Intro (150 – 200 words) – Talk about what I will be talking about in each paragraph and say why I’m doing this topic.
Paragraph One – Talk a little about Les Paul’s childhood like who he is and when and where he was born and the start of his musical career and get into the main section of the paragraph, the start of his invention.
Paragraph One Notes (250 – 300 words)
- Lester William Polsfuss.
- June 9, 1915.
- Waukesha, Wisconsin.
- At the age of eight, Paul began playing the harmonica. After learning the piano, he switched to the guitar.
- He invented a neck-worn harmonica holder.
- By age thirteen, Paul was performing semi-professionally as a country-music singer, guitarist, and harmonica player.
- Wanting to make his acoustic guitar heard by more people at the local venues, he wired a phonograph needle to his acoustic guitar and connected it to a radio speaker but he got way too much feedback.
- He then filled his acoustic guitar with plaster of Paris to get rid of any feedback but it didn’t work so he had to buy a new guitar since he wrecked his.
Paragraph Two – Talk about how he made the railroad tie and what it did and how it worked.
Paragraph Two Notes (150 – 200 words)
- When his experiment of turning an acoustic guitar into a solid body electric guitar didn’t work, he went to find the most dense material he could find.
- in the late 20s railroad guys would cut any flawed rail and leave it on the side which is what he found.
- He then attached the microphone from his mothers telephone to the 2ft piece of rail and put on a string using different parts of the railroad.
- Making this helped him discover and experiment with the sustain which you didn’t get on acoustic guitars.
- He completed this in 1929 and was technically the first 1 string solid body guitar.
Paragraph Three – Talk about how the invention of “The Log” started and how he made it and the reception it got at first by different people as well as the more detailed information about the guitar and different versions he made of it.
Paragraph Three Notes
- After he made the Railroad Tie, he continued on with his hollowbody guitars but years later, in the late 1930s, he revived his solidbody guitar idea.
- He built the guitar on a 4″ x 4″ slab of pine equipped with an Epiphone neck and a homemade tremolo system and homemade pickups inside the Epiphone factory during after hours.
- When he completed the foundation of The Log he played a show at the sheek in New York but no one was reacting or responding to The Log
- So Paul cut an Epiphone archtop body in half and added the “wings” to the pine body for a more acceptable look and then went back to the same club and everybody reacted and responded and said “wow”.
- In 1941, Paul approached Gibson with his invention, but the company balked, likening it to a “Broomstick with pickups” and turned it down.
- At the end of 1941, he moved to California and started to hang out with other musicians and guitar company owners like Leo Fender and Paul Bigsby and told them about “The Log” where Leo proposed an offer to make a guitar together called the Fender Paul guitar but Les turned that down due to the good relationship he had with Gibson and wanted to keep trying to make a deal with them.
- When Gibson and Les Paul caught wind of Leo Fender’s Broadcaster creation in 1950, He told Gibson that they have to make a move on this guitar straight away before Fender rules the world. Gibson finally accepts Les Pauls offer which is when Gibson’s Ted McCarty quickly began working on a singlecut, solidbody electric with Paul as a special consultant.
- Gibson was still unsure about this guitar so they didn’t want their name on it so les suggested to them that they should put his name on it so in 1952 the guitar went on sale.
Paragraph Four – Talk about what came after the first sale in 1952 and what the Les Paul evolved into every decade and what other Gibson guitars it influenced.
- After the first sale in 1952, he would still suggest ideas and suggestions to Gibson for the Gibson Les Paul.
- A second Les Paul model was introduced in 1953. Called the Les Paul Custom.
- In 1958, the Les Paul saw its first major design change. A new model, called the Standard.
- Paul continued to suggest technical improvements, although they were not always successful commercially.
- The original Les Paul body shape was retired in 1961 and radically redesigned as the Gibson SG (which for the first several years was known as the Les Paul SG, before Les Paul’s endorsement deal ran out)
- In the mid-late 1960s, the unique tonal quality of the humbucker-equipped “Burst” models became a favorite among rock guitarists, and this renewed interest caused Gibson to bring back the Standard and Custom models in 1968.
- Different models influenced by the original Les Paul and The Log include Goldtop, Custom, Standard, Junior, Special, SG, Deluxe, Professional, Recording, The Paul, Studio, Memphis ES, HP, Dark fire and the affordable Epiphone versions of some of these models.
- Famous guitarists who have signature models of the Les Paul include Billy Gibbons, Paul Kossoff, Slash, Jimmy Page, Eric Clapton, Zakk Wylde, Mick Ronson and Ace Frehley
Conclusion – Talk about everything I talked about and summarise why I talked about this topic.