The 1955 Gibson Les Paul that served as the PAF test guitar, with its longtime companion Gibson GA-55 Ranger amp. Photo: Ward Meeker/Doug Yellow Bird. Guitar courtesy Gil Hembree.
Gibson and Fender may be the longstanding heavyweight rivals of the electric guitar game, but they have one very important thing in common: they revolutionized the guitar industry.
Fender took a monumental step with the introduction of the first commercially successful solidbody guitar in 1950. Gibson reacted by introducing the Gibson Les Paul Model solidbody. As first-rate as the Les Paul was, it was merely a response to Fender’s Telecaster, and for the most part devoid of cutting-edge innovation.
But innovation did rear its head when Gibson introduced the first commercially successful humbucker. Introduced in 1955 and patented in ’59, the Gibson humbucking pickup changed the world of popular music and the electric guitar.
At the time, Leo Fender was content with his single-coil pickup, mostly because it had the tone he was striving for. Likewise, Gibson was not displeased with the sound of it single-coil P-90. What displeased the sales staff at Gibson (who heard direct complaints from players) was the P-90’s irritating hum!
The motivation for the humbucking pickup came from Maurice Berlin, owner of Chicago Musical Instruments (CMI), Gibson’s parent company. During weekly meetings with Berlin, CMI V.P. Marc Carlucci and president Ted McCarty told Berlin about the dissatisfaction with the noisy P-90. Carlucci heard about it from the Chicago sales staff, while McCarty heard from the celebrity clients who would visit Gibson headquarters in Kalamazoo.
They all knew something had to be done. A solution to the problem became the responsbility of Gibson’s electronic lab supervisor, Walter Fuller and Fuller’s assistant, Seth Lover.
Walter Fuller
At Gibson, all things electric went through Fuller. His father was a janitor at Gibson, and may well have been responsible for getting his son hired at Gibson. Fuller joined the machine shop at Gibson in May, 1933, but was quickly promoted to cost estimator/time keeper. In ’35 he was promoted to electrical engineer, where he pioneered some of Gibson’s earliest electric guitars. His work generated five patents in his name and, during World War II, he supervised the company’s military electrical assembly subcontracts.
In 1941, Fuller asked Seth Lover to join Gibson as an amplifier troubleshooter. Through circa 1955, it was common practice for a Gibson foreman to hire workers for his own department.
Seth Lover
Kalamazoo-born Lover began experimenting with radio technology shortly after the commercial introduction of the radio in the early 1920s. By the mid ’30s, he was building amps for local musicians. He joined Gibson in ’41.
With the outbreak of World War II, Lover joined the Navy. After the war, he returned to Gibson for a few years before re-enlisting in the Navy.
By ’52, Gibson needed Lover’s skills more than ever. The era of the electric guitar was blossoming, and Gibson was developing its new Gibson Amp (GA) series. McCarty upped the ante, making an offer Lover couldn’t refuse.
When Lover returned, Gibson had a new electronics lab. It was there that Fuller and Lover developed the first humbucking pickup (for more details, see accompanying interview with Lover).
Engineering the Humbucker
When Lover started working on his humbucker, the idea to eliminate noise was not entirely new. A vaguely similar design dated to the 1930s, when he and Gibson applied for three patents. The term “humbucking” was not part of those applications, because Lover invented the term later in the process. Interestingly, two of the old patents required direct-current power! Not a good idea.
Another factor that worked against earlier hum-canceling pickup design was noisy amplifiers. Listening to a ’30s guitar and amp, you might not be able to distinguish single-coil hum, field-coil speaker hum, or miscellaneous amplifier hum. Lover’s experience with radios gave him the background that would prove invaluable in the humbucker assignment. Plus, his early work with amps included the study of a humbucking choke-coil for an amplifier. Lover knew the P-90’s problem was its sensitivity to external energy; a problem exaggerated by the amplifier. Part of the problem was generated by the amp itself in the form of 60-cycle hum from the power transformers.
Lover’s experiments led him to double-coil pickup construction such that the interference induced by external sources could be cancelled while the signals generated from the vibrating strings were retained. Lover designed a pickup with two single-coils combined into one. The coils were reverse-wound so the hum from the first coil cancelled the hum from the second. Lover also opted for two single-coil bobbins, wired in series, hence producing a more powerful signal for the amplifier’s use.
Lover initially pursued three humbucking designs, but chose the one that allowed for efficient assembly. His option was the most successful for maintaining the required high and low frequencies, thus providing consistent performance.
Lover’s invention was not so much groundbreaking, technologically, but rather a specifically engineered hum-canceling device, which became known as the “patent-applied-for” pickup (P.A.F.) because of the some label on its underside.
Lover and Gibson did not have exclusive rights to “hum-canceling technology,” but they did have sole rights to the specific P.A.F. design.
The Prototypes
The first prototype humbucker was designed to fit into a modified plastic P-90 pickup cover. Gibson liked the sound and size of the P-90, so it was the perfect model. Hum-canceling designs of the 1930s and ’40s had a tendency for slurry response and dull tone. Gibson wanted none of that. Instead, they wanted to retain the P-90’s sound, while eliminating the hum. So, in designing and building the humbucker, Lover used as many P-90 attributes as possible, including slicing the P-90’s black bobbin in half to make dual black bobbins.
The Test Guitar
“After Seth finished [building a hum-canceling pickup], he came into my office and put [it] on my desk,” McCarty told VG in 1999. “He said, ‘Here’s the humbucker.’ The new pickup had a name!”
McCarty wanted the new unit put into a guitar right away. Given its propensity for transfering pure string vibration to the pickups, engineers opted for the purest model they had – the solidbody Les Paul.
Two more pickups built like the first were taken to the patternmaker’s bench in the basement. A guitar was pulled off the white-wood rack in the mill; an early/mid-’55 with a wraparound tailpiece. The humbucker and the P-90 were equal in length and width, but not depth. So the guitar had to have its pickup cavities deepened. After the work was accomplished, the guitar was walked to the spray booth, then mounted with hardware.
Shielding paint and foil were added to the control and toggle switch cavities. Lover also reversed the pickups so they were out of phase, further avoiding extraneous noise.
Modelmakers also had to devise a new mounting ring. The assembly was simple – a plastic trim ring, two P-90 polepieces for mounting/height-adjust screws, four trim ring mounting screws, and two lightweight springs. This engineering breakthrough, though often overlooked, first appeared on the test guitar. The design is still in use today.
From the Seymour Duncan Archives
PAF-1957-1962-PU-490
PAF-Bobbins used from 1957-1967 (square hole)
PAF-decal used from 1957 till 1962
Patent # decal used from 1962
Patent # decal #2,737,842 used (patent # for Tail Piece)
1963-magnet wire becomes blacker
1957 to 1963-magnet wire is dark maroon
1950s to ’63- # 4 flatback tape is dark olive – thereafter black
PAF magnet-1957-1960 M-55- 2.5″ (L) x .5″ (W) x .125″ (T)
Post PAF magnet-1960 M-56- 2.25″ (L) x .5″ (W) x .125″ (T) Alnico V
P-90-used 10,000 of 42 plain enamel
PAF used approx 5000 + turns** on bobbins
** The winding machine did not have an automatic shutoff or stop counter until later, which accounts for the variance in DC resistance from pickup to pickup in early PAF humbuckers.
The Test
As soon as the test guitar was ready, a meeting was held in a conference room a few steps from McCarty’s office. Gibson employee (and Columbia recording star) Rem Wall was asked to play the guitar for McCarty, Fuller, Lover, John Huis, and Julius Bellson. Two other specialists who could play were also asked to test.
“The guitar worked without any hum and was immediately approved for use,” McCarty said. “Moldings needed to be made for the windings, and stampings for German nickel-silver.”
Patent 2,896,491 June 22, 1955
Berlin asked McCarty to assign patent holders, and he generally let the lead designer be credited. Lover was given credit for the important features – the patent was his – and his name is now legendary in vintage guitar circles.
The patent drawing depicts a flat magnet resting beneath two bobbins, with the bobbin assembly polepieces directly touching the sides of the flat magnet. On the drawing, the first humbucker prototype, and the two test guitar pickups, polepieces are non-adjustable.
Production Begins
Even though 1957 is commonly considered the date of the humbucker’s introduction, it actually debuted in late ’55 on Gibson’s revised Consolette steel guitar, advertised in the catalog with “new, powerful hum-bucking pickups eliminate all electronics disturbances.”
It debuted on a Spanish-style guitar in early ’57, on an ES-175, as a possible nod to the jazzers who created the buzz about the hum. Gibson historian Walter Carter today cites an entry in the ledger dated Feb. 18, 1957; “ES-175N #A-25000” with the annotation “H.B. Pickup starts here.”
This article originally appeared in VG‘s March 2005 issue. All copyrights are by the author and Vintage Guitar magazine. Unauthorized replication or use is strictly prohibited.
The Award’s standard, but fancy, accoutrements include pearloid bird inlays on the pickguard, tailpiece, and headstock. Photo: Michael Tamborrino/VG Archive.
In 1978, Gibson craftsman Wilbur Fuller produced the company’s first hand-carved, tuned-by-ear custom guitar. The instrument, which in a blind sound-off with some of the best instruments of its era, won the hearts of Gibson brass, ultimately became the Kalamazoo Award.
Gruhn’s Guide to Vintage Guitars tells us that the Kalamazoo Award was a 17″ full-depth archtop with a rounded cutaway and solid carved top, solid maple sides, and carved maple back. Adding to its magnificence were an ebony bridge with pearl inlays, wood pickguard with abalone inlay, multi-bound top and back, bound f-holes, bound ebony fingerboard with abalone block inlays, multi-bound peghead with inlay matching the pickguard, and gold-plated hardware.
But all that aside, Fuller says the reason for the Award was his dream to build a guitar that drew its tone from a top, back, and braces that were all finely tuned – by his ear alone!
“I had studied and talked with the old craftsmen, and dreamed of the day I could experiment with a lightweight, tuned, carved guitar,” said Fuller, who worked for Gibson from 1954 until he retired on the last day of 1980. “I watched them tune tops and backs for the Citation (a similarly fancy archtop made by Gibson in 1969-’70 and again from ’79 to ’83), and it was very intriguing. The tops were tuned to C, the backs to D.
“To me, this didn’t go far enough. I decided that each brace, after being glued in place, should be tuned to a separate pitch, and the back tuned to one of these. I felt taking away a lot of wood would improve the tone, and I set the graduation to 7/64″ at the rim, increasing to 10/64″ and 11/64” at the center. This included the cutaway and the head block area.
“So I started building what would become the Kalamazoo Award. I asked Mike Korpac, from production, to get me the parts for a carved instrument. Mike designed the head veneer, tailpiece, and finger rest, while I dished out the top and back next to the binding, then graduated them. I braced the top and tuned the bass brace to C and the treble brace to D. I also tuned the back to D, to match the treble brace.
“Taking wood off of the brace lowers the pitch, and sanding the crown out of the back produces the same effect. The old craftsmen talked about tuning tops and backs, but that was all they had. They were not braced, and neither was the body. Little did they know that when the top and back were glued to the rim, all pitches changed!
A Gibson Kalamazoo Award in antique sunburst finish, built and signed by Wilbur Fuller.
“I built the guitar under pressure. I’d button it together around the sides, then tap on it. If it needed a change, I’d take it apart and carve more wood off. I buttoned the bodies together, with no glue, each time removing wood from the braces until the pitch was perfect. While the body was still buttoned together, the crown in the back could be sanded down until it matched the treble brace. This method of tuning wood remained even after the instrument was strung up.
“I’d use a small rubber mallet or my index finger to tap over each brace at the notch in the f-hole or bridge point. I listened closely with my ear as I tuned these guitars – they were not mechanically tuned.
“When the guitar was finished, it would be in tune. The inspection department couldn’t believe that I could tune by tapping on wood, so they took one of the finished guitars and put it on the strobe tuner. It noted perfectly!”
Though certain specs and accoutrements were borrowed from the Gibson Citation – which preceded and influenced Fuller’s design – the flying bird peghead/pickguard/tailpiece inlay is unique to the Award.
Production of the Award lasted until 1984, and there are about 85 of these precious beauties with Wilbur Fuller’s name and date on the label inside. Their appointments, tone, playability, and scarcity combine to make the Award a very soughtafter instrument; expect to pay upwards of $18,000 if you find one!
“Building the Gibson Kalamazoo Award was my proudest moment at Gibson,” said Fuller.
This article originally appeared in VG‘s Sep. ’02 issue. All copyrights are by the author and Vintage Guitar magazine. Unauthorized replication or use is strictly prohibited.
If you’re talkin’ Detroit rock, vintage guitars, muscle cars, then you’re talkin’ Kenny Olson. VG met Olson at the Detroit Guitar Show, and it didn’t take long before he was talking about old Strats and Teles. That seemed natural for a Fender-endorsed lead guitar player, but for Olson it was more. He loves the old stuff.
In 1994, Olson was working out of L.A. Then the big earthquake hit, and his apartment was annihilated. Luckily, he was on the road, but the quake caused a quick retreat to his native Detroit. Fate followed. There, he received a call from Bob Ritchie – the up-and-coming Kid Rock. Rock needed a good guitar player, and Olson needed a good front man. They hooked up and after a few years, major good things started happening. In ’98 Kid Rock released the critically acclaimed Devil Without a Cause, which sold more than nine million copies, spurred by monster hits “Bawitdaba,” “Cowboy,” and “Only God Knows Why.”
Vintage Guitar: Was there music in your family? Kenny Olson: I have aunts who are singers, and my dad and his little brothers all had guitars. My whole life, there was always a guitar by the fireplace – an old Gibson acoustic, or a Martin. And there were always great records around the house.
What was your first guitar?
My aunt gave me my first guitar, and I don’t even remember what it was. Then I sold my bike to a friend and I went out and bought a Fender Candy Apple Red Mustang, with the white racing stripes and matching headstock. I bought that at Rock City, in Royal Oak, on Woodward Avenue. I used to go there all the time, and they had old flametop Les Pauls, and korina Flying Vs. I saw all of that stuff when I was a kid. They always had all these cool custom-color Strats. I was growing up in Detroit, loving old muscle cars, and seeing these cool vintage guitars all checked up in these really cool colors. I was drawn to that.
The first amp I got was from a friend of the family – an old ’65 Fender Princeton Reverb. I use to take it over to my buddy’s house and jam. I kind of lucked out, having a Fender Mustang and an old Princeton.
From that point on, my main guitar was always vintage. I had a couple of things as a kid. That was an era when you almost had to have a Les Paul, and I had a late-’60s black beauty (Gibson Les Paul Custom), which I wish I still had. As a kid, they told me a lot of those Gibson bodies in the late ’60s were leftover bodies from the ’50s. This one was cool, it was worn on the corner. But I was an idiot and got rid of it.
I had lots of cool old Strats I wish I’d never gotten rid of. But I still have my ’64 – an old sunburst that has half the paint gone. It was my main guitar at the start of my professional career. I got it at the Ferndale Guitar Exchange, where I was working right out of high school. There were a lot of guitars in there, and they took it on trade. I made them hang onto it until I found a way to buy it. They eventually gave me a great deal and I bought it in ’86 or ’87. It’s been with me through ups and downs. I had it when I was living in L.A., when I was staying house-to-house with sketchy friends in the industry. I’ve been around every walk of life there is. I used to put chains on my guitar case so I’d know when someone was trying to grab it or steal it. If people knew half the stuff I’ve been through…it wasn’t always pretty. I’ve seen it all.
You appreciated vintage guitars very early in your career?
I got to the point were I could tell a Strat from the logo, the contours, the neck, the finish, the whatever – from 10 feet away. In the instrument itself, it’s that tone. It takes a certain kind of player to be able to play one right. None of my guitars are set up to play great. I like high action, I like to fight it. When I was a kid, I forced myself to use heavier strings. I don’t have anything really heavy, not like Stevie Ray Vaughan. In the last two and a half years, we’ve done around 550 shows.
How did Fender contact you about becoming an endorser?
There are a lot of great guitar players out there. Some of these bands don’t really have a guitar fixture kind of person in the band that actually plays lead solos in every song. I knew Alex Perez (Fender Artist Relations/Custom Shop). I met him early on through a friend of mine.
I lucked out because I was going to hold out. Different companies came to me about an endorsement. Ernie Ball is the first company that ever endorsed me. I waited for the right endorsement. For Gibson, or any of these huge companies that came to me, it’s like, “I play a Strat or Tele.” I’m kind of stupid because I’d just rather make a lot of money and go out and buy a Fender Strat or Tele. It’s who I am. But I like a lot of other old guitars. The thing that’s neat about the Custom Shop is they have the old machines, from the ’50s and ’60s plant. They have the old jigs and everything. For the first one they made for me, over two years ago, I told them I wanted a 1967-ish era neck – kind of big, not as thin as a 1962, and I wanted the fat headstock, in a certain color. I’ve already retired a couple, like the ones I played at Woodstock, or at other special performances. They’ve been everywhere and gotten a little beat. I’ve put them with my ’64 because they’re great guitars.
Do you tell the Custom Shop what you want?
They’re all kind of unique. I used a Seymour Duncan Little ’59 in the bridge, and I wire the last tone control like the coil split, so I can slowly dial in that P-90 rock tone. I have a Tele they made for Keith Richards. They made him a couple of them, and they sent me one. It’s basically identical to his guitar. I had a Strat pickup put in mine. It has a one-piece swamp ash body they aged a little bit, but it is pretty much beat up from me. That’s a cool guitar, it’s the Tele I use on the road. They’re making me a Sherwood Green one right now. I have a Sherwood Green Strat I used for a couple of years on the road, and it just aged beautifully. They use all nitrocellulose lacquer on my guitars. A guitar with a nitro finish is like a good pair of red-tag Levis – you know it’s going to fade right.
My main guitar is a Fiesta Red ’67 reissue Strat the Custom Shop made for me. That’s my favorite guitar, my ’64 and my Fiesta Red. It has been in a lot of magazine articles we’ve done, and a lot of photo shoots. I used it at Woodstock. I love that guitar, and it’s the first one Fender gave me. I have the Sherwood Green one I love, too. It has a big old fat ’60s C neck. Those are the two main ones. I use 11s on those guitars and tune to E flat.
A friend of mine works in advertising at Ford Motor Company, and the Chrome Mustang Strat is number 4 of 35 made for the anniversary of the Mustang. The Custom Shop made it, and it’s real chrome. It has knobs from the dashboard of a ’64 Mustang. It’s a cool-sounding guitar. When we did the “American Bad Ass” video, I wanted to use one of the Harley guitars, but Fender didn’t have any left, so they told me about how they made one for Ford. I love Mustangs – I’m a musclecar freak – and I’m from Detroit!
What about the black Strat?
That’s the main workhorse, and it’s kind of a mutt. The Custom Shop rebuilt the whole thing; the body was originally sunburst, and we made a reissue neck for it. We changed the pickups.
I had another ’68 Strat that was sunburst, then and shot black. The Custom Shop re-created that guitar using a ’67 body.
What pedals are you using?
It’s pretty minimal. Onstage I use two CryBabies, they’re the first thing I go through. One is an old Jim Dunlop, like that old Jimi Hendrix old-school Thomas Organ Vox wah. And the next one is a 535Q. And then I go into a Menatone Blue Collar – I’ve never seen anybody else use one. Next pedal is a Fulltone Full-Drive – I have a bunch of those. I met Mike Fuller in L.A. when he was working at Voltage Guitar Shop. We were talking about old pedals, and he sent me a Full-Drive when he was making them for Robin Trower, Keith Richards, and Billy Gibbons. Then I go into a tremolo pedal, then a Uni-Vibe, and sometimes an octave pedal.
I love feedback. My pedalboard is always set for feedback at the flip of a switch. I like having that option.
What amps do you use?
Behind the stage I use ’65 Twin Reverb reissues running clean, and for dirty I have the Sunn Model Ts. I need the Twin Reverbs for “Only God Knows Why” and all the clean rhythm stuff. A lot of time for dirty I’ll use the Fulltone or Menatone through the Twin. A lot of times when I go to dirty, it’s actually the Twin. The Sunns sound really cool, too. When I was at the Fender Custom Shop I noticed a Sunn Model T and I said, “You guys are making these again?” I’d never seen one.
We have an old Marshall Bluesbreaker reissue combo in a roadcase. Whether it’s my amp or Bob’s amp, whoever’s amp breaks down, its like our little ace in the hole. Two or three shows a year, one of us has to use it. It sounds great clean and dirty. That’s a kickin’ amp! I love Marshalls, but my philosophy is, “This amp has a great Marshall tone,” or “This amp has a great Fender tone.” I’ve never heard an amp that can do a great Fender tone and a great Marshall tone.
In the studio I use a Fender Deluxe Reverb a lot. It’s a ’67 – the last-year blackface. It’s a really cool amp I’ve used for years in the studio. It has a Celestion Vintage 30.
I have a Fender Pro Reverb I use a lot in the studio. It’s a late-’60s silverface, hard-wired amp. It has not been modded. It has less wattage than a Twin, so you can crank it. When you put it with a 4×12, it’s real rockin’.
I like using different amps – I pretty much don’t use the same amp on any song on any record. That’s the fun part.
There are certain things I’ve always collected; I’ve always loved old Marshalls and old Fender amps. I’ve got a lot of old amps. On Devil, I did that whole record with vintage amps – Supros, Voxes, Marshalls, Fenders.
I have an old Marshall 100-watt ’69 Super Bass. I’ve had a lot of good-sounding ones. I had a ’68 plexi that Leslie West used to have. After I sold it, I found out it was Leslie’s old head, then I found out some of Leslie’s old heads were Jimi’s old heads. The ’69 Super Basses sound better for guitars than do the Super Leads. The Super Leads, the old plexies I have, I’ll have modded to be just like a Super Bass. It takes about four solder joints, and it’s a Super Bass!
I have an old Hiwatt cab with the old Fanes, that sounds great, too. Before I was with Fender and Sunn, when Naylor was still in business, I used a Naylor Super Drive 60. I loved that amp too, especially being made in Detroit.
How about acoustic guitars?
I have a Gibson ’67 Southern Jumbo my dad gave me. It’s a cool guitar, with bearclaw spruce, tobacco-finish top, and cherry red sides and back. There are a lot of unusual guitars around Michigan.
Do you give much thought to the vintage guitar market?
I’m probably out of the loop now. Most of the stuff I have kind of fell in my lap, like I was meant to have it. Anything I hold onto is sentimentally valuable. I have a whole batch of the Custom Shops, quite a few vintage pieces, and a couple mutts. One is a 1960 body, blue painted over, with a ’62 neck. That guitar has been through hell and back. It has cracks in the neck pocket. That one and my ’64 did a lot of the Devil record.
I have a late-’60s Strat, too. I like the big headstock ones. They look and sound cool, and I think the headstock affects the tone a little. On that particular old Strat, the pickups are kind of weak, but they actually sound cool. They give you a kind of weird, off-the-wall thing.
I like old Gibson acoustics. I have that old Gibson Southern Jumbo and a Hummingbird. I like Martins, but I’ve never owned one; my uncle has a couple, but I wasn’t hip.
I get paranoid about certain things; I’ve had guitars, like a Firebird, that broke so many times, and that made me lean toward Fenders because I could replace the neck. That Firebird is the coolest, but it’s worthless because it has been broken so many times it has dowel pins coming out of everywhere.
It sounds like you talk with a lot of the other stars and players, and you talk vintage with them?
True players really appreciate the old stuff. I’ve hung out with a lot of the guys, and they don’t know or care much about their newer stuff. But they love their old stuff! Like Joe Perry; I always admired him as a player, and to meet him is super cool. And he’s no different than a lot of guys who go to guitar shows. They love talking shop about old guitars. You meet a guy like Joe Perry, or anyone you meet, and you start talking about vintage guitars and they say, “Oh you ought to see what I have at home!” It’s a big topic.
And it’s the same with amps. Guitar players are always in search of the almighty tone. Every amp I’ve had for a while sounded neat, and the next night it’s not cuttin’ it. Even that old Super Bass Marshall. One night you turn it on it just sounds amazing, and the next night its like, “Uuuuuh.”
What vintage guitars would you like to own in the future?
For the most part, I’m a Strat man. But I love a Tele, too. There’s nothing like the searing sound of Tele players like Roy Buchanan, Muddy Waters, Albert Collins, and Keith Richards. I have to have Teles around for recording.
I have a lot of Stratocasters right now, old ones and Custom Shops. And a Mexican one – I love that guitar! We were going to do a European tour some time ago, and I didn’t want to take a Custom Shop or a vintage guitar, so I asked the Custom Shop, “Can I try one of those sunburst Mexican Strats?” They sent it, I changed the pickups, and it’s a great-sounding guitar.
I had a ’61 Fiesta Red Strat I sold, unfortunately. I’d like to find another one of those, or I’d really like a Sherwood Green. I picture myself having a few more. My Custom Shops are done that way.
I mainly want guitars that I need when I’m recording. I’d like to find some really clean Strats and conserve as much American history as I can.
But I already have my favorite guitar.
David Allan Coe (left) with Olson. Olson and his workhorse Strat, painted black over the original sunburst – very ’60s Fender! Photo by Gil Hembree.
This article originally appeared in VG‘s June ’01 issue. All copyrights are by the author and Vintage Guitar magazine. Unauthorized replication or use is strictly prohibited.
Can you truly put a price tag on peace of mind? For guitar collectors, the answer often is “No,” because like many other increasingly valuable collectibles, vintage guitars cannot be replaced.
So it is that we record, photograph, catalog, and insure our collections so that if they’re stolen, we’ll have as much info as we can possibly lend Johnny Law and the guitar community to aid in the recovery of our stuff.
But what if the unspeakable happened? What if one’s house was destroyed? If you keep your guitars at home, and they’re particularly valuable, you might want to consider one of the security solutions unveiled at this year’s winter NAMM show.
Gibson’s String and Original Equipment Division Collector’s Vault is 900 pounds worth of serious peace of mind. At 60″ high, 40″ wide, and 28″ deep, the Vault is rated to provide 1,200 degrees of fire protection for 30 minutes – certification included.
But unlike a standard safe, this one offers deeeeluxe velvet-soft accommodations for up to nine guitars, complete with interior lighting, electronic dehumidifier, and a drawer for documentation (insurance records, etc.), all in a high-gloss black finish with silkscreened Gibson logo.
While modern safes typically employ keypad lock/entry systems, the Vault sports a classic-look heavy-duty tumbler combination lock chosen for its aesthetic appeal. Underwriters Laboratories gives it a burglary rating of “residential security container.”
Gibson’s price includes “tailgate delivery” to a ground floor location. A power dolly is required, so if you plan to use the vault somewhere other than the ground floor, the customer has to make necessary arrangements.
Insurance is one thing, but vintage guitars are irreplaceable. The Gibson Collector’s Vault offers peace of mind beyond “replacement cost,” and gives the serious collector an option beyond the piece of paper that is an insurance policy.
Gibson Collector’s Vault Type of Safe: Steel reinforced, fireproof, residential security container. Features: Continuous 10-gauge steel construction, two inner layers of 1/2″ sheetrock, tungsten steel drill-proof lock bolt, punch-proof cam-driven bolt, heavy-duty punch-proof tumbler combination lock, internal safety release. Price: $5,500. Contact: Gibson, 657 Massman Drive, Nashville, TN 37210, (615) 871-9585, gibson.com.
This article originally appeared in VG‘s May ’02 issue. All copyrights are by the author and Vintage Guitar magazine. Unauthorized replication or use is strictly prohibited.
Ted McCarty, Gibson’s president from 1948 to ’66, was responsible for some of Gibson’s greatest designs. While McCarty cites the Les Paul Model as his most important design, his other credits include the ES-335, the Flying V, the McCarty pickup, and McCarty bridge.
But one design that never appears on McCarty’s list of accomplishments is his electric ukulele. In his time at Gibson, it was not unusual for a recording star to ask the factory to make a special instrument.
“People would call or visit us at the factory, and they’d say, ‘I’d like you to make me a special guitar, how much would it cost?’ We had a department that did nothing but make specials,” he said.
One person who contacted McCarty was radio and television icon Arthur Godfrey. As a sailor, Godfrey learned how to play the uke, and he brought that talent to his popular ’50s television show. But his uke couldn’t be heard with a band, some members of which were “plugged in,” and he wanted an electric that would match up with the electric guitar. So Godfrey went to McCarty.
“He wanted an electric ukulele, but he didn’t want electric strings,” he said. “He didn’t know if you could do that or not, so he finally asked me, and I said I’d try. I tried and I tried and finally got it, and it was good.”
Making an electric uke with nylon strings presented a real problem.
“I told my engineers what I wanted, and they built it. I had the problem of the strings, and that’s where I got involved. I designed what I wanted in the way of the strings. You can’t use regular nylon strings with an electromagnetic pickup, and Godfrey wouldn’t have anything to do with metal strings. He didn’t know any better, but that’s what he wanted. He was one of those guys who wants what he wants, and you better get it for him.
“So I talked with a couple of guys and nobody could come up with any ideas. They said, ‘You can’t do it, Ted!’ I said, ‘The hell you can’t.’”
So McCarty designed the strings himself.
“You have to get some iron in the strings somehow, and we couldn’t get a string inside a string and not get it too thick. So the only thing you could do was melt the nylon into a liquid, then run another string through a goo with iron powder. All you needed was some metal in the strings. The way I did it was to get some plastic string material so I could melt it and get it into a liquid. I put in fine iron-powdered metal and mixed it all up really well. I ran the strings through that, and after they dried we milled them down to size. I made the strings, but didn’t want to fool around with (mass-producing) them. It was time-consuming and expensive.”
The process took time, and Godfrey was impatient.
“He wanted to know where his ukulele was, and I said, ‘Well, we’re working on it.’ So I got it finished and we sent it to the hotel where he stayed in New York. And he called me and said, ‘Where is it?’ I said, ‘I sent it!’
“Well, he got on the air and said, ‘Ted McCarty – that used-to-be friend of mine – he promised to give me an electric ukulele, and we never got it!’
“I finally got so tired of him talking about me on the air that I called him and said, ‘It must be in the hotel because we sent it, and we have the credit for having shipped it.’ So he went and talked to them, and sure enough it was there, they just put it away.
“I heard he was overjoyed with it. And every time he was on the air, he used to do the cigarette ads (playing live music with his electric uke and the studio musicians), and Mr. Berlin (McCarty’s boss at CMI, Gibson’s parent company) and I would sit together in Mr. Berlin’s office and listen to Godfrey’s program. And Godfrey would say, ‘My friend, Ted McCarty from Gibson, and so forth and so forth,’ everyday. And Mr. Berlin used to laugh and say, ‘You and I made more air time for free than the cigarette company was getting.’”
Another interesting fact is that McCarty actually made two electric ukes. The second was set up with guitar strings and a P-90 pickup. He still has it, and it’s in mint condition.
“You can’t just make one of something, it’s very difficult. But after we designed it, we never produced them. At the retail price, nobody would have bought it.”
The only standard-sized uke listed in the 1957 Gibson Price List was the Uke-1, at $30.
The Gibson electric uke McCarty kept for himself has an early P-90 variant and two control knobs. Photo: Gil Hembree.
This article originally appeared in VG‘s April ’00 issue. All copyrights are by the author and Vintage Guitar magazine. Unauthorized replication or use is strictly prohibited.
Fifty years ago, Gibson’s new Les Paul Model was quickly becoming one of the company’s most popular guitars, and (though there was no way of knowing it at the time) was on its way to achieving mythical status in the realm of the electric solidbody.
With the recent observation of the model’s golden anniversary, Vintage Guitar traveled to the scenic northern New Jersey home of the guitar’s namesake to find out how it all happened. Les Paul’s home was the perfect environment, given that part of his reputation was built on the groundbreaking NBC television show “Les Paul and Mary Ford At Home,” which aired in the mid 1950s.
When a tape recorder is running, Les Paul is comfortable, no matter if he’s playing guitar or merely discussing his adventuresome life.
Learning To Play
In the 1920s, a very young Lester Polfuss fell in love with the guitar, which was far from being the predominant instrument of its time, bowing to the more popular tenor banjo, plectrum banjo, ukulele, piano, mandolin, and violin.
“There just weren’t very many guitar players around at that time… guitar players who could play, anyway.”
Still, he put in the many thousands of hours of practice necessary to inch toward the top of the heap, and kept an ear tuned to famous guitarists of the day. He (along with several other up-and-comers) was particularly inspired by Eddie Lang.
“Eddie was sort of the cow with the bell,” said Les. “I thought he was playing correctly, so I fell in love with his playing. I thought, ‘This is a good person to follow.’ He was my mentor in the very early days. He was who I wanted to learn from.”
And learn he did, but not without innate assistance.
“You must have rhythm, an ear, determination, belief, and you must be ready to roll up your sleeves and work for the rest of your life,” he said. “You set your goals and don’t give up.”
After developing his chops, he moved to Chicago to make his mark.
“I got a Sears and Roebuck guitar, then a Dobro,” he said. “I joined ‘Sunny’ Joe Wolverton in St. Louis, and Joe said, ‘You know that tin can you got – it drowns me out – and it’s awful when you’re playing rhythm on it. You’ve got to have a Gibson L-5.’
“I said, ‘How do we do that?’ And Joe said, ‘Let’s go up to Kalamazoo and get one.’
“So we went to Gibson’s factory in Kalamazoo and picked out an L-5. So we both had L-5s, and we had a great sound.”
Very early in his career, Les decided that his life would revolve around the guitar. But there wasn’t much to go on; there weren’t many accomplished guitarists in the country and, obviously, there was no MTV or Hot Licks video. Nonetheless, he set about finding a guitar that would help him find his sound and realize his dream.
“In 1934, we were working at a radio station in Chicago, and I heard through the hillbillies around town that the Larson Brothers were over on Ohio Avenue. They were in a barn in a very undeveloped downtown part of Chicago. There were a lot of barns, which today is hard to believe.
“But I went over the see them, and one brother said, ‘What do you want?’ I told him what I wanted – a guitar with no F-holes. I talked him into it and I tried to explain that I was going to put pickups on it; I was going to make an electronic instrument that’s playable.
“I was way ahead of the game in 1934, because the electric guitar didn’t come out until ’36. It’s amazing how different those days were, how primitive. In those days it was most difficult to break the rules. There was another fellow who made a guitar for me, and he was with National-Dobro. The National people had moved from California to Chicago in the mid ’30s, and they also made me one with no F-holes.”
(LEFT TO RIGHT) The “Log” was made in 1941 at the Epiphone factory in New York. It was a 4×4 piece of wood with pickups, winged sides, and an Gibson neck. Les used the log to pester Gibson for 10 years in an attempt to get a Gibson solid guitar that sounded like a steel guitar. Les and his #1 “clunker,” used to record “How High The Moon” and all other Les Paul and Mary Ford hits from the late 1940s and early ’50s. The sheet music cover shows Les holding this guitar. Les Paul’s #2 clunker was used as a backup for #1. Number two has a rounded-off pickguard, not the squared pickguard on #1. Les had told Gibson that he would play his clunkers until Gibson came up with a guitar that sounded better. Gibson did produce its first solidbody, which did rival the sound of the clunker. In the 1940s, Gibson offered Les any guitar he wanted including a gold plated L-5, but it’s ironic that the one thing that Les wanted was a great-sounding solidbody, and Gibson refused to give him one. The #3 clunker, which was occasionally used by Mary Ford. She is pictured with a sunburst archtop on the cover of the “Mockin’ Bird Hill” sheet music; could there have been a #4 clunker?
The Log and Clunker
During this time, Les was becoming one of the best guitarists in the country, and he continued to strive for the best guitar sound. In the late ’30s he moved to New York City and found himself in a great position to experiment.
“In 1941, I was close to the Epiphone factory on 13th Street, and I told them, ‘I want to build this log.’ They said, ‘You want to build what?’ And I said, ‘I’ll do it on Sunday, you guys don’t have to be there.’
“And I built it. It took three Sundays or so, and I finally got this ‘log’ built. This guy there helped me, and we got it together. It was just a 4×4 with a pickup and a neck.
“I took it to a tavern in Queens, and I was playing “The Sheik” on it, and the act died. The people looked at me like I was nuts. Then I thought, ‘I’m going back down to Epiphone and put wings on that thing… put some sides on it, and make it look like a guitar, and see if that makes any difference.’
“Geez, they went crazy. So I found out that people hear with their eyes, and that it’s got to look like a guitar. But the sound and everything was there.”
Many guitarists think Les had an early association with Epiphone (the fact he built it at the Epi factory helped further that myth, and his famous “clunkers” are Epiphones – with good reason.
“The log was not the reason I used Epiphones,” he said. “Right after we built the log in 1941, I went back to Chicago. One day I got a call from a guy who said, ‘I work for a bread wrapping company and I got my hand caught in a wrapping machine. I have a guitar and amp I want to give you. It’s an Epiphone.’ I said, ‘I play a Gibson, I don’t play Epiphone.’ But he said, ‘I’ll give it to you.’
“So I said, ‘Well, bring it over.’ So I looked at it and gave him $125. I took it because it had a door in the back, so I could go in and change the pickups, do the electronics, all that junk.
After The Log
“For the ‘clunker,’ I started thinking, ‘I’m going to do more than pickups here. I’m going to change this and that,’ and the guitar became an experiment. Next thing you know, it’s the best damn guitar I’ve got. That became my number one clunker. I had three of them.
“That was a very exciting time because I had this clunker and I’m making records with Bing Crosby [Decca Records’ Bing Crosby With The Les Paul Trio and Bing Crosby With Les Paul And His Trio], and Gibson is going nuts. They say, ‘We’ll give you a gold plated L-5… whatever you want.’ I told them, ‘If you can beat this one, okay.’
“The surgery I did on the clunker was severe. And it just so happens I recorded ‘How High The Moon,’ ‘Bye Bye Blues,’ and everything from that period with it.”
And Les kept his word, continuing to use the Epiphone clunker until Gibson presented him with a better-sounding guitar – the prototype solidbody Les Paul Model. Learning to Record
“Bing and I were recording ‘It’s Been A Long, Long Time’ and some other songs, and afterward Bing said, ‘Where are you going?’
“So we went next door to the Grotto, and we’re eating salami sandwiches and beer at 8 a.m. Bing said, ‘You didn’t seem too enthusiastic about those takes. I said, ‘I’ve got a whole list of things that could have been better.’
Then Bing offered to buy a recording studio for me. We went up Sunset Boulevard, and he said, ‘What about that building over there?’ So I said, ‘No, that’s too big.’ Finally he found a place across from what is now the Hollywood Guitar Center, and he says, ‘That looks perfect.’ I can see the sign – Les Paul’s House of Sound. There, you could teach all the tricks of the trade. We’d have something that would go through the whole country, and it would be so big.’
“I thought about it and said, ‘You know what, Bing? What I really want to do is just play the guitar.’ Bing said, ‘Okay.’ So we went back to the parking lot on Melrose and he drove his way and I drove mine.”
(LEFT) This photo of Rhubarb Red and his original Gibson L-5 hangs on the wall in Les Paul’s home studio. (RIGHT) Inventions (and memories) in Les Paul’s home
Still, Les learned everything he could about recording. After passing on Crosby’s offer, he and two buddies decided to board up his garage and make their own studio
“I wanted to learn, exactly, all the tricks of recording. So I built the studio in my back yard and got the word out that I would record anybody – for no fee! I’d have a bass player come over with his trio, and I’d concentrate on making the best-sounding recording. I’d go for the best fidelity, with the acoustics just right, even if it meant taking some carpet out, slanting the walls, changing the room materials, which mics accomplished the best sound from the bass or piano – all the technical things.
“The piano was the very first instrument I did. I put on a piano roll and just let it play for two or three weeks until I found out how to get the best sound.
“I did freebies for months, and finally thought, ‘Now I have her.’ Then I started charging $12 an hour. W.C. Fields made an album that probably cost him $50!”
Rhubarb Red and Mary Lou
While learning the fine points of recording in his own studio, Les also maintained a busy show schedule.
“I had nine shows on NBC radio, called “sustainers,” where I could do anything I wished, and they were all-jazz shows. The NBC program director told me, ‘I’ve got nine more shows and I’m trying to think of something to fill them.’ I said, ‘Why don’t you go country?’ He said, ‘That’s a good idea.’ I said, ‘I started out country. If you want, I’ll change my name to Rhubarb Red and find a group.’ Low and behold, everybody in my jazz group played another instrument. The piano player played the accordion, my guitar player played the violin.
“The group picked things up quickly, and I thought, ‘All I need is a singer.’ So I stepped out of NBC one day, and Gene Autry was walking just ahead of me. I said, ‘Hi, Gene.’ Gene said, ‘Rhubarb, how are you?’ I said, ‘I’m looking for a country girl singer. He said, ‘I have a trio that sings for me. The one in the middle is good looking, has a good ear, and is the best singer I know of.’”
That singer was Colleen Summers, and Les came to find that she was a huge fan of his music. Still, he had a tough time convincing her that he was indeed Les Paul. She eventually accepted his invitation to visit his studio, and he gave her a “country name” – Mary Lou.
“The Show was a lot of fun because there was nothing like it on the radio,” Les said.
The Les Paul Sound
Beyond his reputation as a brilliant guitarist, Les is today known as the father of modern multitrack recording. He spent thousands of hours perfecting many techniques that eventually became industry standards, but not before their many nuances came to make up “the Les Paul sound.”
And it all started because of his mother!
“I was at the Oriental Theater, in Chicago, in 1946, playing with the Andrews Sisters when my mother told me, ‘Lester, I heard you last night on the radio.’ I said, ‘Mom, it couldn’t have been me, I’ve been onstage with the Andrews Sisters. It had to be someone else.’ She said, ‘Well, you ought to stop them.’ I said, ‘How can I stop a guy from playing like me? There’s no law against that, Ma!’ She said, ‘Well you should do something about it. When your mother can’t tell you from someone else, there’s something wrong.’
“So I thought about it, and went to the Andrews Sisters and said, ‘You can keep my trio, but I’m going back to California to lock myself into the studio and develop a new concept.’
“And that’s how my sound happened. It’s different than with straight guitar. It’s what you do with slap-back echo, and reverb, and all the things you have at your command. What you can do with the bass and the speeding up the tracks. All of the creative things you can do to make this sound so different that makes your mother say, ‘That’s Lester.’
“And of course my mom just loved it because it was unusual. And it worked.”
Les’ new sound had a lot to do with his own multilayer recording invention. His first hit with Capitol Records was the wizard-like instrumental “Lover” which became a hit in ’47.
Then in ’48, Les and Mary were in a serious automobile accident. It took Les 18 months to recover, and in that time he came to the conclusion that he needed something to build on… something that would take him beyond being a mere “guitar star.”
(LEFT) Les Paul with a ’52 Les Paul Model and ’52 Les Paul GA-40 amp, in the room where most of his TV show was taped and recorded. “We did the commercials mostly in this room and in another studio here, and the rest of the TV show was shot in the house.” (MIDDLE) This is the Gibson logo on the #1 clunker which Les applied because Gibson president Ted McCarty insisted on it. Les told McCarty that he would continue to play the clunker until Gibson had made the solidbody prototype correctly. The first prototype presented to Les at the Delaware Water Gap had several things wrong with it. (RIGHT) Les Paul was a top guitarist, engineer, inventor, promoter, and national celebrity by the time this cover photo appeared in 1958.
Les Paul and Mary Ford
“Colleen (Mary Lou) was working with Gene Autry and his rodeo, and we played a lot of the same cities at the same time. When I was at the Paramount, they’d be playing Madison Square Garden. We’d meet and I’d say, ‘I’ve got to find something to put in my trio… there should be a vocal.’ But I never thought about her, even though we were hanging out together.”
As a personal relationship began to develop between Les and Colleen, he began to formulate plans for a new group that included her, but her show biz name would be Mary (nee Mary Lou) and Ford, which he picked out of the phone book, based on the famous automobile family name.
“We started playing in Milwaukee,” he said. “I still lived in L.A. but we went to Milwaukee to open a tavern for my brother-in-law.”
Needing more than one place to play, Les started driving down Milwaukee Avenue. He found a place with a marquee that advertised live music.
“I approached the owner and said, ‘I’d like to play in your club.’ He said, ‘I’ve lost a lot of money on everything I’ve tried.’ Then I said, ‘We’ll play for nothing,’ and he said, ‘Come on in!’
“So we went in, and three months later they were lined up around the block. I said, ‘Mary, I think this thing is going to work.’
“But we had to leave because I’d made arrangements to open the Blue Note in Chicago for Dave Garroway. So we played, and on the second night, the owner called [our agent] in New York and said, ‘We’ve got the world’s worst trio in here. I want to get them out and get somebody in here that’s good.’ He told them, ‘The guitarist talks into his shoe, she’s in a gingham gown, and they don’t finish a song. Sometimes he’s funny, but it sure doesn’t fit down here. And I don’t want any cowboy hats in here!’
“Well, he didn’t know that the cowboy hats were Gene Autry and Tex Ritter. They had never had that in the Blue Note; it was a bad sign to see a jazz joint with cowboy hats.
“But that second night we continued doing what we were doing, and there were a lot of reporters with pencils in the audience, going like mad. The next day, the owner said, ‘Have you read the reviews? All those guys you were ribbing with the pencils? Well, just keep doing what you’re doing.’
“And that’s the way it started. Then the Miller Brewing people said, ‘Les, it’s time for you two to get married.’ And we were happily married. We were very close to Fred Miller and all those people then. Milwaukee was our home. So they fixed up the whole nightclub, and got us married right there.
“Mary was a tremendously talented person, and it was a great combination.”
Commercial Appeal
Aside from their rising status as a live and recording act, Les and Mary were one of the first successful artist-based radio advertisers.
“We were at the Oriental Theater in 1951, and a fellow from Rheingold Beer approached me. He said, ‘I’m here to talk to you about making a commercial. We’re willing to pay you good money.’ I was my own manager and I said, ‘That sounds good. How much time do you want?’ He said, ‘Thirty seconds.’ I said, ‘When do you need it?’ He said, ‘If we can do it, I’ll produce it right here.’
“Mary and I were doing a broadcast once a week for our radio show (“Les Paul and Mary Ford At Home”). So I said, ‘I’ll tell you what. Go downstairs and watch today’s newsreel, and give me a chance to think about it.’
“So he goes down, and when he comes back I hand him a reel that has 30 seconds of tape. I said, ‘I thought about it, and I did your commercial.’ He said, ‘You did the commercial!?’ I said, ‘Yeah.’
“I wrote the script, I wrote the song, I did the whole damn thing, and I got it on a reel. I handed it to him and said, ‘Now you give me the money and we’ve got a deal.’ He said, ‘I haven’t heard it yet.’ I said, ‘Well, I’ll play it for you.’ And I did and he flipped out and said, ‘They’re going to go crazy for this. But I’m supposed to be the producer and the director, and it’s supposed to be my idea. I’m going back to New York, so will you please not tell anybody?’ I said, ‘Nah, you produced it, you directed it, and you made it.’ And he went back and the people at Rheingold Beer loved it, and everything was very successful.
“I didn’t want anybody to know just what it was that I was doing, because it was highly unusual. This was sound on sound and nobody else had that. I didn’t want to disclose how I was doing all of this stuff.
“I was using it on my radio show, and that’s when we came up with the term the ‘Les Paulverizer’ and all that stuff. I’d say by throwing these switches I could get all these sounds. And from that point on, McDonald would come out and say ‘Hey Les, I have another one for you. I’ll leave it and get lost.’
Rheingold Beer was just for the New York area, and it was a very popular beer, so it was the most aggressive advertiser, and the most important commercial we ever made in our life. With all the Listerine ads and the Robert Hall ads, Rheingold was the one that concentrated more on advertising their product.
“How High the Moon” This was one of Les Paul and Mary Ford’s most innovative hits. It marked the introduction of the advanced Paulverizer. It was number one for nine weeks and sold 1.5 million copies. “Smoke Rings” This was an example of the type of proven hit that Les preferred to record because audiences and radio listeners already knew the song. “Bye Bye Blues” This was the record Les and Mary were working on at the Delaware Water Gap in Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania, when Ted McCarty brought over the first prototype solidbody. “Mockin’ Bird Hill” An early Les and Mary hit that helped Les convince Capitol Records to release the Paulverized “How High The Moon.” Capital was initially reluctant to release a song that was so progressive, because it might not be a hit. “Tennessee Waltz” and “Mockin’ Bird Hill” convinced Capitol that Les knew what he was doing. “Johnny is the Boy For Me” Les Paul: “A photographer wanted to take a picture of us in the studio for the newspaper, and he told me it was going to be involved. At first Mary did not want to spend the time to do that. But the photographer said, ‘I want to have you both sitting on wooden horses and I’m going to have a guitar in there and I’m going to have you sitting on a guitar.’ And I said, ‘Mary, that sounds interesting!’ And little did we know, it was going to be one of the most famous pictures.” The Les Paul guitar shown has received the typical Les Paul modifications. Notice the standard L-4 type tailpiece and the multi-pole modified neck pickup. This cover will fetch more in the collector’s market because of the unusual photograph. “Josephine” Les Paul: “It’s a different song. It has 32-bars and it’s a mess, but it’s interesting. It’s hard for a lot of guitar players, or anybody, to play because it goes so many different places. It was written by Wayne King, a friend of mine, but happened to become a very popular song – and Wayne’s theme song.”
“If you looked at the New York Times you’d see maybe six full pages, one right after the other, of nothing but Les Paul and Mary Ford. We were sitting at a table eating and we’d have our beer in front of us, and the next picture is something entirely different. And we’d do 30-second radio commercials, ‘Rheingold is my beer – my beer.’ They were terribly popular.
“But the critics were on our backs something awful. We were the very first musicians to advertise a product. So we were criticized by Billboard and Downbeat, because musicians advertising a product was considered prostitution. But today, musicians and artists fight to get to advertise a product.
“It came to the point where Capitol Records sided with the critics, and for the most unusual reason; they said the ads were hurting the sales of records. We made the commercials so good that in many cases they were better than the record (laughs).
“Say our record was ‘The World Is Waiting for the Sunrise,’ which is a very good record. But if just ahead of it was something that was 30 seconds long and very good, too, then Capitol thought that was a problem. It was Capitol’s point of view that many of the disk jockeys might have thought, ‘Why play Les Paul and Mary Ford again, when we just heard them on a commercial?’ So Capitol thought that the ads hurt the airplay of the records.
“So we had a meeting, and I made one of the most stupid mistakes I ever made. I said, ‘Well, why don’t we vote on it?’ And by one vote, I lost, and we cancelled the commercials.
“Now I look back and see how wrong I was. Those commercials were the start of the whole thing. And it didn’t hurt the records. And the advertising, besides being on radio, was in the newspapers, and on [billboards].”
Les Paul and Mary Ford at Home
That misstep was not the end of the line for Les’ and Mary’s advertising-related exposure. Next came their popular Listerine-sponsored TV program.
They purchased a home near Listerine’s headquarters in upstate New Jersey, and with the help of the company, it was made into a world-class recording and TV studio.
This time, however, Les and Mary would not directly advertise the product. The program was called “Les Paul and Mary Ford At Home,” and the two would act out a skit, perform a song, then go to commercial break, which was generally a Listerine mouthwash ad – but there were other products. After the break, the show would resume with a second song, often an instrumental by Les using his Paulverizer.
Most of the episodes had to do with everyday life. They might feature Les in a chef’s hat at a backyard BBQ, talking about his secret recipes. Another episode had Mary wondering why the refrigerator wasn’t working, only to have Les discover that it was unplugged. There is nothing unusual about a man wandering around a kitchen with a black Gibson Les Paul Custom, right?
Only once in our 28-plus years has Vintage Guitar printed a double cover and that was to honor Les Paul. Here are the two covers from the November 2002 issue, which contained this interview.
Another episode had Mary sitting at the kitchen table playing a card game.
“I remember the first show to come out of our home studio,” Les said. “The director had me with a straw hat, a cane, and a striped shirt, tap dancing (laughs). So I said, ‘Somehow, I think we’re going the wrong direction with this act. Get rid of that director and get another guy.’ So they got another guy, and he that came up with the chef’s hat.
“So we worked it out, but it took a long time because we were pioneering, and those were the early days of TV.
“On a typical day, Mary would be upstairs in her dressing room right above us [in his home]. Mary would be trying on her gowns and putting on her makeup, and I’d be eating breakfast. The crew would come down and say, ‘Here’s the schedule.’ They’d hand me the script, so I’d get an idea of what was going to happen. So there are two songs down on the script, let’s say ‘How High The Moon’ and another song I had to choose.
“The script told me how much time I had, and while I’d eat, I’d be thinking, ‘One chorus at that tempo will be that.’ So I’d say to the setup man, ‘Set up some cocktail drums and my black guitar.’ So I walk to that room right over there (points to the second floor glass control room overlooking the main studio) and I lay down 37 seconds of drums, or it might be something else like a second guitar part. Then I may put down a melody for 37 seconds. The tempo is already there – it’s going to be 32 bars, or 12 bars, whatever. I’d already figured out that I’m going to do two choruses or something I make up right there.
“So in 20 minutes I’ve got the song. But Mary hadn’t heard it. She’s still upstairs putting her clothes on. So the song goes immediately to acetate disk, which is placed in the living room or the studio. Then we were ready for the script.
“The script might have Mary saying, ‘While I’m making a sandwich, will you play “Who Broke The Lock?”‘ And they drop the needle on the record that I only heard when I made it (laughs). And there it is – it is as much a surprise to everybody as it is to me. And we get through that and we have maybe four words and we go into a commercial. And that’s the way we had to do the shows. So there were so many surprises.
“So, every day I’d come down to breakfast and a guy would shove something at me. I’d say, ‘What am I going to do this time…?’ So after we’d finish the number, they’d cut to commercial, come back, and Mary would say, ‘Well that was “Doin’ The Town” or “Wait And See” or “Pardon Me, Baby,”‘ or whatever it was. And the show was not dubbed. They’d just sit there with cameras running. The songs we recorded for the radio and TV shows were in most cases picked by me because they were made very popular by someone else. They were standards, and there’s nothing like a proven hit song.
“‘Vaya Con Dios’ was written by a dear friend of mine. That’s the one I think of when it comes to Les Paul and Mary Ford, because it sold so many millions. I think of it every time I go to the bank (laughs). Mary and I admired the writer, and we admired the song, and that’s why we used it. The writer never did live long enough to hear the song. I was so sold on ‘Vaya Con Dios’ and Capitol was so against it that they did not want to put it out. So I had a hell of a time convincing Capitol that it was a hit.”
“Vaya Con Dios” was Les Paul and Mary Ford’s biggest hit, being number one for 11 weeks in ’53. “How High The Moon” was number one for nine weeks in ’51, and was the groundbreaker for the “Paulverized” sound.
Les and Leo
One of the many people who came to Les’ Hollywood backyard/home studio in the ’40s was Leo Fender.
“Leo loved country music, and I was recording Spade Cooley’s guys. So Leo was in my backyard, and Paul Bigsby, and they’re saying, ‘This guy has some stuff going here.’
“Leo and I spent many hours talking. He was interested in me going with him, starting things. He wanted to try new sounds. Where else could Leo hear a better thing than in an orchestra being recorded with his amplifier? Where else is Leo going to find a better place to be where there is an electronic engineer, a person that knows, a person that plays the instrument? And as you know, Leo was not around jazz players at all. He was strictly in a country world. And the country world was prominent in my backyard.
“So Leo and I would sit and talk about sound. And it came to what sound do we like best? The best we agreed upon was the sound that came out of the steel guitar. That was a sound that you could never get out of a straight guitar. A straight guitar always sounded like a straight guitar – limping, dragging its foot. And we finally got to the point of two pickups, where to place them, and what to do with them.
“That was where Leo and I had a different choice. I wanted a front pickup to sound with all the characteristics of a back pickup, but I didn’t want it to be a back pickup. And Leo wanted to take a back pickup and make it sound something like a front pickup. So we were on opposite ends. And through our whole careers, it stayed that way.
“Anyway, Leo was interested in me going with him. The reason I didn’t was that there was only one company at the time – Gibson. So why do I want to start with someone from scratch? So I told Leo, ‘I don’t know if this is the way I want to go.’
Convincing Gibson
Les had already experimented with many ideas for a solidbody electric guitar, including the famous “log.” He approached Gibson’s Guy Hart beginning in 1941 with the idea, and for 10 years tried to convince the company it was good.
After Fender approached Les, he tried Gibson again.
“I called and said, ‘There’s a guy out here who wants me to go with him, and I think that would be a mistake. You should consider my idea a little more.’”
But Gibson wasn’t ready. On one hand, it wanted to give Les anything he wanted – like a gold plated L-5. But on the other hand, it wouldn’t give him the only thing he really wanted – a solidbody guitar that sounded like a steel guitar with a bridge-mounted pickup.
Of course, World War II turned everything around. From 1941 through ’45, few men worked at Gibson, and production was primarily war-related. In ’45, Chicago Musical Instruments (CMI), run by M.H. Berlin, bought Gibson. The latest rage was the cutaway archtop acoustic and cutaway acoustic/electric archtop, and Gibson was trying to figure out (and keep up with) Les Paul’s large body acoustic/electric archtop Epiphone, not some solidbody dream guitar. But with Berlin on board, things began to change at Gibson.
“Mr. Berlin was probably the most honest, comfortable person I’ve ever dealt with. I met him in 1931, when he was selling Martin guitars in his music store across the street from Lyon and Healy, on Wabash.
“When he became chairman of CMI, we’d talk. So he was aware of my career. He told me, many years later, ‘When you came to Gibson with that contraption of yours (the log), we called you the character with the broomstick with the pickups on it.’ And he said, ‘Gibson laughed at you for 10 years.’ Then he said, ‘Well, Gibson was wrong.’”
The First Gibson Solidbody
In the early ’50s, Gibson began to seriously consider a solidbody guitar. Les had warned them of Leo Fender, and most people credit Fender’s bolt-neck, slab-body Esquire/Telecaster with pushing Gibson into the solidbody market.
But at Gibson, Berlin was discussing Les’ ideas with company president Ted McCarty. When Les briefed Berlin, there were two other people in the room, but McCarty was’t one of them.
McCarty’s main job was to fill instrument orders, but he also wanted to increase production at the Kalamazoo factory. McCarty purchased an early Fender solidbody and tore it apart. He worked from one angle, Les worked from another angle, and Berlin was in the middle, taking input from both.
“Everything about the looks of the first guitar was discussed with Mr. Berlin and myself,” he said. “And when we were finished he said, ‘What color are we going to make it?’ Without really thinking, because it never entered my mind that anybody would ask, I said, ‘Gold,’ and there were two other people in the room, another manager and Mr. Berlin’s right-hand man, Mark Carlucci. They damn near died! One guy said, ‘It’s a terrible color to work with.’ But M.H said, ‘Gold it is.’
“Then they said, ‘What about the other guitar?’ I said, ‘Black.’ They asked why, and I said, ‘I like to see the player’s hands move…’ Today, those are two great colors. Sometimes your first thought is the right one!
“Mr. Berlin and I talked about maple and mahogany bodies, and the Gibson people got them backward; the black guitar, which was the most expensive, was all mahogany, and the cheap guitar, with the maple top, cost the most to make.
“When I got my hands on the prototype, I found quite a few errors. I said, ‘Why don’t you do the same with every one of them. Just make them all with a maple top and mahogany on the sides?’ We found out over time that there was not that much difference between the maple and mahogany top.”
Patentently Controversial
Development of the Les Paul Model was very much a team effort, with Berlin calling the shots. But the patent process was assigned to McCarty; Gibson’s guitar patents were handled in the Kalamazoo offices.
McCarty generally let the engineer most responsible for a product be listed as the patent holder. An example is the 1955 Gibson humbucking pickup patented by Seth Lover.
But in 1952 and ’53, a lot was going on. In one span, three similar patents were filed in a six-month period – the Tune-O-Matic Bridge patent was filed on July 5, 1952 in the name of Ted McCarty, the Les Paul trapeze bridge patent was filed four days later in the name of Lester W. Polfus (Les Paul), and the patent for the stop-tail Les Paul guitar (entitled “Stringed Musical Instrument Of The Guitar Type And Combined Bridge And Tailpiece Therefore”) was filed January 2l, 1953 in McCarty’s name.
The Les Paul Guitar
An important day for Les was the day Ted McCarty reached the Delaware Water Gap (the eastern Pennsylvania mountains that border the Delaware River). That was the night that the first Gibson prototype was named the Les Paul guitar.
“The contract was signed, and Ted turned around and asked me, ‘What are we going to call this thing?’ I said, ‘Call it a Les Paul guitar.’ He said, ‘Will you put that in writing.’ I did! So sometimes I do the right thing (laughs).”
In one pen stroke, many of the dreams Les Paul had worked were achieved.
“We signed the agreement and Ted said, ‘What are we going to do with that clunker?’ I said, ‘Play it until you make that first solidbody right.’ Ted said, ‘Les you can’t walk out on the stage with an Epiphone name on your guitar.’ I said, ‘Okay. Send me some Gibson logos and I’ll put one on it.’ And that’s why you look up at the clunker and see Gibson.”
Ted McCarty had always been concerned with the clunker.
“Ted would pace the floor and say, ‘That’s the damndess sound I’ve ever heard. We’ve got to have it.’ And I said, ‘I’ll give you most of it, but I won’t give you all of it. I’ll work with you on that Les Paul guitar and make it the finest that can be made.’ And that’s what we did.”
Summary
Les Paul did so many things right; he found his passion at an early age, and he had natural rhythm and musical ability. He continually improved until he found his sound. He knew he needed to be well-rounded, not only to be a guitarist, but to be an engineer, inventor, promoter, and celebrity. And he worked tirelessly all the while.
This article originally appeared in VG‘s November 2002 issue. All copyrights are by the author and Vintage Guitar magazine. Unauthorized replication or use is strictly prohibited.
