Les Paul - Goodbye and Thanks

Ever wonder why singers stick a microphone close to their mouth? That way their vocal is picked up clearly and without the background noises that might be going on. Purer sound. Les Paul had the idea. He died yesterday. One of my lifelong heroes. Without him, we wouldn’t have the recording technology that we do today. Multi-tracking, close miking and of course, the priceless Les Paul electric guitar. Every rock musician that ever was, owes him for that. And he was a relentless clown. I will certainly miss him. I went on a bit about Les Paul a couple years ago too.	Forget? No. He made a pretty broad mark on our lives. It still bothers me a bit that there are a still a few who don’t know how much he affected the world of music as we know it today. For a guy who is in the Inventor’s Hall of Fame, he turned out some pretty good music. Annie and I played Les Paul recordings for more than four hours last night. We began with some of the early Les Paul Trio recordings, jazz slanted, sounding a lot like the early Nat Cole Trio, (before HE was “discovered.”) Then we played the Bing Crosby vocal, “It’s Been a Long, Long Time” and we nodded our heads: Yes, that is certainly Les Paul in there noodling between the words. Next we went through all of the 36 or so charted hits including eleven number ones. We played all of the “b” sides I could find too. My personal favorite there is “Walkin’ and Whistlin’ Blues.” The last disk for the night was the LP he did for London Phase 4 stereo: Les Paul Today. I even played Stan Freberg’s parody on “World is Waiting for the Sunrise.” We had a fine evening. Thanks Lester.

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