Page 21 - Guitar Classics Magazine - The Les Paul Bible 2019

THE ORAL HISTORY OF THE LES PAUL

We get there, the guy said: ‘You want it, you can
have it.’ I said, ‘How much you want?’ He says: ‘How
much you got?’ I pulled the cheque out and says I just
got this today, $350. He says: ‘I’ll take it.’ So I took off
with that guitar! “We had named that car Pearly Gates
and when Renee sold it, I called her back, I said: ‘I
got this guitar with the money.’ She goes, ‘Well, we’re
gonna call that guitar Pearly Gates and you’re gonna
play divine music.’
“I’ll tell you, man, that is some kind of guitar! This
was 1968, right after summer. I’ve wondered along
the way why this particular example of the Les Paul
[’59 Burst] is so robust. Really, the only explanation is
that it just happened to be put together on the right
day. The right combination of wood.
“It was all guesswork back in those days. The
particular day that all of the disparate elements came
together was just that magical moment, I suppose.”

JIMMY’S MOVES: CUSTOM/TELE/BURST
Jimmy Page
“I got my [three humbucker] Les Paul Custom in
the 60s… there was Selmer’s [shop in Charing Cross
Road] and then there was one further on, at the time
it was afiliated somehow, called [Lew Davis], and I
bought it in there. I remember going in and there was
a sort of cash desk, and the guys behind it and right
up on the wall… I said: ‘Oh my god, let me try that!’ “IT’S HYPOTHETICAL, BUT I MAY
What it was doing in there and why, but it was there.
It was just… I fell in love with the bloody thing. NOT HAVE COME UP WITH THE RIFF
“There weren’t many around. It was just such a
gorgeous-looking thing and it sounded so wonderful. OF WHOLE LOTTA LOVE ON THE TELE.
The middle setting wasn’t what you’d expect it to be,
but it was a really spiky sound that was really superb. THAT FAT SOUND YOU’RE WORKING
I customised it with some switches so you could get
into any combination, and [in 1970] it was the one WITH, YOU’RE INSPIRED”
that got stolen.
“In 1969, Joe Walsh turned up at The Fillmore or
Winterland, one or the other, in San Francisco and
he bloody insisted, he said: ‘You’ve got to buy this Yardbirds to Led Zeppelin, it’s exactly the same OPPOSITE This stunning
guitar!’ [It became Page’s ‘Number One’ Burst.] And guitar. Everybody had that if they started turning up a 1954 Les Paul has the killer
it actually looked as though it’d been reinished. I said: Telecaster loud. So Joe insisted that I bought it, and combination of low-wind early
‘I don’t necessarily need it.’ ‘No, you’ve got to have I did buy it, and I kicked off the second album with it. 1950s P-90 pickups and a
wrapover tailpiece
it, just try it, you’ll want it,’ and all that. I said: ‘I’ve “There’s no guarantee that I would have played
already got the Custom.’ ‘No, no, you’ve got to try it! the… I don’t know, it’s hypothetical, but I may not ABOVE This 1956 Les Paul
You’ve got to buy this guitar!’ have come up with the riff of Whole Lotta Love on the Custom has a ‘staple’ single
“He kept insisting. I said: ‘Ah, no, no, no, I can’t Telecaster. That fat sound you’re working with, you coil in the neck position.
afford it. You know how it is.’ This wasn’t like dealing are inspired – well, I am – and I know other people The Custom was introduced
with Selmer’s. He was really sporting – he’s still are, by instruments, the sound of the instruments. in 1954 to fulil Les Paul’s
wish for a more luxurious-
sporting about it now. Because everyone goes oh, you And then they’re playing something they haven’t
looking guitar that looked
sold him a Les Paul for whatever it is, hundreds of played before – and it’s really user-friendly, and
“like a tuxedo”
dollars. It was a pro-rata price, he wasn’t stealing me suddenly they’ve got some sort of riff, which is
up and he wasn’t giving it to me as a present. peculiar to that moment. I’m not saying that’s
“I knew it was a good guitar. I knew there the irst thing I played on it, but it was to come.
wouldn’t be the feedback, the squealing I got from “I always knew the Les Paul was a really user-
my Telecaster, which every night there was a whole friendly guitar over, say, a Strat or something like that.
episode of controlling that. The irst album is done It’s really sympatico. So many things start singing, you
on the Telecaster, because it is a transition from The know? Really singing.”

THE LES PAUL BIBLE 21