LES PAUL-- MY KIND OF GUITAR HERO

I offer without comment a clip of Les Paul showing what he does. (thanks to Howard Parker for sending this to me.)

Then here's a Les Paul trio side of Irving Berlin's "Blue Skies." I like Les's early work, because in the absence of all the later studio inventiveness you get to just hear good guitar-playing.

www.karlstraubmusic.com/1-17 Blue Skies.mp3

I guess I always knew Les Paul wouldn't live forever, but (like Irving Berlin) he certainly did his best to try. I'm sure tons of people are writing about him now, somewhere, but I hope it doesn't sound arrogant if I prefer to just ignore what they're all saying. I'm sure there are tons of people who know more about Les Paul's career than I do, and probably many who have stolen more from him than I have. I doubt, though, that there's anyone who enjoys his playing more than I do.

I keep forgetting how much I've stolen, borrowed, or inherited from him-- while people always talk about his recording achievements, and his role in the development of the electric guitar (and rightly so), I'd just like to briefly mention all the things I like about his actual guitar playing, which somehow gets typically ignored or slighted.

I guess that jazz critics and rock critics are for once in agreement in their lack of appreciation for Les Paul's guitar playing. I remember reading some Philistine rock critic in the Rolling Stone Record Guide saying, in essence, Les Paul is really important but his records aren't so great. I guess the idea was that we can all thank Les Paul for developing technology that the real musicians like Jimi Hendrix and Jimmy Page could use to make the real important records.

Well, naturally I love the records those guys made, but it's important to remember that Les didn't just invent a bunch of technical gizmos. He demonstrated how electric guitar parts can be overdubbed and layered to create a guitar-encrusted world of sound-- with tape echo, sped-up tracks, and sometimes just picking down by the bridge, Les gave different personalities and colors to the timbre of different guitar tracks. This gave much of his best work the timbral richness of a string quartet, and I don't think it's a stretch to say that he was a kind of link between people like Haydn and people like Hendrix. He also brought a puckish sense of humor to the way he attacked a note and developed a line. Not for all tastes, I suppose, but I'll always remember what a friend said to me when we were very young. I'd just played a few Roy Nichols licks, and a skinhead buddy of ours chuckled at my playing. I felt bad until my friend said that if you can make someone laugh by the way you play guitar, you really have something. In retrospect, it may be that that bit of advice was the most valuable of my career; when I needed ideas on bringing more wit into my playing, I knew where to look. I don't think anyone recorded more amusing and comical electric guitar playing than Les Paul.

If Les was arguably "corny" by comparison with the likes of Charlie Parker, or Charlie Christian, who cares? I'm not too concerned with the views of hip jazz purists about thiings like this. I'd argue that most jazz guitarists could benefit from Les's ability to orchestrate with mostly electric guitars, and in fact many jazz records with beautiful improvised playing could arguably still benefit from the orchestral and timbral blending ideas Les used. Hendrix and Page certainly did-- and I'd even argue that, great as their playing is, it wouldn't have had nearly the impact it did if not for the orchestral approach that they both probably learned from Les Paul. Les Paul taught us that electric guitars could paint landscapes and jungles of twang and tone.
Beyond the timbral tone-painting he did on his most famous recordings, he had a beautiful way with articulation. I think he played melodies better than most "hipper" guitarists. I'm tempted to call him the Bobby Hackett of the guitar, except that leaves out his twangy, goofy, country-fried side. I think a lot of jazz and country players were influenced by him; sometimes the influence was one of many, but sometimes people put out whole albums in the Les Paul style. I had a Vinnie Bell record like that, and I found a download of a George Barnes album in that vein too. I suspect there were similar knockoffs by others. Then there's the undeniable influence on rockabilly players, either directly or indirectly (through Chet Atkins).

Any time you catch me playing with a ridiculous amount of slapback, or just trying to sound big, bright, and melodic, you can thank Les Paul.