It's not technique -- it's what you have to say.
Les Paul |
I have younger friends who don't work, and they aren't doing
so well. My secret is to keep going, keep working.
Les Paul |
I got the mumps. They threw me in a crib so I wouldn't roll
out onto the floor. And there's a big bay window in my house,
and that window stayed perfectly still until that train started
to chug. At a certain speed, I could reach up and feel the pane,
and that glass pane would vibrate. I said, Doggone, there's
got to be a reason for this. So I go to the kindergarten teacher,
and she takes me to the science teacher, and the science teacher
takes me to the library and reads it off to me -- "This
is called resonance." That was the beginning.
Les Paul |
I used my mother's radio as a PA system. I'd take the telephone,
the speaking part, and take those two leads off and lead them
into the radio and the sound would come out of the speaker.
Les Paul |
I wanted something very dense, something that would sustain
long and more pieces of wood that would be soft, sweet, for
more of a mellow sound.
Les Paul |
Now I need to take a piece of wood and make it sound like
the railroad track, but I also had to make it beautiful and
lovable so that a person playing it would think of it in terms
of his mistress, a bartender, his wife, a good psychiatrist
- whatever.
Les Paul |
One minute we're over here, the next minute we're doing something
completely different. But it's interesting because you are producing
so many things you couldn't do with analog.
Les Paul |
We go in there and we work on altering those ideas and in
many cases go in different directions.
Les Paul |
When I got my first guitar my fingers wouldn't go to the sixth
string so I took off the big E and played with just five strings.
I was only 6 or 7.
Les Paul |
My first guitar came from Sears & Roebuck and I believe
it was $3.95.
Les Paul |
You can't go to the store and buy a good ear and rhythm.
Les Paul |
I got out of the car and there was a knife in my neck. The
guy says, "Don't move." And the drummer got out of
the car, and he got a gun in his head. This was my entrance
to the South Side of Chicago. But it was necessary, because
I wanted to play jazz.
Les Paul |
I gave up the guitar in 1965. Didn't want to see a guitar.
I'd go out and get drunk. When I came out of the heart surgery,
the doc said, "Promise me you'll work hard." I said,
"I thought working hard is what got me here." He said,
"No, working is what will keep you alive."
Les Paul |
Last time I saw Count Basie, he was in a wheelchair. They
wheeled him up onto the stage, he sits down at the piano, and
he gives the downbeat, and that band played like they were in
heaven. And right in the middle, the band cuts. He had to take
one hand and put the other on it, and he comes down with one
note. And it was the greatest note I ever heard in my life.
Les Paul |