3 days ago
Les Paul: The Man And The Guitar
One hundred ten years ago yesterday in Waukesha, Wisconsin, Lester William Polsfuss was born. The world would soon come to know him as Les Paul. (Forgive me for not getting to my keyboard in time to publish this on his birthday; recovering from a broken hip is not a smooth path.)
Although Paul was an accomplished guitarist (jazz, country, and blues), and also a songwriter and luthier, he will always be remembered as a pioneer of the solid-body electric guitar. With that, he changed music forever.
That makes Les Paul an undisputed leader, one of 20th century America's singular figures. And as leadership is one of the topics about which I am charged to write here, paying attention and tribute to Les Paul seems like a good – and fun – idea. Being a guitarist myself makes this even more fun,
Les Paul was not first. There were others doing the same thing – producing guitar music via electricity rather than acoustics – even before him: Paul Tutmarc (1935) and Adolph Rickenbacker (also 1930s) predated his first attempt in 1940. And Leo Fender became a big name in solid-body guitars in the 1940s, as the Fender Guitar company affirms.
But when Les Paul aligned himself with the Gibson Guitar Company, they ultimately produced the iconic Gibson Les Paul, one of the most widely played electric guitars in the world for the last 85 years. It is as much a rock and roll icon as anything or anyone else.
Leaders achieve and maintain leadership status many ways, including by forging alliances. Les Paul and the Gibson Guitar Company are a truly great example – to this day.
Les was performing by 1928 (age 13) and continued all his life. He was a regular at the Iridium Jazz Club in New York. He played there nearly every week until just before his death at 94 in 2009. How 'bout that?
Among his many honors, Les Paul is one of the very few artists with a permanent, stand-alone exhibit in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. He is prominently named by the music museum on its website as an "architect" and a "key inductee" – and is the only inductee in both the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the National Inventors Hall of Fame.
And whatever your experience with Rock and Roll, Les Paul is a part of it. Not a guitarist ever lived who hasn't played on or performed on a Les Paul. Not a rock concert goer hasn't been serenaded by or blown away by a Gibson Les Paul guitar.
Leadership is about more than the future; it is also about the legacy you leave behind.
