Howdy! From Les Paul at the HOB
Part 1
As posted on The Les Paul Forum June 6th, 2001
By Robb Lawrence
©2001 Robb Lawrence All rights reserved

The Les Paul shows this past weekend at the two SoCal House of Blues were a lot of fun! A real "Barrel of Monkeys!" as he says. Les and his new Trio were really tight and well received. Both Nicky on stand-up bass and Frank playing acoustic have made great additions to the band. The audiences really loved them and were quite appreciative. The extra guests included, Jeff Baxter playing his Super 400, Dave Edmunds on acoustic electric and Eric Sardinas playing his open tuned electrified Dobro. Slash also sat in on the Hollywood show. I must add that we had a difficult time dialing in the rented Twin-Reverbs during both sound checks. In the middle of our second show, Les' hearing aid battery went out while Edmunds was just beginning "Classical Gas". So I had to quickly get the room card key from his son Rusty while he was mixing the show, and run across the heavy Sunset Blvd. traffic to the Hyatt hotel to get his spare batteries. Never a dull moment with Les!

I had shown him the print out of the Forum pages just before our Saturday sound check while we were making sandwiches in the green room. He enjoyed looking through it and was glad to see it finally happening. We also seriously discussed the possibility of having Gibson start a new 25.5" scale model and other refinements.

Later that night after winding down from our wild weekend we finally kicked back and did a fun interview. I directed it towards an introduction to the LP Forum. It was pretty funny in spots including the intro. The interview is over a half hour long and we covered quite a bit of ground including the guitars initial introduction, some of his favorite guitars, low impedance, amplifiers, live shows, The New Sound and some advice for the Forum goers :

LP Hi Robby, what's going on?

RL Well, we just finished the last show at the House of Blues..

LP Yeah (laughs), I finished it for all time (more laughs).

RL We had a lot of fun. We had Jeff Baxter and Eric.. remember his last name Les?

LP Sardonis..

RL Is that his last name?

LP Surdonnis?

RL No. You still forget his name! (more laughs) Eric Sardinas.

LP Sardinas! Oh, like sardines.. Sardonis. (more laughs) I just found out now there's an S on there. Holy Mackerel! Yeah, he asked me about five times tonight. He says, 'you remember my name?" I says, "Yeah, give it to me again!" (laughs all around the room). I freaked out with my batteries going dead. You're running around getting me batteries.

RL Across the street at the Continental Riot House.

LP Nobody, nobody can claim that! Right? With the hearing aids going bad..

RL With a full crowd at the House of Blues in the middle of a set!

LP Now you want me to do something. What do you want me to do?

RL This is for the Les Paul Forum.

LP This is for the Les Paul.. Forum!

RL So say hello to the Forum.

LP I'm saying Hello. (laughs) Don't you walk on my lines now. This is for the Les Paul Forum! (Tries to keep a straight face). And I'm saying HOWDY!

RL And it's a happenin' thing.. the Les Paul Forum. They love you and they talk about your guitars.

LP Well I'm so glad that you guys love me but.. where were you when I needed you? (more laughs)

RL Well we had a lot of fun tonight. The Les Paul Forum covers a lot of territory about the guitars.. and Dan Erlewine has his pages going.

LP You tell those fellas, those guys, those whoever they are, because it could be girls! It could be guys. It could be anything! OK?

RL There are some girls!

LP But those guys that are out there hollering for a long scale Les Paul job. I promise you we are going to put one in a vice and we're gonna stretch it. (laughs) We're going to make it so that it's even larger than that, OK?

RL The BIG LES PAUL!

LP Yeah! We're gonna do it. This is a stretchable job! The first one out there. The first one out there.

RL What's your favorite Les Paul guitar?

LP It's not a guitar. She's a cook! (more laughs all around) Favorite guitar.. I don't have one. (straight faced now) The best guitar I've got just happens to be a.. I really mean this.. A Les Paul guitar! And it happens to be a recording. That doesn't mean that it's the best or anything. It just happens to be something I'm attached to. And I got a million of them out there and it just happens to be the one that..

RL Your favorite.

LP Yeah. I happened to grab it until we got a whole thing going.

RL It has a flame maple sunburst top and a Bigsby tailpiece.

LP I don't know what it's got. You can tell me more than I know. Yes it has a Bigsby on it which I use more and more everyday. The less I move my fingers the more I go to the wig wagging! (laughs) I get mighty serious about that wig wag! I get mighty serious about anything because when you can only play two notes, by God you better pick the right ones! That's getting hard for me to do. So I'm about to throw that towel in. But I've been throwing the towel in for years. I threw the towel in in 1965. I retired in 1965 and kissed it all goodbye. And said I'm going to let the young kids do all of that.

RL I remember you said the Stones were watching you one night.

LP Oh yeah, The Rolling Stones. That was in Chicago. I just come out of retirement and we're playing in Chicago. And here's four girls down there at the table. So I started making fun of them. I started picking on the audience. I bust a lot of balls! These four gals you know, they were making a fuss over them. Cuz you didn't see long hair and all that down at the Blue Ribbon Room at the Sherman Hotel. This was a jillion years ago. And they were just starting out. And then I found out that these weren't girls.. they were guys!

RL Well they all laughed when you dedicated a song to them.

LP Oh course they laughed because I'm beating up on the girls down in front. After the show Bill Wyman says, "Can I talk to you privately?" I said, "come on up to the room hon." (laughs) So I took him upstairs and that's where it started. He was one of many who asked my advice. A lot of people ask me for my advice. Many important people. I gave him my advice and I guess they've been grateful for it ever since. I told them where to bury their money!

RL Didn't they say they loved your guitars from the fifties? And you soon afterwards got ahold of Mr. Berlin about making the Les Paul guitar again.

LP Yes. And I remember I asked, "what is your reason for being in Chicago?" It's because they came to Chicago to find material to record. And they found it on Maxwell Street. OK? Which is a down and out neighborhood where they sold records for a nickle. That's where the Beatles could go to find them. That's where everybody could go. So this is where the Stones were.. and why they were there was to find material.

RL We used to do their "2120 So. Michican Ave" back then when it first came out. Great song about the record company in Chicago.

LP "Just Because" and "Deep Ellem Blues" I don't know which ones of them recorded what but many of them did. They were getting those and others. Very precious material.

RL Tell me about how excited you were when the Gibson Les Paul guitar came out?

LP Well they weren't excited for sure because.. they made four. One for Mary and one for me and two for them. So they made four. Then they made a hundred. And then they may have made a thousand. But they were all screwed up.

RL Because of the wrong neck tilt and string placement on your tailpiece.

LP Yes. The trapeze tailpiece. There were a million things wrong with it at the time.

RL It wasn't utilized properly.

LP Well.. see, I don't use big words (laughs).

RL You were busy with Mary..

LP Course I was (laughs).

RL On tour all over the world. You were busy and the guitar was in production with the wrong neck tilt.

LP That's ok. We straighten it out.

RL In '53.

LP Well there were a lot of changes. There were some we didn't catch right away, some we caught later, some are collectors items and very precious. There would be "bow wows" if it wasn't that they were in the proper years.

RL So it evolved.

LP Yes.

RL What was your favorite in the fifties?

LP Like I said, I never have a favorites.

RL I remember you said you liked the Customs back then.

LP Yeah, but one of the best guitars I used was on "Meet Mr. Calahan" and "The Best Things in Life are Free". Many of the songs that really sounded great was done on a goldtop. "My Baby's Coming Home" was a goldtop. So there's no rules. There ARE NO RULES!

RL What did you think of the Sunburst when it came out in '58?

LP I was just so darn busy doing things I was just was.. like I said, just darn busy. So I didn't really give it that much thought. I just made sure that the customers were happy and that Gibson was doing a good job of making the guitar with my name on it. I wanted to make sure they made it right. And so a lot of my bitching was to make the guitar better and better, better and better. And at least keep you chin up high. I went through more Presidents than any guy alive with Gibson. It was terribly interesting. Each one contributed. They did their best to make a better instrument.

RL Ted McCarty certainly had a big input.

LP There might have been one that tried to sink it (laughs). I swear to God (laughs). He tried everything to ground Gibson. I think he put it at an all time low! As I got to know him better I realized that he just wasn't too bright.

RL Ted did a lot to help the guitar.

LP Everyone did like I said. Everyone had their thing to say.

RL Then you went in another direction with your pickups...