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