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august 14th, 2009 :Les Paul died at age 94
Yesterday, august 13th, Lester William Polsfuss a.k. Rhubarb Red a.k. Les Paul has died in a hospital in New York at age 94. Les Paul suffered from pneumonia.
Everybody knows Les Paul. I copied a writing by Les Paul, about his visits to the the Larson brothers. In 1934, Les Paul tried to convince the guitar builders August and Carl Larson to make a guitar with a very thick solid top, to use later with a pickup. It was a first attemp to make a real electric guitar, even befor his famous 'The Log' experiment.
Les Paul, November 26, 1983
"It may have been Doc Hopkins of the Cumberland Ridge Runners who brought me to the Larsons'shop. It was in 1934.
I think I remeber the place so well because it was so much like a barn. The wood front was unpainted and weathered. I would pull a string by the door wich rang a bell on the second floor. August would open what was like a hayloft door and say,
'Who is there?'
I would say, 'Rhubarb Red.'
Then he would pull another string to lift the latch on the door. When I got up to the shop on the second floor, August's opening line would always be:
'Say what you've got to say 'cause I'm busy.'
Then he would look over his bifocals, get a piece of paper and start writing.
This one time I explained the guitar I had in mind to August and when I got all done, he said you have to talk to Carl about that cause he does that. Carl was back in the shop by the furnaces bending sides for guitars but he was near enough that he may have heard the conversation. That's how small the shop was. It seemed like August didn't want to talk to Carl, so I had to go back and tell the whole story over again to Carl.
At that time I hosted the WJID country-style show in the mornings as Rhubarb Red and then did the WIND jazz show at night as Les Paul. The Larsons knew me as Rhubarb Red and would say to me:
'Les Paul is a better guitarist than you.'
All the time it took to make the three guitars, the controversy went on. I would say Rhubarb Red is better, and they would tell me,
'You got to learn to play like Les Paul.'
Later, I had a hard time convincing them that I was both of them.
I jammed a lot at the Barrel of Fun up on the north side on Broadway. A lot of musicians hung out there. I brought a lot of these guitar players down to the Larsons' shop.
The Larsons never tried to sell you something. They tried to to talk you out of something if it sounded to them like you didn't need it. Like,
'Why do you need another guitar if you already have one?'
When I told them I wanted a maple guitar with a 1/2 inch solid maple top with no holes in it, they argued with me that the sound could not come out. I told them about the pickup, but they said,
'I don't see how any sound can come through a pickup. I disagree with you. You're waisting your time and mine.'
This was in 1934. August wanted to make it perfectly clear that I knew how much this guitar with no holes was going to cost me before they started building it. He said,
'This is going to cost you; it will be $45.'
I assured him that I could afford it, and the project began.
They did a great job on this 1/2 inch top solid body. It was a cutaway arch-top with a tailpiece. It had 14 frets to the body and a total of 20 frets. The neck had a permanent non-adjustable truss rod in it. The braces where installed in the length of the body so they would be out of the way of the pickup holes to be cutout by me later. It was very similar to the Gibson L5."
uit: ("The Larsons'Creations" by Robbert Carl Hartman)
(ISBN 0-931759-77-3)
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Fern's Guitars wishes everybody a
At a lately repaired Fender bassguitar I found this factory sticker at the neckplate....
