speaker 1: he moved to Chicago and was like making decent money,
Speaker 1: like backing other people up. But he had a relationship
Speaker 1: with Gibson from the very beginning because Gibson started out
Speaker 1: as an acoustic guitar maker. Uh, and they're still known.
Speaker 1: I mean, they make these great electric guitars, but you
Speaker 1: know some of the best guitars in the world, or
Speaker 1: Gibson acoustic guitars. Yeah, they also made like Mandolin's and
Speaker 1: like yeah, like just all manner of stringing instruments and
Speaker 1: what they made were basically works of art. Yeah, they
Speaker 1: were beautiful and they still are. My favorite guitar I
Speaker 1: owned is one I bought during the pandemic. I finally
Speaker 1: bought the Gibson Acoustic U based on a nineteen forties model,
Speaker 1: and it's just it's amazing. The sound difference between even
Speaker 1: that and my really nice Martin Acoustic is striking. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Gibs or Fender was not making acoustic guitars, and they
Speaker 1: still to this day don't make a very good acoustic guitar. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I can't imagine. It's really interesting that, like one of
Speaker 1: the biggest guitar companies in the world. I don't if
Speaker 1: they can't or if they just don't put the resources
Speaker 1: toward it, but I think they're nicest acoustic guitar tops
Speaker 1: out at about eight hundred bucks, which is you know,
Speaker 1: you can get a pretty good guitar for that, but
Speaker 1: these really really nice Gibson's are like four and five dollars. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And like Gibson's whole jam was to make professional quality
Speaker 1: instruments that were again works of art, but like if
Speaker 1: you were a professional musician, like Gibson could make an
Speaker 1: instrument that you could use and probably love UM. And
Speaker 1: they were making them already. They were making those electrified
Speaker 1: Spanish style or electrified acoustic guitars as as like I
Speaker 1: was saying, as as early as I think six was
Speaker 1: the e S one fifty. E S stood for Electrified
Speaker 1: Spanish Guitar UM and there was a jazz guitarist named
Speaker 1: Charlie Christian who really kind of championed that development. He
Speaker 1: think he played for Benny Goodman's band, um but um
Speaker 1: I think they named the pickup in those after him,
Speaker 1: Charlie Christian Pickups. But U so les Paul was playing
Speaker 1: these Gibson guitars, but it still wasn't what he was
Speaker 1: looking for, because again, if you turned it up really loud,
Speaker 1: you it would provide all sorts of problems. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: funny these little letters that like the E S three
Speaker 1: thirty five is just a classic, amazing instrument still today,
Speaker 1: and they have all these cool letters and you never
Speaker 1: know what they name, but they mean but electrified Spanish.
Speaker 1: Is kind of funny that the iconic Gibson s G
Speaker 1: s G stands first Solid Guitar. Really. Yeah, they're all
Speaker 1: just these very mundane abbreviations that all these years later
Speaker 1: just seemed cool because Angus Young plays it. Yeah right,
Speaker 1: well yeah, I mean if used a different example from
Speaker 1: Angus Young and be really on board, but I got
Speaker 1: you I play one. Well, there you go has a
Speaker 1: cool acts. Uh. So he charmed his way into the
Speaker 1: Epiphone factory in New York. Epiphone was a really big
Speaker 1: guitar maker at the time, and I think Gibson eventually
Speaker 1: bought UM, I think they're co Co brand or you know,
Speaker 1: under the Gibson umbrella. Now, but he got to work
Speaker 1: on his problems, and you've got to look up some
Speaker 1: pictures of some of this stuff kind of starting now. Uh,
Speaker 1: just look up a picture of the log from Les Paul.
Speaker 1: And it was a I was about to say essentially,
Speaker 1: but it's not essentially. It was a four by four
Speaker 1: block of pine wood about two ft long that he
Speaker 1: put a guitar neck on, an epiphone guitar neck, and
Speaker 1: he made his own pickup. I guess he didn't go
Speaker 1: out and buy a pickup or use one from another guitar,
Speaker 1: and he made his own pickup, you know, with a
Speaker 1: magnet and the wire, put some strings on it and
Speaker 1: called it the log. And it was a very primitive
Speaker 1: but working, solid body electric guitar. It looked very much
Speaker 1: like something Devo would have played. Yeah, And in fact,
Speaker 1: it freaked people out so much early on UM that
Speaker 1: he ended up taking a part another guitar and glue
Speaker 1: ng sides onto the side of it to make it
Speaker 1: look normal, to make it look normal, And there's this
Speaker 1: great picture of him holding the log, kind of separating
Speaker 1: the sides off with a little wry smile. Um. But
Speaker 1: the Gibson little side note gives the Gibson Firebird guitar,
Speaker 1: which is one of my favorite guitars. I used to
Speaker 1: have one, but I sold it. It is a it's
Speaker 1: called a through neck guitar. I'm sure there are others,
Speaker 1: but it's the only one I can think of that's
Speaker 1: really popular. Whereas it's the same thing. It's basically one
Speaker 1: long piece of wood, like the neck is the same
Speaker 1: piece of wood as the body, and then they glue
Speaker 1: on these wings on the outside. Okay, all right, settle down, Chuck.
Speaker 1: It's pretty exciting, so Chuck. Also, if you ever found
Speaker 1: yourself trapped in walt Kesha, Wisconsin, you go to go
Speaker 1: to the book Kesha County Museum and they actually have
Speaker 1: the original log there on display. Oh really, Yeah, apparently
Speaker 1: they have a lot of Less Paul stuff there, including
Speaker 1: that with the wings of the of the guitar kind
Speaker 1: of pulled away to kind of show you know, it's
Speaker 1: a neck through design like the Fireber. I I was
Speaker 1: just teasing you, and I said to settle down. I
Speaker 1: was just taking an opportunity. Like, I'm charmed very much.
Speaker 1: I'm sure everyone else is by your childlike excitement over
Speaker 1: this whole thing. I'm as excited as when I got
Speaker 1: my first guitar when I was twelve, which was a
Speaker 1: candy Apple red BC rich like metal guitar. I wish
Speaker 1: I knew what mine was. I had a metal guitar too,
Speaker 1: mom was pink, had a light coating of diamond dust.
Speaker 1: And I wish to god I could remember who it was.
Speaker 1: A local metal band from Toledo. Yeah. Yeah, they had
Speaker 1: like an album and a poster and everything. And the guy,
Speaker 1: the guitarist from the band worked at like the music store,
Speaker 1: um where I would take lessons and he taught me
Speaker 1: and he was as interested as um Oh. I can't
Speaker 1: remember Carl Weather's character and happy Gilmore, but he's like
Speaker 1: a golf pro and just totally uninterested. That's how interested
Speaker 1: this guitar player wasn't seeing me as a future guitar player. Um.
Speaker 1: And it's not like I blame him for me losing
Speaker 1: interesting guitar, but he definitely didn't. He wasn't a great
Speaker 1: mentor or anything. But I wish it's so bad I
Speaker 1: would have stuck with it a little bit longer because
Speaker 1: it was pretty pretty boss. When I look back on
Speaker 1: the whole thing. I never knew this. How long did
Speaker 1: you try? I don't know, five six lessons maybe? Al right.
Speaker 1: I wonder what happened to that guitar too, Like my
Speaker 1: parents bought the guitar. I mean it was used in everything,
Speaker 1: but like, I have no idea what became of that guitar.
Speaker 1: I never uh took lessons, So maybe that's the key. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I could totally see that. I just shut myself in
Speaker 1: my room and and started buying tableature, which, if you
Speaker 1: don't know what that is, instead of actual sheet music,
Speaker 1: like written out like a you know, like real sheet
Speaker 1: music tableature or little numbers on they kind of mimic
Speaker 1: a six string guitar and they put little numbers on
Speaker 1: the strings on where you should put your fingers. So
Speaker 1: it allows anyone who can't read music to sort of
Speaker 1: figure out songs like e E G, E e G.
Speaker 1: What are those chords? Someone's going to call you out
Speaker 1: on that. I don't know, but that that was the
Speaker 1: Kids in the Hall reference more than even a Deep
Speaker 1: Purple reference. Oh man, I love that band in the
Speaker 1: in the skits, the little kid garage band. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: all right. So back to the log. The log was
Speaker 1: very rough, very primitive, but what it did accomplish was
Speaker 1: amplification without feedback in longer sustain. Yeah. And more importantly,
Speaker 1: it was a solid body guitar. Like like Less Paul
Speaker 1: kind of crack that code that Fender, as far as
Speaker 1: I know, is still working on. Because this is nineteen right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: this was pre uh yeah, early nineteen forty. I think
Speaker 1: it was prely Offender for sure. Yeah, so I mean
Speaker 1: Less Paul really does have a claim to fame to
Speaker 1: creating the first wooden solid body electric guitar because I
Speaker 1: think the frying pan was solid body aluminum. He figured
Speaker 1: out that problem of reverse just get rid of the
Speaker 1: hollow body, replace it with the solid body, and it
Speaker 1: was ugly. That seems to be the big problem. It
Speaker 1: wasn't exactly what he was looking for sound wise, but
Speaker 1: it was definitely close enough that it was like, I'm
Speaker 1: on the right track. Let me go show the people
Speaker 1: at Gibson. They're gonna love this kind of thing. And um,
Speaker 1: they basically laughed him out of the meeting in Kalamazoo,
Speaker 1: Michigan because he um showed up with a really ugly guitar. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and not only that, like they just didn't see the
Speaker 1: vision because, like I said, they were working with these
Speaker 1: ancient luthier's who had this ancient craft. They weren't ancient humans,
Speaker 1: but they would wake them from the dead each day
Speaker 1: to go to the workshop and create a new guitar.
Speaker 1: But the point is they were doing great with these
Speaker 1: big acoustic guitars, and they were like, no one's gonna
Speaker 1: want to hear that, because this is what a guitar is, basically, like,
Speaker 1: you don't it's not a lead instrument in the band.
Speaker 1: Lead that to the horns and the piano. So he
Speaker 1: was laughed out of there and a little egg on
Speaker 1: his face. But this was a full five years before
Speaker 1: Leo Fender came up with his first plant guitar, which
Speaker 1: you should also look up just typing Leo Fender black
Speaker 1: Plant guitar. And it looks a little more like a
Speaker 1: guitar than the log, but not that much. No, it
Speaker 1: looks more way more like a guitar than the log,
Speaker 1: but it still doesn't look like a guitar as we
Speaker 1: know it. Yeah, it was almost I get the impression
Speaker 1: that he created the guitar kind of like how you
Speaker 1: might build like a car out of clay, but the
Speaker 1: axle works because you're testing wheels, I don't think people
Speaker 1: and he built it as a test, yeah, but I
Speaker 1: don't think we mentioned that though, Yeah, but it was
Speaker 1: it was he was testing out like pickups and I
Speaker 1: think testing the concept of a solid body as well.
Speaker 1: But he wasn't making it like this is going to
Speaker 1: be my prototype. But it turned out to actually be
Speaker 1: kind of a prototype because um, when he uh, I
Speaker 1: don't exactly know how word got around. I guess because
Speaker 1: he was friends with band and so bands would kind
Speaker 1: of come around the workshop to see what's going on,
Speaker 1: and they started coming around seeing and hearing this guitar
Speaker 1: that he made, and um, people started renting it apparently
Speaker 1: for the weekend to go play shows with and just
Speaker 1: knocking the socks off of the Bobby socksers in town
Speaker 1: from what I can tell. Yeah, And at this point
Speaker 1: he has the Fender Electric Instrument Company. Uh, it's legit.
Speaker 1: And you know, in the background of all of this,
Speaker 1: and we're not going to talk much about amps, but
Speaker 1: in the background of all of this, he's building amps
Speaker 1: along the way. He was one of the first sort
Speaker 1: of master amp builders. Well, yeah, Fender amps are like
Speaker 1: as famous as the guitar. Basically, yeah, so where are
Speaker 1: we at right now? Fenders made his playing guitar, Leo's
Speaker 1: got his log. Neither one of them are going places
Speaker 1: immediately with it. It's just kind of like they've both
Speaker 1: now cracked to the problem and there's a lot of
Speaker 1: obstacles between them and fame, or at least guitar production fame. Um,
Speaker 1: but you know what that means though, Right we're at
Speaker 1: our second break. Oh good, okay, Chuck, I think that
Speaker 1: was great. Um, so Chuck, just separ at our second break.
Speaker 1: He's clearly driving this episode. Let's all go with it,
Speaker 1: shall we shock? Okay, we're back, Chuck, We're back. We
Speaker 1: got a log, We've got this little funny looking black,
Speaker 1: solid body guitar, and uh, we need to pick back
Speaker 1: up with with Les Paul In nineteen I guess forty
Speaker 1: one ish. He moves to Los Angeles. He's and to
Speaker 1: get session work. Uh he plays with Bing Crosby, who was, uh,
Speaker 1: sort of one of the most popular singers at the time.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, dude. He moved to Los Angeles to be
Speaker 1: near being Crosby, which I did little research, and that
Speaker 1: was kind of a common thing, what to just want
Speaker 1: to be near bing Crosses. Yeah, you've moved across the
Speaker 1: country to be near bing Crosby unless you were one
Speaker 1: of his kids. Oh is he a good father? Oh?
Speaker 1: Really not a good dad. I didn't know that. Wait
Speaker 1: a minute, are you thinking of mommy dearest? Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: that's right, that's one thinking thinking of John Crawford. Uh.
Speaker 1: But he was a huge, huge music star. Um Les
Speaker 1: Paul was out there working with him. But then he
Speaker 1: gets I don't think we mentioned he had electrocuted really
Speaker 1: bad when he was twenty six playing music. He had
Speaker 1: sweaty hands, held the microphone, was also touching the guitar strings,
Speaker 1: completed a circuit and really damaged his hand such that
Speaker 1: it took Uh. I mean I heard his whole body,
Speaker 1: but it damaged his hand such that took quite a
Speaker 1: couple of years to even recover, which was huge. Like
Speaker 1: he he might have never played again, Like there was
Speaker 1: a possibility that was going to happen. Yeah, and that's
Speaker 1: just injury number one for him. Um but he gets
Speaker 1: drafted in World War Two, goes to work in the
Speaker 1: Army at the Armed Forces Radio Network and is playing guitar,
Speaker 1: basically backing up the Andrews sisters backing up Being Crosby
Speaker 1: when they do these USO tours. So as far as
Speaker 1: the army goes in World War Two, pretty plumb gig right.
Speaker 1: Um so. And plus he's again like he did move
Speaker 1: to l A to Bean or being Crosby in the
Speaker 1: fact that he's getting to like play with being Crosby.
Speaker 1: Is I'm guessing a lifelong dream of his come true.
Speaker 1: Um And even after the war, I guess he made
Speaker 1: enough of a connection with being Um I'm on a
Speaker 1: first name basis with him. By the way, um he
Speaker 1: uh that that Less Paul um kind of I guess became.
Speaker 1: I don't know if there was like a mentor thing,
Speaker 1: but at the very least he definitely patronized. Less Paul
Speaker 1: helped his career big time. One of the things that
Speaker 1: really helped Less Paul become like a genuine, bona fide star.
Speaker 1: He was already fairly well known and a lot of
Speaker 1: circles had some hits, but what really shot him to
Speaker 1: the top was the song called It's Been a Long
Speaker 1: Long Time. It's actually a really good song, but it
Speaker 1: was kind of a song that was a hit because
Speaker 1: it kind of summed up America trudging wearily back from
Speaker 1: World War Two. Um, and it's just kind of like
Speaker 1: this mellow solemn song where, uh, it's almost I'm sure
Speaker 1: there's other instruments, but my ears pick up Bing Crosby's
Speaker 1: vocals and Less Paul's jazz guitar um and they his
Speaker 1: guitar enhances the vocals so much. But there's a actual
Speaker 1: guitar solo in there, and it's slow, but it's really good.
Speaker 1: And that kind of shot Less Paul to superstardom from
Speaker 1: that point on. Yeah, so Bing Crosby is like, you
Speaker 1: need to open up a studio. I'll even help finance
Speaker 1: this thing. He did so in his garage and before
Speaker 1: you know it, and Los Angeles, all these famous people
Speaker 1: are stopping by Les Paul's garage to hear him play,
Speaker 1: to hang out with him. Uh. He, like I said,
Speaker 1: he was a very gregarious guy. So people just kind
Speaker 1: of wanted to be around him. And this is all
Speaker 1: going great, but he still wasn't quite satisfied with what
Speaker 1: was going on because the sound just still wasn't there.
Speaker 1: He was he he called it sound on sound recording.
Speaker 1: He was the first person, or one of the first
Speaker 1: people to experiment with studio techniques where you could layer
Speaker 1: recordings on top of one another. And this was before
Speaker 1: they were even recording on magnetic tape. Yeah, dude, multi
Speaker 1: track recording like you know how you hear drums playing,
Speaker 1: and you hear a guitar playing, and then you hear
Speaker 1: like vocals, all of those musicians may never have even
Speaker 1: been in the same room at the same time. You
Speaker 1: can do that with multi track recording. Back in the day,
Speaker 1: if you wanted to make a recording, you had to
Speaker 1: get everybody into a room. You all had to be
Speaker 1: playing it once. He had to be playing the song together,
Speaker 1: and then you recorded it and that was the record wording, right,
Speaker 1: So did it come up with multi track recording? Was
Speaker 1: huge in and of itself, But I looked into what
Speaker 1: he was actually doing and it's mind boggling. He would
Speaker 1: He came up, I think, with a song called Lover
Speaker 1: and it was was that the one where it's like
Speaker 1: seven tracks or eight tracks of guitars. And the way
Speaker 1: that he made each track was he recorded one track,
Speaker 1: the first initial track onto acetate. He made a record
Speaker 1: of that, and then he took that record and he
Speaker 1: played it, and then he played along with it, and
Speaker 1: then he recorded that onto another record, and then another record,
Speaker 1: and then another record, and by the time he was
Speaker 1: doing his seventh track, he had a record of seven
Speaker 1: of seven tracks playing all at once on one record
Speaker 1: that he had recorded one by one, and he was
Speaker 1: playing the eighth track with it. And if you messed
Speaker 1: up one time, say on track five, he had to
Speaker 1: start all over at the beginning, unless he still had
Speaker 1: those first few tracks handy. Hopefully he didn't break each
Speaker 1: record after each recording or anything like that, but in
Speaker 1: that nuts going to that, and that was about as
Speaker 1: innovating uh form of music as anyone had come up
Speaker 1: with to that point. Yeah, it's funny when you hear
Speaker 1: people working with like pro tools and dragon drop digital
Speaker 1: recording now and they talk about like in the old
Speaker 1: days when they used when they would cut and spice tape,
Speaker 1: like go back even further, dude to less Paul doing
Speaker 1: this on actual actual ascetate records. It's crazy. It is crazy.
Speaker 1: When I was like, what what does that mean? What
Speaker 1: was he doing? Like dueling a state records? And I
Speaker 1: looked tonight my eyes popped out of my head. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's pretty remarkable. The innovations he was coming up with.
Speaker 1: So he's doing all that, he's becoming more and more popular,
Speaker 1: and then a very faithful thing happened. Uh a steel
Speaker 1: guitar player name. Uh do we say Joaquin Murphy. That's
Speaker 1: how I'm going with all right, that's how it spelled.
Speaker 1: H He came over to Less's house one day and
Speaker 1: he said, you know what, I got this guy here.
Speaker 1: I want you to meet him. And he's really good
Speaker 1: with working on amplifiers, and I think you guys might
Speaker 1: like each other. Uh. And his name is Leo Fender
Speaker 1: and where you know it? And this this is movie territory.
Speaker 1: Leo Fender and Les Paul are hanging out together, trying
Speaker 1: to figure stuff out together, work shopping, problem solving. They um,
Speaker 1: you know, they pointed out, and he's right that they
Speaker 1: weren't like great friends. But it's not like they were
Speaker 1: enemies or rivals at first. They just were really really
Speaker 1: different from each other. Yeah. Um, they kind of shared
Speaker 1: a U at the very least, they had a common
Speaker 1: problem or a common quest that they were both working on.
Speaker 1: They were just not similar people personality wise, so they
Speaker 1: didn't click. They were like, this is great, let's be
Speaker 1: partners were the same, right exactly, but they also were
Speaker 1: also kind of becoming rivals a little bit too, right, well,
Speaker 1: not quite yet. Like at this point they were genuinely
Speaker 1: trying to figure stuff out together. Uh, and I think
Speaker 1: like Leo was coming over every he can basically musicians
Speaker 1: would come over still, and he would ask them questions
Speaker 1: and try and figure stuff out, try and solve these
Speaker 1: amplification problems. But um, yeah, there may have been a
Speaker 1: little friendly like let's see what this guy's got kind
Speaker 1: of thing, but you know, Les Paul was like, you
Speaker 1: can't even play yeah. And again remember remember though Fender.
Speaker 1: By this time he had a company, the Fender Electric
Speaker 1: Instrument Company. He was mostly focusing on electric steel guitars because, um,
Speaker 1: not just country Western love that stuff, but Hawaiian music
Speaker 1: was really huge as well. Um, and they use a
Speaker 1: lap steel guitar. So um, he was he had a
Speaker 1: company already going. Les Paul had his own musical career going.
Speaker 1: He was just kind of, you know, he tinkered because
Speaker 1: he needed to his his focuses on his musical career.
Speaker 1: So I could see there being like a little bit
Speaker 1: of a rivalry and that they were trying to crack
Speaker 1: the same problem, but other than that, they weren't necessarily rivals.
Speaker 1: You know, that's right. Uh. And in order to really
Speaker 1: solve this problem, it would take the entrance of a
Speaker 1: or gentlemen that we haven't even mentioned yet that was very,
Speaker 1: very important to the story of the electric guitar. And
Speaker 1: that is where we're going to leave you for part one.
Speaker 1: Nice Chuck, it was a very good cliffhanger. Who could
Speaker 1: it be? I don't know, but you're gonna have to
Speaker 1: tune in Thursday to find out. In this very special
Speaker 1: two part episode of Stuff you Should Know, My money's
Speaker 1: on CC to Bill. Stuff You Should Know is a
Speaker 1: production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts my heart Radio,
Speaker 1: visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows.