Page 17 - Guitar Classics Magazine - The Les Paul Bible 2019

THE ORAL HISTORY OF THE LES PAUL

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improvements, some changes, in his Epiphone that he
used. They didn’t make an Epiphone with his name on
it – everything they made was Epiphone.”

DESIGNING THE LES PAUL
Les Paul
“Leo Fender saw what I was doing and he started to
make one. And when Gibson heard about it, they said
ind that guy with the broomstick with the pickup on
it! They came round right away, soon as they heard
what Leo was doing. They came over to me, and I says:
‘Well, you guys are a little bit behind the times. But
okay, let’s go.’”

Ted McCarty
“We started out to make a solidbody and we had a
lot to learn. For instance, the stiffer the material, the
harder the wood, the more shrill is the sound, and the
longer is the sustain. Hit the string and it would ring
for a long sustain period. It could be too long. One
of the things we did was to take a piece of iron rail
from the railroad track, put a bridge and a pickup and
a tailpiece on it, and test it. You could hit that string,
take a walk, come back, and it would still be ringing.
Because the thing that causes it to slow down is the
fact that wood gives a little bit.
“We made a guitar out of solid rock maple. Wasn’t
good. Too shrill, too much sustain. And we made one
out of mahogany. Too soft. Didn’t quite have that © Getty Images
thing. So we inally came up with a maple top and
a mahogany back, made a sandwich out of it, glued
them together. Then we decided, now what about
the shape? We wanted something that wouldn’t
be too heavy. The Fender was a much larger guitar,
heavier. So we made ours a little smaller bodied, in a
traditional shape.
“We had always carved the tops of our ine guitars,
and we had real ine carving machines. Leo Fender
didn’t have any carving machines. They joined their
neck with a plate in the back of the guitar. We always
glued our neck in, made it an integral part. So I said:
‘Okay, let’s carve the top of this thing, like we’d do on
an L-5 and an L-7.’
“We inally came up with a guitar that was
attractive. And as far as we were concerned it had
the tone, it had the resonance and it also had the
sustain, but not too much. Now we needed an excuse
to make it. None of the other major guitar companies
had anything to do with a solidbody. Their attitude
was forget it, because anyone with a bandsaw can
make a solidbody guitar. Bandsaw and a router, that’s
all you needed.
“So I got to thinking. At that time, Les Paul and
Mary Ford were riding very high, they were probably
the number-one vocal team in the United States. They
were earning a million dollars a year. And knowing
Les and Mary, I decided maybe I ought to show this
guitar to them.”

THE LES PAUL BIBLE 17