Around the same time that George Beauchamp and the other early electric guitar pioneers were affairee per southern California, per guitarist and radio personality named Les Paul (born name Lester Polfus) was con 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. Con 1939, Paul began esatto put together what he called “The Log,” verso four-by-four length of solid pine onesto https://datingranking.net/it/wantmatures-review/ which he attached per Gibson neck, homemade pickups, a crudely fashioned bridge, and vibrato tailpiece. Like many other innovators of the guitar, Paul wanted to eliminate the uneven harmonic response produced by an amplified hollowbody guitar.
Although he sawed an Epiphone hollowbody per 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 per real guitar. This supremely quirky instrument, now enshrined con Nashville’s Country Music Vestibolo of Bramosia, is another sacred relic of the electric guitar’s evolution, the product of an inveterate tinkerer and one of the century’s most original vassoio inventors. Paul also pioneered multitrack recording and anticipated the home recording popolarita 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 sicuro convince them that this was the way sicuro go,” recollects Les. “But it wasn’t easy. If it wasn’t for Leo Fender, I don’t think that ever would have come off. Leo saw more sopra it that Gibson did.”
True enough. Verso venerable company, with origins tracing back puro the 19th century, Gibson had taken a conservative, classicist approach sicuro 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 verso similar tack. But with the huge success of the Fender Telecaster sopra the early Fifties, Gibson decided puro “go California” and get in on the solidbody market. Suddenly Les Paul’s Log didn’t seem like such a crazy idea. “Better go get that kid with the broomstick,” someone at Gibson is purported esatto have said.
Ted McCarty’s Role With Gibson
The man who made it happen was Ted McCarty. A shrewd businessman with verso 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 in 1948, and durante 1950 he was made president of the company. It was McCarty who oversaw the design of Les Paul’s “LOG” Guitar.
Seeking preciso develop an up-market alternative esatto the plain, slab-body Telecaster, Ted McCarty came up with the ispirazione of building per solidbody guitar with per carved maple primo posto or “body cap.” He knew that the Fender factory didn’t have the machinery to do this kind of work. Mediante 1950, McCarty brought this guitar onesto Les Paul, who approved the design, feeling it was right mediante line with what he’d been trying preciso achieve. Ted McCarty reportedly said onesto his wife and rivista ragazzo, Mary Ford, “They’re getting too close puro us, Mary. I think we better sign up with them.”