Dirt Nap City - History's Most Interesting Dead People
Dirt Nap City is the podcast about history's most interesting dead people. In each episode, Alex and Kelly dive into the life of a famous person that you have heard of, but probably don't know much about. Our stories are about actors, entrepreneurs, politicians, musicians, inventors, explorers and more! We also cover things that used to be popular but have fallen out of favor. Things like pet rocks, drive in theaters, Jolt Cola, and many other trends of yesterday make up our "dead ends". But whether we are talking about interesting historical figures or past trends, the show is funny, light-hearted, entertaining, informative and educational. You will definitely learn something new and probably have some laughs along the way. Everyone will eventually move to Dirt Nap City, so why not go ahead and meet the neighbors?
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Dirt Nap City - History's Most Interesting Dead People
Less is More - How Les Paul Altered the Path of Rock and Roll
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Before the stadium anthems, the wall of amplifiers, and the legendary guitar solos that defined generations, there was a single question: How do we make it louder? In this episode, we dive deep into the extraordinary life and legacy of Les Paul—the visionary musician, relentless inventor, and literal architect of modern music. While millions of music fans recognize his name from the headstock of the iconic Gibson Les Paul guitar, few realize just how much he rewrote the rules of the entire recording industry.
We trace Les Paul’s journey from his early days performing as a jazz and country guitarist to his obsessive experiments in a backyard garage. But Les Paul’s genius didn't stop at the instrument itself. He completely transformed how music is made. We unpack his groundbreaking work as an audio engineer, where he single-handedly pioneered multi-track recording, overdubbing (sound-on-sound), tape delay, and phasing. Without his relentless tinkering, iconic albums by the Beatles, Led Zeppelin, and Jimi Hendrix simply could not have existed. He didn't just play the music—he engineered the very concept of the modern recording studio.
Whether you are a seasoned guitar player, an audio engineering nerd, or just a fan of music history, this episode reveals the fascinating story of a true American original. We examine his chart-topping hits with Mary Ford, his complex relationship with Gibson, and how a devastating car accident forced him to reinvent his playing style entirely.
Tune in as we celebrate the ultimate music innovator who proved that when it comes to creativity, you should never settle for "less."
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Dirt Nap City is the podcast about the most interesting dead people in history.
Subscribe and listen to learn about people you've heard of, but don't know much about.
Someday we'll all live in Dirt Nap City, so you should probably go ahead and meet the neighbors!
Oh, the step-in. That was good.
SPEAKER_02You like that? Welcome to another episode of Dirt Knap City. This is the podcast about interesting dead people. My name is Alex. I'm here with my friend Kelly, and we have another appearance today by Al from Austin.
SPEAKER_03Hey folks. And actually, today we are not in Austin. We are coming to you live. Actually, today we are not in Austin. We are coming to you live from Alex's dining room table in the Houston area. We're not going to tell you where he lives because he doesn't want to be swamped by uh yeah, he doesn't want to be um fans. Yeah, he doesn't want fans. I mean, you've had that before, right? People stop you on the street and want your autograph. We have heavy security here, but um well, so uh today we actually are going to be doing a really amazing episode. We don't know, Alex and I don't know who it is, but Al from Austin has prepared something. He's been working on this for weeks. Now, if you didn't hear his previous episode, which was about Madame Toussault, who is the wax museum lady, um, then you missed out because he is definitely um one of our best episodes ever.
SPEAKER_02Good news. Yeah. It's still available to listen to.
SPEAKER_03That's right. They're all available on demand.
SPEAKER_01It hasn't melted like wax.
SPEAKER_02I think demand is a little strong though. Like you don't demand a podcast episode.
SPEAKER_03You just I think the people demand it. Oh. I I I hear there's a lot of demand for this podcast episode. And I also want to just say to um death, uh, liquid death, F you Liquid Death. I'm drinking Hint today. Yeah because you haven't you haven't become our sponsor. I don't think Hint's a good sponsor, but Hint, if you want to jump in Liquid Death. Why wouldn't Hint be a good sponsor? Because they have nothing to do with death. They're not they're not dirt nap city. But do they have money? True. Yeah. They're probably owned by Liquid Death. Right. Anyway, um, we are here in the Houston area. It's starting to get warm. I gotta mention the weather. Um, but if you're listening to this, it could be cold. Who knows? And Al is about to take us through an amazing story about someone. This is great because we're both in the dark right now.
SPEAKER_02Can you flip on the light?
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_01There it is. All right, folks. Uh, let me kick this off. We always I think the the model is we start off with uh some general clues and uh try to get you guys to to see if you can guess who I'm gonna do.
SPEAKER_02You know what constitutes a good clue and a bad clue, right? Here's a uh here's some always tells me my clues are bad. Here's an instance of Kelly's uh clues. Um their middle name was Kenneth, and they had the same birthday as my sister.
SPEAKER_01That should be all right. So I I think I'm pretty good on clues, actually. So this person, and by the way, again, falls squarely in your wheelhouse, and so that will be your first clue. Yeah, 20th century white person. You got it, white man. You got it. Okay, so we've narrowed it down. Uh this person was a musician. Um by by the way, last night I had a uh just kind of a uh a brief moment where I was concerned this person wasn't dead. I did confirm this person is dead. Um so a musician, an innovator slash inventor, um, but he's probably best known for his product endorsement.
SPEAKER_03Like like TV commercials kind of thing? Or or just laying his name on something?
SPEAKER_01Laying his name on something. Is it Les Paul? It sure is. There it is, man. That is nice, nice, really good. I guess you give good clues. Exactly. Or maybe I give bad clues. Uh let me go ahead and run through Who's his middle name? Williams. See. William. I think it's Williams.
SPEAKER_02That would have given that would have given it away. William.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_03And and he has the same birthday as my sister.
SPEAKER_01Let me give you a couple more clues because I think these are uh pretty cool. Uh early on in his career, in his music career, uh, he was a country musician, uh performing under the name Rhubarb Red. Oh man. That's a good name.
SPEAKER_02His real name was Les Paul, though?
SPEAKER_01No, no, no. Uh we'll get to that. Um, he is the only person who is inducted to both the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the Inventors Hall of Fame. Okay. I didn't know there was an Inventors Hall of Fame.
SPEAKER_03Can we go visit the Inventors Hall of Fame?
SPEAKER_02I think Tom Morello should be in the Inventors Hall of Fame, though.
SPEAKER_03Why?
SPEAKER_02Hasn't he invented a lot of cool stuff?
SPEAKER_01I don't know.
SPEAKER_03And Tom Tom Schultz, uh from Boston?
SPEAKER_01Didn't he invent like some sort of weird Well, I think what you're gonna see is, yeah, I I know that uh Schultz did invent a an effects pedal. Yeah. Uh what we're gonna see is that Les Paul invented and created a lot more stuff. Yeah, and Moog. Moog, yeah, he should be in there too. That name actually came up as somebody you might be surprised that Moog is not in here. Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Well, if you listen to the synthesizer episode, it's one of our dead ends.
SPEAKER_01Yep, yep. Okay, so um, here's another clue that I'll elaborate on this later on. Um, he is Steve Miller's godfather. Whoa. Isn't that cool? From the Steve Miller band. The Steve Miller. Wow. He's he's the Joker's grandfather. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Some people call him Maurice.
SPEAKER_01Brother Maurice? What is this? Handling monkeys all day and all night or something? I don't remember. So something like that. Yeah. So of course I am talking about the one and only Lester Pulphus. Pulfus.
SPEAKER_02Pulfus? Pulfus. Lester Pulfus. Eastern European or something like that? Eastern European. Eastern European. Les Paul.
SPEAKER_01Changed it to Les Paul. Yes. And I don't I don't recall if he changed it or if his family changed it.
SPEAKER_02It is one of those names that you forget that there's a person behind it. It's just so ubiquitous and synonymous with guitars.
SPEAKER_04That's exactly right. That's exactly right. Yeah, you would say it's a is it a Les Paul? Mm-hmm. Exactly.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. And so there's a lot about Les Paul as I got into this that I thought I knew some things about him. I knew some things, but I learned so many things. And I would say that uh after doing this, my takeaway is that his contribution to music is much greater than the guitar. In fact, the uh um people who are in the industry, I think, would recognize his contribution as as well beyond um of the guitar that we'll get into. But you can't talk about Les Paul without talking about really the history of electric guitars. And uh the the whole thing about electric guitars is about amplification, and that sounds simple and and obvious, but the driver was in the 30s, the big band era. Uh, there were what do you think of when you think of a big band? A lot of horns. A lot of horns. What else? A lot of drums. Oh, yeah, yeah. And both of which completely drowned out the guitar. So guitars weren't part of the big band era early on because you couldn't hear them, right? And whether that be in a in a live club or in the studio, the problem was still the same. And so there was this move to try to amplify the guitar. And the first one that came out is something called um the frying pan. Now, have you guys ever heard of that or maybe seen a picture of it? Nope. Nope. Uh Rickenbacher. You recognize that? Yeah, sure. Rickenbacher created the first uh successful electric guitar, and it was called the frying pan. I believe it was made out of aluminum and it was a solid body, and uh and it kind of looked like a frying pan. It had a long neck, maybe like a banjo. But the thing was it was called a Hawaiian style guitar, which meant it laid on your lap instead of holding it up in, you know, like we think of with the traditional guitars. That's called a Spanish style guitar. And so the one that you hold up is a Spanish style? Yes. Okay. And in fact, um, well, I'll get to it, but the the move was all right, how do we amplify a Spanish style guitar? And so the thought was, oh, well, we'll just put a microphone uh onto a hollow body, you know, a standard guitar, which is a hollow body guitar, which sounds conceptually, right? That that makes sense, but it then created another problem, and they tend to feed back. And what you know, getting into the little bit of technical part, I understand the soundboard of the hollow body guitar starts to vibrate, and that vibration causes a feedback, and it just causes more problems, it doesn't solve a problem. And so um a lot of people were working on this, but one of them was this guy who was a tinkerer and always tweaking with stuff and trying to figure things out, and it was Les Paul, and he came up with a very early version of an electric guitar that was had a solid body. So that's did he play guitar also? Yes, so I mentioned he's a musician, right? And that cut that's a really important part of the story about him being a musician and the notoriety with that. So um the uh he comes up with this uh prototype of a solid body guitar, and it is in essence an electric guitar, and it's a guitar that's mounted on a four by four piece of pine. And uh he he cut out the the edges of a traditional hollow body guitar and he put them on the edges of it to make it look like the you know holistically it looked like a guitar, right? But the critical part was that solid seam that went through, you know, the four by four piece of pine. So he took it to Gibson, right? So now he takes it to Gibson and says, This is what I got, and we know where this goes, right?
SPEAKER_03So now it's all Gibson's Les Paul is an addition of Gibson, is a is a style of Gibson.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so what happened then, what hang on, which was like I think in 1946-ish, they laughed him out of the room. They said, What are you kidding? This looks like a broomstick with strings on it. You know, get out of here. Wow. And so a lot of people were working on did it sound good? I don't know that it sounded good, but it was a prototype that was really maybe a proof of concept type.
SPEAKER_03It just had to sound better than the frying pan.
SPEAKER_01It had to sound better than the frying pan. It had to sit up in the Spanish style. Right. Uh, which by the way, uh the first Gibson's first electric guitar, which they still make today, is called an ES. Are you familiar with either of you familiar with that? I'm familiar with the SG, but the ES is uh, I think, um, I think that Rick Emmett played an ES last night. Uh Rick Emmett, who is a guitarist and singer with Triumph. So it does have a little bit of a feedback problem, but the ES stands for Electric Spanish, which I thought was kind of interesting. Yeah, it is cool. So uh they laugh him out of the room and he leaves. Pardon me. Rude. Very rude. Do you know what where was this all like what state?
SPEAKER_03Do you know where's from?
SPEAKER_01Well Les Paul is from Wisconsin, and I believe that Gibson is from Michigan. In fact, there's a a spin-off of the very high-end spin off of Gibson guitars called Kalamazoo. And I think that's where the original uh Gibson factory was, was in Kalamazoo, Michigan.
SPEAKER_02Have either of you ever been laughed out of a room before?
SPEAKER_03I was about to say I thought you guys were going to laugh me out of the room today because of the setup or something, but uh what are you gonna do that? Yeah, it's also something.
SPEAKER_02No, I've I just wondered if you've ever been laughed out of a room.
SPEAKER_01I don't know. I have not, but uh that would that would be like my worst fear.
SPEAKER_02I guess if you were a comedian, that would be a goal. I think the time where I came to Kelly with a list of 20 podcast ideas and he laughed at everyone is the closest I've but we weren't in a room, we were on a roof. True, true. I got laughed off the roof. And it wasn't really a laugh, it was more of a sneer.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah. It was silent judgment.
SPEAKER_02Was that in Cleveland? Wasn't that silent, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Up on the roof. Up on the roof. Um, so a lot of people working on this problem, and somebody else got to market first, and you you're familiar with Fender guitars. Leo Fender created a guitar, uh, which the first name I think was like the um electrocaster or something like that. There was some lawsuit type thing.
SPEAKER_02I always thought Fender was Freddie Fender. Yeah, that's an entire early ribbon guy. Every early guitar had a yellow ribbon.
SPEAKER_01Oh, see, me too. I did the same thing.
SPEAKER_02Um police Navidad 1950. Wasted days and wasted nights is Freddie Fender. Thank you. Waste and he was in the team.
SPEAKER_01Waste nights.
SPEAKER_02Do you remember the Texas tornadoes was also Freddie Fender?
SPEAKER_01Okay. Absolutely. Yeah. Uh Doug Song was in the Texas tornadoes, right? So he uh Fender comes out with the Esquire. And Esquire comes out, there's some name problem, but in a year later, it it becomes the Telecaster. And if you're familiar with the Telecaster, it is the first commercially viable, successful uh Spanish-style electric guitar.
SPEAKER_02And that's the sound of the electric guitar that we know today.
SPEAKER_01That is the sound, and that's the guitar that Springsteen plays. A little distorted.
SPEAKER_02Uh I mean, compared to an acoustic guitar.
SPEAKER_01You know, the the desire was a very clean, very clean sound, amplified sound, and you're getting to effects pedals, to effects pickups. Yeah. So um 1950, Gibson comes back to Les Paul and says, Hey, we need to talk. And so sorry about that. Remember that one time we left you out of the room? Well, let's talk about this. But the the conception, or or the perception rather, is that they came to him to build a guitar and to design a guitar. And that's not true. They wanted a celebrity endorsement, and they needed a big name to put on a guitar um that you know they could market. So they by and large, Gibson engineered, designed, built the Les Paul. Les Paul's contribution, and there's no doubt about it, is he has a patent on the tail piece, and that's a really important piece of the guitar. But that's not the shape, that's not the aesthetics. Um, it's more the the engineered side of it. And so there's been a lot of battles back and forth on who created this guitar. And Gibson will tell you it's his name, which is you know, obviously very, very important, but Gibson designed and built the guitar.
SPEAKER_02So you say they needed a big name. Was he a big name?
SPEAKER_01Yes, that's the crazy part, right? I mean he was known as a musician back then. Back then, he was he was a household name. He and country music jazz. Oh, okay. He and his wife, Mary Ford, oh yeah, who plays a really big part in this. Uh, they were from 1950 to 1954, they produced 16 top 10 hits. Wow. Uh 1951, How High the Moon, spent nine weeks at number one. Uh 1953, Valle Condillo spent eleven weeks. Another one. Yeah, eleven weeks at number one. Uh in the nineteen fifties, I think it was uh 1952, 1951. They had a TV show that was a variety show? No. If it was a variety show, it was the world's shortest variety show. It ran Monday through Friday, sponsored by Listerine. It was on for five minutes, and it was called Les Paul and Mary Ford at home. Like an infomercial, basically, bro. Like a TikTok. Yeah, it was an early. Was it shot in vertical? Probably. It probably was. Did they turn their film cameras sideways? They might have, uh, knowing Les Paul because he liked to tweak a lot of things. Yeah. Uh so they needed a big name, and at the time the world was saturated with Les Paul. Now, side note, um with about Mary Ford, she was generally considered the winning part of the Les Paul Mary Ford show. She is a virtuoso on the guitar and a beautiful singer. And without her, it's unlikely that the duo would have been as popular as they were. And if they weren't, Gibson wouldn't have come to Les Paul. There would not be the Les Paul guitar. So there's a it's reasonable to say that she too is a big factor into the advent.
SPEAKER_03It could have been called the Mary Ford guitar. It probably should have been should have been called the Mary Ford guitar. She was a better guitarist than Les Paul.
SPEAKER_01I don't know. He was a virtuoso, also.
SPEAKER_03Okay.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So they were both really good.
SPEAKER_03But one of the things sexism. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Well, she was a virtuoso set. Well, right.
SPEAKER_01Hashtag sexism. Wow. Man, schooling. You're welcome. Yeah. What the things you learn on Dirt Knapp City, kids, don't uh don't understand. Are you a virtuoso? Yeah, I'm more of a virtuoso set. So um the um we talked about the Mary, I'm sorry, the Les Paul and Mary Ford show, or at home show. Um, they did two things. One was they sang, they showcased the guitar. Part of the endorsement deal is they could only play Les Paul model guitars, and uh they were flashy. The the thing about the uh the telecaster, uh to this day, uh Fender, his plan was to create a guitar that was affordable and playable, durable. Uh Gibson wanted to create a guitar that was beautiful.
SPEAKER_03So they were more like Fender was more like a Honda and Les Paul was more of a Cadillac.
SPEAKER_01I don't know that I would agree with that because the telecaster is such in all Fenders. I mean, they're great guitars, and the Telecaster is a the Telecaster and the Stratocaster, those are phenomenal guitars. But at the time when they were building these things, one of the things that Gibson tried to do to distinguish themselves was to make it a little flashier. Okay. And so it has an arch top. The first one was called a gold top, and it was uh gold uh shiny because it would be sparkle on TV. Oh yeah. And of course they had this TV uh opportunity, five minutes every day. And um, and now, you know, it's arguably the Lust Ball is the most iconic guitar uh in in rock and roll in music. And it's it's kind of funny because it was it was promoted by a country and jazz guitarist who was really interested in a very pure sound. Now, let's talk about the sound. And um, Alex, you talked about pedals and you know distortion and things like that. And I and I said earlier that some would consider Les Paul's greatest contribution to music uh was not the guitar, it was the product the production of music, and he was trying to produce a sound. Whatever that sound was, he had something, he had a vision that he was trying to create, and um um he viewed the recording process as an an extension of the instrument. The instrument created the vibrations, those vibrations were picked up by the equipment that were then manipulated and then and then produced the sound. And so one of the very first things that he figured out and and created was uh multi-track recording. So before that, it was we're all sitting in a room and we're gonna record.
SPEAKER_03Three microphones, and we just oh, there's one microphone. Yeah, like this 360 camera, it's sitting in the middle of the room and we're all just playing it.
SPEAKER_01Yep. So he he figured out how to manipulate the recorder that would allow him to call record and then record over it again, and it became the advent of the multi-track recorder. He did not create it, but he did collaborate and he commissioned a company to actually to finalize it and make it. They made the first eight-track recorder, then they called it the octopus, which is kind of cool. Yeah, that is cool. Uh, but some of the other things that he created uh was delay, which is a very subtle effect that creates uh I mean, without delay, uh modern music would just it would just sound entirely different. Uh echo, um, variable. speed recordings. Like reverb, you mean? Yeah. Yeah. Phasing, which honestly, I don't know exactly what phasing. I think that's a that kind of sound.
SPEAKER_03You know, when it when it makes that weird like so actually I think I know what phasing is because in sound you can have uh if you hook up a stereo system and you have your positive and your negative wires the the um or they're maybe it's sound and ground I'm not exactly sure but there's two inputs on speaker wires and then there's two pins inputs on the other speaker. So each speaker has a a plus and a minus let's say and then your stereo has a plus and a minus. If you get those backwards they're out of phase if if you actually hook up one reversed you put the positive on the negative and vice versa on the other one then you'll hear this kind of weird it it creates because what's happening is I think one makes the speaker push out and one makes it pull in or or something along those lines. And so instead of them both pushing out at the same time one is pushing out as one is pulling in and it creates this weird kind of noise cancellation little tension. Yeah yeah so that I think I think that's the concept actually Chris from Austin might be able to tell he he's an audio engineer and he he knows a lot about this so maybe maybe he'll comment on this regarding the sound yeah um this is kind of a chicken or egg question.
SPEAKER_02But so did Les Paul in his mind envision what rock and roll was going to sound like in the 70s and eighties 60s, 70s and 80s or did it sound like that because of the stuff he invented?
SPEAKER_01In my opinion it sounded like that because of the stuff he invented and it's people get a toy an effects pedal right by the way if you're a musician that's not a toy that's a tool. Okay.
SPEAKER_02And is that the same thing as a Wawa pedal?
SPEAKER_01That's that's a pedal yeah um you know how it works I I I don't know but you know you're creating these things where um it produces an interesting sound and you say wow I like that um we were uh there was a um Kelly and I were talking about this on the way here there's a couple of examples of of of sound engineers who heard an interesting sound and rather than uh discarding it uh they thought oh that's interesting let's let's play with that one of which was uh there was a uh a a recording that would go into a sound booth where the the performers were and it was just to communicate back and forth a talk talkback mic a talk back mic yes and it was something wrong with it and so it was compressing the sound in a very you know unintentional way but it was um it didn't really matter because it was just a talk back but the sound engineer hears that and thinks huh that's really interesting can we incorporate that into this recording and that became it's a very truncated uh compressed sound uh that they use in drums and if you heard it you would go that is iconic 1980s drum sound which is making a comeback and so it's coming back in modern music everything you know old is new again type of thing and so I I would imagine that a lot of these things uh Les Paul wanted to wanted to record uh multiple parts he wanted to play multiple instruments or more likely he wanted to play multiple guitar parts in one recording so how do you do that oh yeah he would have loved what Prince did with that where he would make it a whole record by himself and play every instrument on every each track being a different yeah sound and he was doing that when he was 16 so that right there may be the greatest example of thank Les Paul for Prince you know because he enabled that to happen. He didn't make what Prince did Prince took it to the next level but he enabled other creative people to go oh wait I can do this. And again that's the the biggest contribution in my opinion. So um he did he uh uh late in life uh he he had the the joy uh the the the opportunity he he just continued playing guitar you know he uh he played until his 90s we were he played at a club once a week in New York uh it was a standing gig and you know that's that's a pretty cool deal you know we talked about these guys last night they were in their 70s they were rocking out they were doing what they love and getting paid for it and I I got the sense that it was the same thing with Les Paul where he's just you know he's in his 90s and people still care enough to come hear him play guitar. Uh he died at 94 in um 2009 I think I think this is dirt nap city son hey man I again this is I'll I'll give you the the same wait and you said last night you weren't sure he was dead exactly and he died 15 years ago in his 90s 2000 2009 that'd be 30 years ago 2009 was 30 years ago 27 years ago 2009 was not math is not Kelly's strong point that's why I like Tramp instead of Rod Yeah yeah so sorry uh no it was just it was just kind of a oop moment where I thought oh my gosh is he really dead but yeah so yeah because he'd be 120. Exactly exactly um yeah so he died uh from complications with pneumonia um from from calluses on his fingers well I I mean it sounds like he died of old age did he also invent the trachea tube that Joe Walsh uses uh that that is called the golden throat I believe and not that kind of show um yeah I I don't I didn't see anything on that but I could I could report back wow wow wow wow wow wow so what that's doing is actually producing an airflow with and it might have sound coming in but if you have airflow going into your mouth and then you're shaping your mouth like a like an instrument uh that's that's what that golden throat let me ask this um totally music related but not less Paul related why did Triumph record Rocky Mountain Way and they they did it like two years after the original too they recorded it in like 77.
SPEAKER_03Oh that's cool I mean yeah Alex I mean they played that as a cover but it was a cover of it was the Canadian version the Canadian Rockies Canadian Rockies right we're talking about Banff and uh Lake Louise up there in Alberta. Okay all right it's not the rock yeah it was interesting too um that they had this video of it kind of looked like a drone shot but it looked like an AI drone shot of a drone flying through the mountains and then it goes into this barn and then in the barn are all these flying V guitars yeah and they're all they have different nationalities on them which I thought it was funny that the American one that the US flag was very prominent right next to the Canadian flag you know like play to the audience. I wonder if they have a different version of that when they do a show in Italy or something. They had an Italian one right yeah yeah it was the original one yeah the Spanish one too and and speaking of I just want to say one more thing about flags um the the Irish flag speaking of flags not that kind of show the Irish flag and the Italian flag and the Mexican flag are all very similar.
SPEAKER_01I just learned this well there you go yeah I was in Ireland and I kept seeing uh uh Italian flags everywhere and I realized they weren't actually Italian flags they were the Irish flag Irish flag has orange in it then yeah that's the only difference otherwise it's exactly the same flag anyway back to Les Paul all right so um cool I said earlier he was an uh innovator uh I I toyed with the idea of tinkerer and then I decided that tinkerer wasn't a word but maybe it is I don't know but he was always trying to solve problems. Well he was presented with a problem in the 50s and he was in a car accident and uh injured his right arm uh to the point that they were close to having to amputate it and somehow you know talking with his doctors or whatever they decided okay we we don't have to amputate your arm but we're gonna have to lock your elbow in position and he supposedly positioned his arm as if he was holding a guitar and he said lock it like this and so his it is a rap song lock it like this uh but it enabled him to continue playing guitar lock it like it's hot yeah yeah um so I mentioned earlier that uh he was Steve Miller's godfather and that is the Steve Miller uh evidently his um and I think this was in in Wisconsin uh Steve Miller's father was an audiophile and an early home recorder and would like to go to shows uh and bring his recording equipment which is you know now you just have an iPhone sitting in your pocket he probably had you know mics and big bulky equipment that he would carry around and he came to a he came to a Les Paul show and said hey can I record this when of course Les Paul is totally into recording and interesting things and they strike up a friendship. It's a lifelong friendship uh he was around uh you know Steve uh Steve Miller before he was born and then and kind of watched him grow up I heard a really cool tape of and I think it's I think Steve Miller might have included on included it on one of his albums but it's a home recording and it's a conversation between a five year old Steve Miller and Les Paul and Les Paul is saying hey uh you did a really good job there and Steve Miller is talking about that he doesn't like his singing voice and he said Les Paul says no you're really good uh you're gonna go places oh wow keep it up it's really cool yeah that is cool I think Steve Miller's from Texas um I believe he was born in Wisconsin and came to Texas shortly thereafter because I always thought he was from Texas as well and this seemed to contradict that but again it's the same level of of diligence and effort that has that I was uh signed in on for the uh dirtnap city research so um our research team is a little backed up right now yeah yeah exactly 46 weeks uh so coming back to the guitars themselves and saying this is the most iconic guitar um certainly one of them these guitars when they were produced uh you could buy a brand new one for about 300 bucks um I don't know what the the inflation rate would be that would be in in uh modern the 40s 50s yeah no no 52 is when they were introduced okay I think they're probably about a $2500 guitar which not cheap but not you know um not if you're a serious musician that would be an investment it would be an investment right and so uh not that you would ever buy a guitar for an investment uh there's proof no no no but I mean you would you would buy it as you would buy it to as a quality career as a quality product once so are guitars like um like you know any other kind of equipment where you have people that like a certain ecosystem do you have people that only buy less paws or only buy fenders or or do you or most people have like guitar players do they have a variety because they all sound a little bit different. Yes yes and yes I think if you are a collector you probably have a very narrow uh bandwidth of what you're looking for and and probably you want one that has this fret configuration this neck profile these pickups uh these pots which are the you know some of the equipment that's inside the guitar potentiometers potentiometers there you go uh thank you you know I actually didn't know I always call them pots but potentiometer if they're they are called pots yeah yeah uh certain tail piece and they all have different effects on the guitar but if you're a musician you need different tools and they all do sound different they bring something different characteristics to the to you know to playing uh even someone like me I can tell the difference um and but my you know amateur at the is a call so if you went to guitar center some people just head right for the less balls.
SPEAKER_02Absolutely and they don't even mess with any of the other stuff. Right. They think it sounds inferior that's just not their style.
SPEAKER_03So if you're going into a brand thing too it's yeah it's like it's like certain people like you said Bruce Springsteen is known for playing Fenders and and certain certain people are known for playing um Gibsons. Like you see you wouldn't see this musician and then some some are ambiguous some some will do any but but I well they probably have endorsements too where well even but even people without like like smaller bands I think you know that don't have endorsements but you said ecosystem I I don't think guitars are like that in that there is incompatibility. Right it's it's Marshall amp will take them all right yeah yeah exactly so so it that's not the issue I think it's more about like what a W said it's the kind of style you have but what I think is interesting about guitars and maybe even pedals to a to a degree and maybe even amps to a degree they're not if if you don't buy a cheap um um mass market one last night they were marketing a guitar for charity and Al from Austin looked it up and saw that it was a uh basically a $300 guitar that was they were selling for $3,500. Now they were doing that for the charity right so okay that's fine. Yeah but it was mass marketed probably without without the Triumph autographs probably won't be worth very much as a resale unless you know the autographs make a difference but just if you just bought that guitar by itself but if you buy a limited edition or a really high-end guitar those I believe just like other musical instruments actually appreciate in value. And and I think the same thing is true certain pedals are kind of hard to find in that community you can sell an old 1960s pedal whereas if you buy a VCR or a DVD player or a TV you know you're waiting for your TV to break so you can get a new one you're never going to get your money back. That TV isn't expendable right it even though it was a big purchase it's it's gonna go away um but guitars kind of fall in a weird sort of technology slash collectors so it's interesting that was a rant.
SPEAKER_01Yeah so it's interesting you say that uh how you know the value goes up it's not that the quality goes up because there were a lot of really great guitars that were built and you could buy you can buy a 52 you could buy a 53 um to to today you can find those on different sites but it's when it's what is it called the Providence you know who owned and played that guitar matters. As an example Jeff Beck who is a guitarist that uh inducted um Les Paul into the to the rock and roll hall of fame he played a guitar at and uh I can't remember the name of his guitar I'm sorry uh it sold at auction for 1.3 million dollars now are you talk you're not talking about the same model you're talking about the actual guitar I'm talking about the actual guitar yeah you can buy the model you could buy that model today I have a I have a brand new you know 2024 Les Paul special that was it is a replica of a 1957 guitar it is brand new it is a 1957 guitar uh you can buy that guitar uh what I'm saying is when you're going for resale the resale value it really depends on who who owned it who played it and then what you know some fool wants to spend on it.
SPEAKER_03But but even if nobody famous ever owned a 1950 or 1960 guitar it was just a guitar that someone bought or stayed in the shop never got sold whatever still you they don't make those anymore they might make replicas or re reproductions of them but if you want an original it's an antique at that point and if it's still in good working order and it looks good I think the value of it goes up but it's interesting when we were in Ireland I actually went into a luthier shop like like just to kind of look around and it was mostly violins fiddles um mandolins it was you know more Irish kind of music stuff um but they were very the ones they were selling were very very expensive you know and I think I don't imagine they were that much originally I think they were reconditioned and it's like if you wanted to buy a perfect mint condition Model T Ford today it wouldn't be cheap.
SPEAKER_02It would you know it would it would be a lot more because it's harder to find parts for I wonder how Les Paul felt about Jimi Hendrix and Pete Townsend constantly wrecking their guitars at the end of shows.
SPEAKER_03Do you think that just pained him against it No it was more money because they had to buy a new one so each each time they wrecked a guitar he was like ch-ching cha-ching cha-ching that's his that's his uh his his retirement you guys talk about these things as if they're pieces of art but remember a lot of guys you know would destroy these things if they shows I would guess I I don't know that's for a fact because those I can't be in those guys' heads but I would guess they had their guitars that they would never smash you know this is my this is this is didn't didn't um who was it that had names for their guitars? I feel like a lot of baby Kings was Lucille. Lucille yeah he would never smash Lucille but but you know some cheap one that sounds fine for the concert that was $300 that Triumph happened to autograph.
SPEAKER_01I I think those are the the ones first of all people smashing their guitars aren't paying for their own guitars is is my theory. I don't know that that's true.
SPEAKER_02But as somebody who is like a craftsman that must you know be be tough to watch you know I would argue that he wasn't the craftsman.
SPEAKER_01Gibson was the craftsman he put his name on it yeah you know now if you're talking about a handmade luthier you know guitar you know that is made by one person from start to finish that is a not only a work of art but it's um it's just it's a super super high quality at the end of the day these things are still mass produced.
SPEAKER_02So he didn't care if Jimi Hendrix was smashing guitar as long as it sounded it gave him the sounds that he's been inventing.
SPEAKER_01Yeah I think that to Kelly's point it sold more guitars.
SPEAKER_02Did he ever talk about rock and rollers?
SPEAKER_01Like did he like that crowd of people that were kind of the Yeah I I don't know um you know he's there's I know he had a relationship with Slash um and maybe it's because of the Les Paul guitar that is um and I know that of course you know he was related or his godfather to Steve Miller so he was in there but I I um I don't know the you know did he ever express an opinion um I did come across numerous times the irony that a country and jazz guitarist you know created the king of rock and roll with musical instruments.
SPEAKER_03Yeah not in the Elbus kind of way but right right so go ahead well I had a question for you guys uh and I like to do this if you if you aren't watching right now um we're all putting our thumbs out sideways and I'm gonna say a word and I want you to go up or down quickly without thinking about it. It's great audio by the way it is all right you ready? Uh flying V Okay we all went down we all went down I think the Flying V is the stupidest looking guitar uh we we three three no votes you brought one out last night I know I know and I was like oh they were doing so well until that happened no but you'd be disappointed if they didn't do that.
SPEAKER_02Okay you gotta have one.
SPEAKER_01Okay one more but Triumph is also I mean the Flying V is on their album covers it's their logo that's true that's true okay I just don't what about the double necks I was about okay ready one two three double necks Alexander they're ridiculous they're so funny they look so cumbersome and heavy Rick Emmett is not a big guy and he looked tiny that thing I thought he was going to fall over he's this old man up there with this 60 pound guitar you know so heavy and cumbersome looking but he could shred he did shred it and I think the top one was a 12 string yes that's why you have a uh typically why you have a double neck okay okay what about the cheap trick the cheap trick would you say eight neck I think it has eight neck yeah like that that it's a gimmick it's just a gimmick trick it's a cheap trick it's a cheap trick there you go there you go hence the name well okay thank you all right so before we get too far away from this I I do like to tie things back to Dirtnap City oh yeah and so this is people he've met no this is I'm trying to uh to suck up to the host so maybe I get invited back again but I did a little research um I believe that just flat out episodes of folks of musicians there's not a lot on Dirtnap City Bob Marley uh yeah actually played a Les Paul Jr which is a slightly different guitar um did his son have something to do with that no it's it's a different model but uh oh sorry there is no les Paul Jr. I don't know. I didn't get into the fancy.
SPEAKER_02And then he named the guitar after that.
SPEAKER_01Okay, I see where you're going with this. Junium. You are going with that. I'm very focused on this. Sorry. Sorry. Um so but there was a two-part episode, it was Rock and Roll Dead. Yeah. And I actually had my friend uh Jim and I create a list of all the artists that were mentioned in those two episodes. Oh, that's a lot. 43. 43. According, I mean, I know there's going to be a lot of people.
SPEAKER_02There's a Spotify playlist, too. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01That's that would be a good one. It's a tough listen. Yeah, I bet. I bet. A lot of craft work on there. I'm looking at some of these names here. So there were 43 artists, and of those 43, uh only eight of them are confirmed associated with the Less Paul. And uh we have uh do y'all want to venture any guesses, or do you want me to just run through this? Go through it. Yeah, so we got Mark Knoffler. Oh yeah. Yeah, of uh Dire Straits, uh Jimmy Page, um Blood Zaplin, of course, Mick Mars of uh everyone's favorite, Motley Crue. Yeah, and then there's a couple of names that I don't know the names, but I know the band. And it's uh Scott Gorman and uh Brian Robertson of Thin Lizzie. They were Les Paul guys, they were Les Paul guys, and then there's uh you think of Tom Petty, and he's a predominantly a Rickenbacher guy, yeah, but Mike Campbell was of the Tom Petty's uh of the Heartbreakers. Yeah. Uh he's a uh he's a Les Paul guy. And then um, what is this guy's name? Because uh this is Joe Trowman, and Joe, apologies if I've uh uh messed up your name there, but uh Fallout Boy, I'm not familiar with that band, actually.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, kind of like Blink 182.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_02They did a cover, that awful cover of uh We Didn't Start the Fire updated to include 9-11.
SPEAKER_03Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. So okay. And they're they're named after a Simpsons character, right? Radio Radio Radioactive Man and Fallout Boy. Right, right. Oh, I didn't know that.
SPEAKER_01Oh, very cool. Yeah, and then last, and this is this is really more of an occasional uh association, um, but it's our friend Prince that you just mentioned. Yeah. He's a Les Paul guy. Uh occasionally, because I think of him more as a telecaster guy. Or his crazy uh, you know, homemade guitars.
SPEAKER_02Other Jordan Absidi musicians, though, included John Lennon. John Lennon, yeah. And Merv Griffin.
SPEAKER_01John Lennon played a Les Paul Jr. Yeah. I didn't realize Murph Griffin was a Les Paul.
SPEAKER_02No, I'm saying he was another musician. He did that coconut song.
SPEAKER_04He played the frying pan. Yeah, the Hawaiian style uh frying pan.
SPEAKER_02Was that the only other musicians we had?
SPEAKER_04Johnny Cash. Johnny Cash.
SPEAKER_02Oh yeah, and then and then Res Butin wasn't a musician, but Bony M did the song also. I don't I And he played a kitar.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I don't know where it's a bon.
SPEAKER_01Boney M.
SPEAKER_03Rest Butin was a shout out to Bony M. Yeah, Boney M. If you're listening, hit us up. Yeah. If you're alive. What that was good. That was good. You you you know, I think you fretted a little bit. There was a little hand-wringing about whether you were. I actually did what you did there. That's a nice pun. There's no need to fret about this. You you did a thank you.
SPEAKER_02Well, you nerd it out, is what I would say. Yeah. And something that you're clearly passionate about, um, guitars. You you how many guitars do you have?
SPEAKER_01Uh just two. I have an acoustic and an electric.
SPEAKER_02How many different guitars have you had over your life?
SPEAKER_01Oh maybe five or six. But I usually keep it away. Yes. So you always have two. I used to have I had three at one point. I had a 12 string. And um I I sold it with another one which enabled me to get a a different guitar.
SPEAKER_02And so now I keep it at two. Is there a particular guitar that is like your holy grail? Like if I had this guitar, I would sell more stuff to get this guitar. Is there like something that you've always if you had like a windfall?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so um probably. Um I really love my Les Paul special, um, which is it's just a basic guitar. It it's loud and noisy. It has what's called a P90 pickup system instead of a humbucker, which um humbucker. Well, so uh it's exactly what it sounds like. So old pickups, P90s, uh, they get some interference and they get they're noisy and they're and they create a hum. Crunchy. Yeah. And so the humbucker was designed to uh prevent that. And it's it's uh um the way the coils are uh wound and positioned, it eliminates that hum. But in eliminating the hum, it also eliminates some of the rock and roll edge. Um what's what's cool is that there's a lot of guitars now that have both styles of pickups built into them.
SPEAKER_02As I told Kelly recently, my three favorite guitar players of all time, Prince. Yeah, David Gilmore, and Stevie Ray Vaughn.
SPEAKER_01Those are some good ones, man.
SPEAKER_02Are they all last Paul guys? Except you already talked about Prince.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so Prince is a is a maybe, and then uh Stevie Ray Vaughn was a telecaster. I'm sorry, Stratocaster guy, and then who was David Gilmore, I think, was a Stratocaster guy as well. Um so my favorite guitarist is Jimi Hendricks, and he's also a uh telecaster guy. Um but the reason that this is going back to how do you select a guitar, and I think Kelly made the observation about you know, maybe looks or things like that. I was in middle school, and uh at the time I was a very big Aerosmith fan, and I will stand by any pre-1980 Aerosmith. Uh Toys in the Attic. Yeah, yeah. Uh post-1980s a tough sell. I 100% agree. Uh same thing with Z Top, you know, uh early, early stuff.
SPEAKER_02We've already established sleeping bags, maybe the worst sound of that time.
SPEAKER_01Uh what what about uh uh Velcro Zipper? You know, it's just tooth stake boogie. Oh my gosh, but the early stuff, absolutely phenomenal.
SPEAKER_02Um just love Chicago, LeGrange.
SPEAKER_01One of my favorite songs, yeah, yeah, great. Yeah. Uh I have a really great Billy Gibbons story, by the way. So uh, but for me, I loved Aerosmith. And I saw a picture of Joe Perry playing a Les Paul. That was it. I wanted a Les Paul. That's how I started down the path. And so it was who I liked, you know, who I idolized. I wanted to emulate that. Sure. It's like the whole Nike Adidas thing.
SPEAKER_03Exactly.
SPEAKER_01Exactly.
SPEAKER_03All right, man. So well, thank you. This has been great. Yeah, thanks, Al, from Austin. We hope you uh always rock out with us. We appreciate you joining the band. Indeed. Thank you, fellas.
SPEAKER_00Most of the numbers, uh youngsters that don't remember, unless you call them Mary Ford. But well, there's a few of you guys, okay? I'm surprised. Anyway, many, many years ago, Mary and I started out making some multiple recordings, and in the effort of doing this, I struck on the idea, besides inventing the multiple tape machine, the solid body guitar, all this garbage. I came up with an idea. And I said, How can I do this on the stage so that you get the same sound that you get on the records? Because you know, it's overdub, overdub you. See what I'm saying, lady? Yeah, yeah. And so what happened is I got the bright idea and I invented this is my invention right here, this little black box. Don't you wish you could take it home with you? Well, with my little black box here, I can take my guitar and multiply it into an orchestra. Billy Squire is worried sick over my little black box. Now I'd like to show you how it works. I'm gonna start with one guitar and multiply it into an orchestra, and then I can do with those guys, you know, out. Out. Here's how it goes. Now I'm gonna play that back for you. Okay. That's not bad, right? Now I had a bass part. Now what? That's two parts, okay? Now where is the drummer? That's three parts, okay?
