"I'm a great believer in hard work if you want to be successful. Practice gives you command of what you already have in your mind. Most of what I do, I think out in my mind. Then, you can go over to the guitar already knowing you can play it." ~ Les Paul
Called "every electric guitarist's grandfather" by rocker Joe Walsh, Les Paul (1915-) is the revered inventor of the electric guitar and one of the world's best guitarists and recording innovators.
Born Lester William Polsfuss in Waukesha, Wisconsin, he began playing the guitar as a child. "You have to give up everything if you want to be a good guitar player," he said about his passion to make music. "Play around the clock."
While touring with his band in the mid-1930s, he became dissatisfied with the sound of his acoustic guitar. On weekends at Gibson's Epiphone factory in New York, Paul built the first solid-body electric guitar, a 21-pound monster named The Log. In 1952, the Gibson company made its mark in history by producing the first Les Paul solid body electric guitar.
"I just can't image my home without guitars everywhere," he once said.
With an innovator's creativity and curiosity, Paul began experimenting with overdubbing in the recording studio and gave the world the first eight-track tape recorder, the multi-tracking "sound on sound" that transformed the recording industry.
"Playing a joint keeps me alive," explained the jazz/country/blues virtuoso after a recent concert, still going strong in his 90s. "They thought I was just a name on a guitar. They can't believe I'm still alive."
Practice makes perfect.