Les Paul’s “LOG” Guitar, Contro 1939 – Birth of the Les Paul [Gibson Guitar History]
Around the same time that George Beauchamp and the other early electric guitar pioneers were adroite in southern California, verso guitarist and radio personality named Les Paul (born name Lester Polfus) was in Hollywood working out his own vision of what the electric guitar should be. Les became an established guitarist con the Thirties, performing country music under the names Red Hot Red and, later Rhubarb Red, and jazz as Les Paul. Durante 1939, Paul began sicuro put together what he called “The Log,” verso four-by-four length of solid pine esatto which he attached verso Gibson neck, homemade pickups, a crudely fashioned bridge, and vibrato tailpiece. Like many other innovators of the guitar, Paul wanted puro eliminate the uneven harmonic response produced cheekylovers iscriversi by an amplified hollowbody guitar.
Although he sawed an Epiphone hollowbody con half and attached the two sides of his four-by-four block of pine, this was more for aesthetic than acoustic reasons-sicuro make the thing aspetto like verso real guitar. This supremely quirky instrument, now enshrined per Nashville’s Country Music Atrio of Aspirazione, is another sacred relic of the electric guitar’s evolution, the product of an inveterate tinkerer and one of the century’s most original spettacolo inventors. Paul also pioneered multitrack recording and anticipated the home recording espansione by a good 30 years.
The Log Guitar on Recordings
Les Paul used the Log on recordings he and his terna made with Bing Crosby, the Andrews Sisters and others. But when he brought the instrument esatto Gibson’s headquarters in Kalamazoo, Michigan, per 1941, they laughed at him. “I took the Log puro Gibson and I spent 10 years trying onesto convince them that this was the way puro go,” recollects Les. “But it wasn’t easy. If it wasn’t for Leo Fender, I don’t think that ever would have che off. Leo saw more mediante it that Gibson did.”
True enough. Verso venerable company, with origins tracing back sicuro the 19th century, Gibson had taken a conservative, classicist approach preciso the electric guitar, producing electric archtop hollowbodies like the ES-150, which was introduced con 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 in the early Fifties, Gibson decided esatto “go California” and get con on the solidbody market. Suddenly Les Paul’s Log didn’t seem like such per crazy pensiero. “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. Per shrewd businessman with per good eye for design and per flair for building teams of like-minded visionaries, McCarty is another towering figure per the early development of the electric guitar. Originally per buyer for Wurlitzer, McCarty joined Gibson con 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 puro develop an up-market alternative onesto the plain, slab-body Telecaster, Ted McCarty came up with the intenzione of building verso solidbody guitar with verso carved maple primo posto or “body cap.” He knew that the Fender factory didn’t have the machinery puro do this kind of rete informatica. Durante 1950, McCarty brought this guitar preciso Les Paul, who approved the design, feeling it was right sopra line with what he’d been trying to achieve. Ted McCarty reportedly said to his wife and cabaret apprendista, Mary Ford, “They’re getting too close esatto us, Mary. I think we better sign up with them.”
