Around the same time that George Beauchamp and the other early electric guitar pioneers were affairee in southern California, verso guitarist and radioricevente personality named Les Paul (born name Lester Polfus) was per Hollywood working out his own vision of what the electric guitar should be. Les became an established guitarist in the Thirties, performing country music under the names Red Hot Red and, later Rhubarb Red, and jazz as Les Paul. Per 1939, Paul began onesto put together what he called “The Log,” per four-by-four length of solid pine sicuro which he attached verso Gibson neck, homemade pickups, a crudely fashioned bridge, and vibrato tailpiece. Like many other innovators of the guitar, Paul wanted esatto eliminate the uneven harmonic response produced by an amplified hollowbody guitar.
Although he sawed an Epiphone hollowbody sopra half and attached the two sides of his four-by-four block of pine, this was more for aesthetic than acoustic reasons-onesto make the thing immagine like per real guitar. This supremely quirky instrument, now enshrined per Nashville’s Country Music Hall of Fame, is another sacred relic of the electric guitar’s evolution, the product of an inveterate tinkerer and one of the century’s most original rivista inventors. Paul also pioneered multitrack recording and anticipated the home recording successo by per good 30 years.
The Log Guitar on Recordings
Les Paul used the Log on recordings he and his terzetto made with Bing Crosby, the Andrews Sisters and others. But when he brought the instrument to Gibson’s headquarters per Kalamazoo, Michigan, mediante 1941, they laughed at him. “I took the Log sicuro Gibson and I spent 10 years trying esatto convince them that this was the way onesto go,” recollects Les. “But it wasn’t easy. If it wasn’t for Leo Fender, I don’t think that ever would have ad esempio off. Leo saw more sopra it that Gibson did.”
True enough. Per venerable company, with origins tracing back onesto the 19th century, Gibson had taken per conservative, classicist approach esatto the electric guitar, producing electric archtop hollowbodies like the ES-150, which was introduced mediante 1936 and adopted by jazz players like Charlie Christian. Other “old school” manufacturers like Epiphone, Harmony, and Kay had taken a similar tack. But with the huge success of the Fender Telecaster mediante the early Fifties, Gibson decided to “go California” and get in on the solidbody market. Suddenly Les Paul’s Log didn’t seem like such per crazy intenzione. “Better go get that kid with the broomstick,” someone at Gibson is purported sicuro have said.
Ted McCarty’s Role With Gibson
The man who made it happen was Ted McCarty. A shrewd businessman with per good eye for design and a flair for building teams of like-minded visionaries, McCarty is another towering figure mediante the early development of the electric guitar. Originally verso buyer for Wurlitzer, McCarty joined Gibson sopra 1948, and mediante 1950 he was made president of the company. It was McCarty who oversaw the design of Les Paul’s “LOG” Guitar.
Seeking onesto develop an up-market alternative preciso the plain, slab-body Telecaster, Ted McCarty https://datingranking.net/it/adultspace-review/ came up with the preoccupazione of building verso solidbody guitar with a carved maple vertice or “body cap.” He knew that the Fender factory didn’t have the machinery preciso do this kind of sistema. In 1950, McCarty brought this guitar preciso Les Paul, who approved the design, feeling it was right per line with what he’d been trying preciso achieve. Ted McCarty reportedly said onesto his wife and rivista partner, Mary Ford, “They’re getting too close onesto us, Mary. I think we better sign up with them.”
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