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Les Paul & Leo Fender Part II · Stuff You Should Know

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you should know, a production of I
0:04
Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast everybody. I'm Josh,
0:13
Speaker 1: and there's Chuck and Jerry's out there running around somewhere. Uh.
0:17
Speaker 1: And this is stuff you should know about Fender and
0:22
Speaker 1: less Paul Heart Do Should we recap real quick? Yeah?
0:27
Speaker 1: I think so. It seems appropriate, all right. Well, where
0:31
Speaker 1: we left off with part one was Leo Fender, lifelong engineer,
0:36
Speaker 1: tinker and non musician, has made a career making amps
0:41
Speaker 1: and trying to figure out the problem with electric guitar feedback.
0:45
Speaker 1: Les Paul was a budding superstar guitar player and session player,
0:50
Speaker 1: also tinkerer, trying to figure out this problem of amplifying
0:54
Speaker 1: the electric guitar without feedback, and they were introduced in
1:00
Speaker 1: trying to figure this out together. And then enters a
1:03
Speaker 1: third gentleman who may have had more to do with
1:07
Speaker 1: the invention of the solid body electric guitars we know it,
1:09
Speaker 1: than either one of them. For real. This is where
1:12
Speaker 1: things get a little bit shady, little murky, when Carrie
1:16
Speaker 1: Grant enters what's the guy's name, Paul? His name is
1:23
Speaker 1: Paul Biggsby, and I've heard of the last name I've
1:26
Speaker 1: I've seen those guitars before. Is it still are the
1:28
Speaker 1: is the company is still around? Yeah, So here's the deal.
1:32
Speaker 1: Biggsby is now most well known for what's called the
1:36
Speaker 1: Biggsby tail piece, which is he's the guy who kind
1:39
Speaker 1: of invented the wammy bar. If you know nothing about guitars,
1:44
Speaker 1: but you've ever seen like Eddie Van Halen play. Not
1:46
Speaker 1: all guitarists use these things. But if you hit a
1:49
Speaker 1: note and then you reach below the guitar and grab
1:51
Speaker 1: that little steel bar and make it go wow, why wow,
1:53
Speaker 1: wow wow, that's a whammy bar. Bigsby invented that, and
1:57
Speaker 1: he is still most well known. Like you can get
2:00
Speaker 1: Biggsby tail piece put onto a Less Paul or an
2:03
Speaker 1: s G or uh. You can't do a two Fenders
2:06
Speaker 1: because they have their own I guess you could with
2:07
Speaker 1: a telecaster, but um, any guitar without a wammy bar
2:11
Speaker 1: you could put on a Biggsby tail piece. They're beautiful,
2:14
Speaker 1: they look great, and that's what they're kind of most
2:16
Speaker 1: well known for today. Okay, gotcha. But at the time
2:21
Speaker 1: Bigsby was he was the oldest of so Leo Fender.
2:23
Speaker 1: If you didn't realize was older than Less Paul, and
2:26
Speaker 1: Paul Bigsby was older than Leo, and he had started
2:30
Speaker 1: out his career as a motorcycle racer and then went
2:33
Speaker 1: on to start to make up motorcycle parts, I believe,
2:37
Speaker 1: and then moved on to instruments. And he Um was
2:40
Speaker 1: known to Leo Fender and that they were competitors because
2:44
Speaker 1: Um Biggsby also made electric steel guitars at the time.
2:48
Speaker 1: I don't know if they were friendly necessarily, but I
2:52
Speaker 1: do know that they definitely worked together in Fenders workshop.
2:57
Speaker 1: UM kind of working on electric instruments together, so I
3:02
Speaker 1: would guess you'd have to be somewhat friendly. It wasn't
3:04
Speaker 1: like you know, Macy's and gimbals or anything like that.
3:07
Speaker 1: You know, Yeah, I think I think that's about right. Okay,
3:13
Speaker 1: So they definitely worked together at some point in time,
3:18
Speaker 1: and they were friendly enough to to do that, and
3:20
Speaker 1: there they were dedicated to creating that big electric sound
3:25
Speaker 1: out of a guitar. Um and Bigsby, if you ever
3:30
Speaker 1: have seen those guitars that he made, they were beautiful.
3:32
Speaker 1: They were It was a lot like Gibson. They were artisan.
3:36
Speaker 1: UM just just crafted works of art basically UM one
3:40
Speaker 1: at a time, kind of things exactly, and so he
3:43
Speaker 1: already had Um, Paul Bigsby already had a name for
3:46
Speaker 1: himself in that respect. And he was hanging out at
3:48
Speaker 1: a radio station as guitar makers do in l a
3:51
Speaker 1: um k x l A, which featured country music played
3:55
Speaker 1: live kind of like Grand Old Opry stuff, I guess,
3:58
Speaker 1: and uh, country mus sition named Merle Travis Um was there,
4:02
Speaker 1: I believe, playing, and Merle Travis knew Paul Biggsby at
4:06
Speaker 1: least by reputation, and said, Hey, you know I heard
4:08
Speaker 1: you can build anybody whatever, whatever they're looking for. If
4:12
Speaker 1: I draw you a picture of a guitar, can you
4:14
Speaker 1: make it for me? And I guess Paul Bigsby said
4:17
Speaker 1: challenge accepted, good sir, and um, we should probably fast
4:22
Speaker 1: forward about a month or two. Huh yeah. And I
4:26
Speaker 1: just again, I want to stress the fact that at
4:28
Speaker 1: one point in Les, Paul Leo Fender and Paul Bigsby
4:33
Speaker 1: are all together in a garage and county in southern California.
4:38
Speaker 1: And this is like, I mean, it makes my mind
4:42
Speaker 1: explode to think about those three men in a room
4:45
Speaker 1: together like working on something. I'm like, I'm trying to
4:48
Speaker 1: think of another industry where like three separate top brains
4:53
Speaker 1: got together like this, and I can't even think of
4:55
Speaker 1: a of anything to compare it to. It'd be like
4:58
Speaker 1: if um, Steve Jobs, Build Gates and Paul Giamatti all
5:03
Speaker 1: got to I couldn't. Yes. Yeah, uh So anyway, a
5:10
Speaker 1: very just special moment in history. So yeah, he comes
5:14
Speaker 1: back a few months later, uh, with this guitar. Leo
5:17
Speaker 1: Fender is backstage at a show and Merle Travis is
5:20
Speaker 1: there playing, and he pulls out this thing that Paul
5:24
Speaker 1: Bigsby made And if you look up Merl Travis Bigsby guitar,
5:28
Speaker 1: this thing is beautiful. It is a gorgeous guitar and
5:33
Speaker 1: looks like and is a real deal solid body electric guitar. Yeah,
5:38
Speaker 1: and he pulls it out in front of Leo Fender
5:40
Speaker 1: no Less, who said, hey, Merel, that's a pretty neat
5:43
Speaker 1: looking guitar there. Uh, you mind if I get my
5:47
Speaker 1: hands on that for a little bit and just check
5:49
Speaker 1: it out. I want to see what it's all about.
5:50
Speaker 1: You know, this little prototype out of the way right, uh,
5:54
Speaker 1: And Merle Travis was kind enough to let Leo Fender
5:57
Speaker 1: borrow it, and Leo Fender and so should we should
6:00
Speaker 1: caveat this? Supposedly, Leo Fender, where he alive today, would
6:04
Speaker 1: be like, no, no, that's not true. No, this is
6:08
Speaker 1: not correct. But supposedly there are informed people who say
6:14
Speaker 1: that Merle Travis let um that let Leo Fender take
6:20
Speaker 1: his guitar that Paul Bigsby had made for him back
6:23
Speaker 1: to Leo Fender's workshop and basically have a reverse engineer
6:28
Speaker 1: session all over it. Yeah, this is where it gets
6:31
Speaker 1: a little hinky, because Leo Fender was a great man
6:34
Speaker 1: and a great inventor of things. Um, but what he
6:37
Speaker 1: was really really good at was improving things. He was
6:41
Speaker 1: like the Japanese, Yeah, and um, they make some pretty
6:46
Speaker 1: good guitars to it, think right, but there, well, the
6:48
Speaker 1: Japanese are well known for taking something that's pretty cool
6:51
Speaker 1: and then just improving the heck out of it, and
6:52
Speaker 1: like he say, you should do it? Yeah exactly. Uh
6:55
Speaker 1: so Yeah, I mean definitely a point in history sort
6:58
Speaker 1: of a crossroads where some people are like Leo Fender
7:01
Speaker 1: stole this from Paul Bigsby and was able to mass
7:05
Speaker 1: produce it, whereas Bigsby was intent on making these artists
7:08
Speaker 1: and pieces one by one and just got left in
7:11
Speaker 1: the dust. Um, there may be something to that. If
7:14
Speaker 1: you look at the headstock for that original Bigsby guitar,
7:19
Speaker 1: and you look at the head stock and the head
7:21
Speaker 1: stock is at the the very end of the neck
7:23
Speaker 1: where the strings end up and where the little tuning
7:25
Speaker 1: pegs are, it looks a lot like the Stratocaster headstock,
7:30
Speaker 1: almost exactly like it. And he denied kind of even
7:34
Speaker 1: ganking that, but in meetings at Fender later on, there
7:38
Speaker 1: were higher ups at Fender that said, go out and
7:41
Speaker 1: make us something like that Biggsby, Like they literally said that.
7:44
Speaker 1: So it's kind of undeniable at this point. Um. He
7:48
Speaker 1: was even sued. There was a lawsuit that Bigsby sent
7:50
Speaker 1: about the head stock and they basically said, you know,
7:54
Speaker 1: they were there were too many just sort of similar
7:57
Speaker 1: kinds of things before this, so it's not gonna hold water. Well,
8:00
Speaker 1: not only that, Um, there there is some there are
8:04
Speaker 1: other similarities to like you talked about that little wammy bar. Um,
8:10
Speaker 1: the biggs By had one. It's called the biggs By
8:13
Speaker 1: pure vibrato, where basically you're you're you're pushing pushing down
8:18
Speaker 1: on a bar that's actually manipula I don't understand. Actually, Chuck,
8:21
Speaker 1: what is manipulation? Maybe you should take this part. All
8:24
Speaker 1: I know is that it affects the sound like wa
8:26
Speaker 1: wa wa wah like that, But I don't know the
8:30
Speaker 1: mechanism by which it does the wa wah wah wah.
8:33
Speaker 1: It's really easy because it's purely mechanical. It's the guitar
8:36
Speaker 1: bridge is the part where you're, if you're right handed players,
8:39
Speaker 1: where the right hand is, and that's where the strings
8:42
Speaker 1: are rooted. So what the wammy bar and what the
8:46
Speaker 1: Bigsby tailpiece did is it lifts up the back of
8:50
Speaker 1: the bridge and it literally manually loosens the guitar strings
8:54
Speaker 1: until you release it, and then it snaps them back.
8:57
Speaker 1: So if you press on it, it just it's literally
9:00
Speaker 1: losing the guitar string enough to make it go wait
9:02
Speaker 1: wait waiting. And you remember when you do this around
9:06
Speaker 1: the pickup the metal strings and steel strings affect the
9:11
Speaker 1: the electrical signal that's produced. So if you're messing with
9:14
Speaker 1: the strings, you're messing with the electrical signal and hence
9:16
Speaker 1: the sound. Right. Uh. The other thing we should point
9:20
Speaker 1: out that Leo Fender probably kind of stole was the
9:24
Speaker 1: all the tuning pegs on the headstock are all on
9:28
Speaker 1: top and in one line. So if you look at
9:30
Speaker 1: telecasters and strato casters, and that's sort of the Fender thing,
9:34
Speaker 1: they're all in a row because it's just really easy
9:36
Speaker 1: to access them as a player, whereas uh Gibson models
9:40
Speaker 1: were based on acoustic or Spanish guitars, where there's three
9:43
Speaker 1: on one side and three on the other. And in
9:45
Speaker 1: order to turn to tune those lower strings or I
9:47
Speaker 1: guess the higher strings, you have to reach under and around.
9:51
Speaker 1: And Leo Fender was I guess he saw this design
9:54
Speaker 1: was like, hey, that's kind of brilliant. Actually to put
9:56
Speaker 1: them all on one side, that's superior. Frankly. Yeah, so yeah,
10:01
Speaker 1: it's really tough to get around. Like if you put
10:03
Speaker 1: the there's plenty of pictures out there. If you put
10:06
Speaker 1: that first Bigsby Merle Travis guitar next to the first
10:09
Speaker 1: guitar that Fender ever mass produced, it's pretty much the
10:13
Speaker 1: same thing in a lot of ways. Um, And so yeah,
10:18
Speaker 1: I don't know. It was tough to swallow it. But
10:20
Speaker 1: like you said, the idea UM, the idea of impugning
10:25
Speaker 1: um Leo Fender's character, it just doesn't it doesn't quite
10:29
Speaker 1: make sense because he was a great guy and he
10:31
Speaker 1: did do a lot um for the industry, and he
10:34
Speaker 1: founded Fender, which just that alone is pretty amazing too.
10:38
Speaker 1: But one of the things that he doesn't necessarily get
10:42
Speaker 1: credit for UM at least outside of like musicians circles
10:47
Speaker 1: I'm guessing, but UM is the basse that he created, right, Yeah,
10:52
Speaker 1: the Precision basse um. Before the electric bass guitar. The
10:57
Speaker 1: basses were all the big standard upright basses, and they
11:00
Speaker 1: were a problem because they were huge. You either had
11:03
Speaker 1: to drop it to the strap it to the top
11:05
Speaker 1: of your car, uh and you know, potentially have it
11:08
Speaker 1: get beat up by weather, or you had to ride
11:11
Speaker 1: separately from the rest of the band because that thing
11:13
Speaker 1: filled up the entire back seat. They were just big
11:16
Speaker 1: and bulky and hard to transport. So uh leo. Fender
11:19
Speaker 1: again was not the first UM. A guy named Paul
11:23
Speaker 1: tut Mark who worked on He was a big lap
11:28
Speaker 1: steel maker and he founded the Audiobox company, which is
11:31
Speaker 1: still around fifteen years before the Fender p base. The
11:35
Speaker 1: Precision base. He invented what's generally known as the first
11:39
Speaker 1: electric solid body bass guitar. It just didn't take off
11:43
Speaker 1: like the precision. And again the p bass is called
11:46
Speaker 1: a precision because the upright basse doesn't have frets. So
11:49
Speaker 1: if you knew how to play it, you know how
11:50
Speaker 1: to play it, but you couldn't be like go to
11:52
Speaker 1: the fourth fret. You would just sort of not guess,
11:55
Speaker 1: but you would generally know where it falls. The electric
11:57
Speaker 1: bass guitar, the p bass had frets, so they say
12:00
Speaker 1: it had more precisions, so that's why they called it that.
12:02
Speaker 1: But that's another thing that's easy to overlook too, is
12:05
Speaker 1: like you know, the electric guitar, it's it's pretty different
12:08
Speaker 1: from like the electric Spanish guitar, but it's still in
12:13
Speaker 1: the same general it's like a progression from that. The
12:17
Speaker 1: electric bass was like hull cloth and a new invention basically,
12:22
Speaker 1: and it changed everything too. I mean, like I was
12:24
Speaker 1: reading an article I think, yeah that you sent from
12:27
Speaker 1: maybe Pitchfork UM where I was talking about like just
12:31
Speaker 1: how much that changed things having that around like basically
12:33
Speaker 1: Motown and then later on Funk like like none of
12:37
Speaker 1: that would have existed without the electric bass, and like um,
12:41
Speaker 1: like another one bites the Dust and like Pink Floyd's
12:44
Speaker 1: Dark Side of the Moon and like you know, Parliament,
12:48
Speaker 1: like all these like bands were predicated on the fact
12:51
Speaker 1: that there was like a nice slappy electric bass that, um,
12:57
Speaker 1: you just couldn't get around, You couldn't ignore it. It It
12:59
Speaker 1: became like a part of the band rather than just
13:01
Speaker 1: some background thing that was more visual than than audio
13:06
Speaker 1: or wait oral, Yeah, because the upright basse kind of
13:09
Speaker 1: ended up having the same problem as the acoustic guitar,
13:12
Speaker 1: and that once they had electric guitars, that upright bass
13:15
Speaker 1: wouldn't really cut through live, and so you had, you know,
13:19
Speaker 1: the a song is driven by the rhythm section that
13:22
Speaker 1: the bass player and the drummer. That's when you ever
13:25
Speaker 1: hear about the rhythm section. They drive the heart of
13:27
Speaker 1: the song. Everyone follows them. Like as much as you
13:31
Speaker 1: think is the guitars out front, it's not leading the band.
13:34
Speaker 1: The low end is what's actually leading the song, and
13:37
Speaker 1: everyone else kind of falls in line with that because
13:39
Speaker 1: they're setting that beat with the bass and the drums.
13:42
Speaker 1: But he's he's working on this and again not to
13:45
Speaker 1: get in the weeds with the amps, but this whole
13:46
Speaker 1: time he's making leaps and bounds on amplification that works
13:52
Speaker 1: at really high volume with these Fender amps. Yeah, and
13:55
Speaker 1: then one of the other things that made Fender really
13:57
Speaker 1: innovative was he um aided the he created like instruments
14:06
Speaker 1: for everyday people. That was the big innovation for him.
14:10
Speaker 1: Like his company set out to create to bring this
14:13
Speaker 1: stuff to the masses so that you know, teenage kids
14:17
Speaker 1: could save up from like there after school job and
14:19
Speaker 1: like buy one of these things and buy an amp
14:22
Speaker 1: and start a band and maybe actually get kind of
14:24
Speaker 1: good and it like I mean, I hate to use
14:26
Speaker 1: this word because it's so over used these days, but
14:28
Speaker 1: he kind of democratized starting a band. Whereas before you
14:32
Speaker 1: had to you know, you're you had like a twenty
14:34
Speaker 1: piece band, and you had to know all these people,
14:36
Speaker 1: and you had to do dance halls and everything. And
14:38
Speaker 1: now you could you could because everything was amplified and electrified.
14:42
Speaker 1: You could get away with just you know, three or
14:43
Speaker 1: four pieces and um everybody could hear you, and they
14:47
Speaker 1: could hear you louder than they could hear the big
14:49
Speaker 1: bands from before um because it was amplified, but it
14:52
Speaker 1: was affordable. And he also made him really durable too. Yeah,
14:57
Speaker 1: And it was because he introduced kind of like a
14:58
Speaker 1: factory process to it. Whereas over at Gibson and Rick
15:02
Speaker 1: and Bucker and Bigsby, they were all still making these
15:04
Speaker 1: hands kind of not one at a time, but they
15:06
Speaker 1: were making them by hand, very slowly. Uh. One of
15:10
Speaker 1: the big reasons he was able to factory I is
15:13
Speaker 1: it was he started he was basically the only company
15:17
Speaker 1: using a bolt on neck. Um. So in other words,
15:21
Speaker 1: you take the neck and you literally screw it into
15:24
Speaker 1: the body of the guitar on the back. And that's
15:26
Speaker 1: why anytime you see a Fender guitar on the back,
15:28
Speaker 1: they have this little silver square plate where the neck
15:32
Speaker 1: meets the body and under that it's where it's bolted together. Um.
15:36
Speaker 1: Gibson and basically everyone else was using uh what's called
15:39
Speaker 1: set neck which are glued on. And you might think that,
15:43
Speaker 1: like many bolting sounds a lot better than glue. But
15:46
Speaker 1: what glue does is that actually it hears it and
15:49
Speaker 1: makes it more like that log almost like a through neck.
15:52
Speaker 1: It makes it part of the body and gives you
15:55
Speaker 1: more warmth and a little more sustain and it's just
15:59
Speaker 1: a bit of a different it sound. Whereas the both
16:01
Speaker 1: on guitar got a little more known for sort of
16:04
Speaker 1: being kind of pluckier, and you know, they both have
16:07
Speaker 1: their advantages. Some people swear by one or the other,
16:10
Speaker 1: but uh, neither like nowadays, neither one of them is
16:13
Speaker 1: superior to the next. Really, it's just sort of two
16:16
Speaker 1: different methods. Gotcha, I got you. But I could also
16:19
Speaker 1: see that Bolt almost represents that mass production to ye
16:23
Speaker 1: for sure. So it took um Leo Fenders working on that,
16:28
Speaker 1: um big we'll call it Biggsby inspired design. And at
16:33
Speaker 1: the same time, um Les Paul is about to have
16:37
Speaker 1: a life changing experience in Oklahoma of all places. Right, Yeah,
16:43
Speaker 1: So he, like I said, was not a good husband
16:46
Speaker 1: to either his first wife or his second. Really, he
16:50
Speaker 1: had a long time affair with a woman her with
16:52
Speaker 1: her stage name of Mary Ford. She was a singer
16:55
Speaker 1: and also a champion guitar player. Uh, they had at
17:00
Speaker 1: a duo going on. It was Less Paul mary Ford,
17:02
Speaker 1: and they had tons and tons of number one hit records,
17:06
Speaker 1: and they had been together for quite a few years
17:09
Speaker 1: before he even got divorced from his first wife. But
17:12
Speaker 1: in while traveling I think back to l A from Wisconsin,
17:17
Speaker 1: they were in a really bad car accident on the
17:19
Speaker 1: icy roads of uh near Davenport, Oklahoma, and it was
17:24
Speaker 1: a really really bad wreck that could have killed both
17:27
Speaker 1: of them. Yeah. So um, they were both thrown from
17:30
Speaker 1: the car along with all their equipment. UM. And from
17:34
Speaker 1: what I understand, Mary's injuries weren't nearly as bad as
17:37
Speaker 1: less as um his spleen was all messed up a
17:41
Speaker 1: bunch of other stuff. But the big problem for less
17:43
Speaker 1: Paul was that his right elbow was shattered, and at
17:48
Speaker 1: first the doctors said, well, we're just gonna have to
17:51
Speaker 1: amputate your arm, and that obviously would have been that
17:54
Speaker 1: for his guitar playing days. Um. Apparently, when he was
17:59
Speaker 1: faced with this news, when of the first things he
18:00
Speaker 1: started doing was um coming up with how to create
18:05
Speaker 1: um an effect where you could play guitar one handed. Um.
18:10
Speaker 1: But he luckily did never have to actually follow through
18:13
Speaker 1: and invent that, because uh, some doctor was aware of
18:17
Speaker 1: his status and that he played guitar and like that.
18:20
Speaker 1: He just they couldn't take his arm, so he set
18:24
Speaker 1: about trying to figure out how to solve the problem
18:26
Speaker 1: while keeping his arm and allowing less Paul to somehow
18:30
Speaker 1: play one way or another. Yeah, I mean, he basically
18:33
Speaker 1: gave less Paul the choice. He was like, you can
18:35
Speaker 1: either amputate it, or we can try this procedure where
18:38
Speaker 1: we kind of screw your arm back together and we
18:41
Speaker 1: don't know if it'll work. And he he said, but
18:44
Speaker 1: it's gonna be permanently bent in some kind of direction.
18:49
Speaker 1: And less Paul said, why don't we at least try
18:51
Speaker 1: it first so we know if it works before we
18:53
Speaker 1: cut the arm off, And he said, and just bend
18:57
Speaker 1: it and pointed towards my belly button and leave it there. Yeah,
19:00
Speaker 1: so he could play guitar. And that's what they did,
19:02
Speaker 1: and for the rest of less Paul's life. Like if
19:05
Speaker 1: you ever see a picture of less Paul, that right
19:06
Speaker 1: arm is bent. Yeah, and the doctor just to put
19:11
Speaker 1: a little flourish on it, made it so that his
19:13
Speaker 1: thumb was always in the thumbs up position, so it
19:18
Speaker 1: always looks like Les Paul was really happy about whatever
19:22
Speaker 1: was going on when that picture was taken. Alright, So
19:25
Speaker 1: that's where Les Paul is. He recovers. It literally takes
19:28
Speaker 1: him about a year in the hospital to fully recover
19:30
Speaker 1: from his injuries. So he's on pause when Leo Fender
19:34
Speaker 1: builds Uh the Fender Esquire guitar and debuts it at
19:38
Speaker 1: the nineteen National Association of Music Merchants Convention in Chicago.
19:43
Speaker 1: I say we take a break here and then we
19:45
Speaker 1: come back and talk about that and keep going. How
19:47
Speaker 1: about that? It sounds great. Okay, we'll be right back
20:10
Speaker 1: and shock alright, chuck so um so. Leo Fender takes
20:23
Speaker 1: his um Paul Bigsby inspired guitar and creates a prototype
20:30
Speaker 1: out of it that's known as the Esquire. And I
20:33
Speaker 1: think there's some differences between the Esquire and what would
20:36
Speaker 1: become later known as a Telecaster, Right, it's not the
20:39
Speaker 1: exact same thing, just with a different name. Uh yeah,
20:43
Speaker 1: I mean I think there was only one pick up
20:44
Speaker 1: and the Telly ended up having a couple, but it
20:47
Speaker 1: was when you look at pictures of the Esquire, it's
20:49
Speaker 1: the same body shape, very utilitarian. Uh, not the most
20:53
Speaker 1: comfortable guitar to play. Um, which we'll see later on
20:57
Speaker 1: what's kind of a big deal in the creation of
20:59
Speaker 1: the strap a cast. But it was a real deal
21:02
Speaker 1: guitar and it was loud, it was clear it could
21:05
Speaker 1: be mass produced, and everybody basically said this is the future. Yeah,
21:10
Speaker 1: He's had the National Association of Music Merchants convention going, hey,
21:14
Speaker 1: you like you like it this, you like it this guitar,
21:18
Speaker 1: and they all said yes very much. So he went
21:20
Speaker 1: back after the convention and kind of tinkered with it
21:23
Speaker 1: a little more. Um. He had a collaborator named George Fullerton, uh,
21:27
Speaker 1: and they ended up producing from the Esquire. There are
21:30
Speaker 1: a couple of problems with it, apparently from the steel
21:34
Speaker 1: strings when they were tuned tightly. Um, eventually the neck
21:38
Speaker 1: would start to warp a little bit. That's a big problem.
21:41
Speaker 1: So they figured out how to reinforce it with the rod,
21:43
Speaker 1: and they solved some other small problems and then ended
21:45
Speaker 1: up coming up with the broadcaster. Right, that's right. Uh.
21:51
Speaker 1: A guy we should mention here is Um. I think
21:54
Speaker 1: Dave called him as marketing sales guy. It's true he
21:57
Speaker 1: was that Don Randall, but he was Leo Fenders d
22:00
Speaker 1: fifty partner in the Fender Music Corporation and a huge,
22:04
Speaker 1: huge part of this story that we really won't get into.
22:07
Speaker 1: But Don Randall was there the whole time and and
22:09
Speaker 1: sort of was everything that Leo Fender wasn't as far
22:12
Speaker 1: as when you're looking for a good business partner, UM
22:15
Speaker 1: out there hitting the bricks selling this thing, drumming up deals,
22:19
Speaker 1: and the Broadcaster. You know, the ads came out and
22:23
Speaker 1: he got that first cease and desist from Gretch. The
22:28
Speaker 1: they made drums and guitars, and there was actually a
22:30
Speaker 1: drum set called the Broadcaster with a k. It sounds
22:34
Speaker 1: like a sound you make when you burp and choke
22:37
Speaker 1: at the same time. Yeah, broadcaster, no Gretch. Oh I
22:44
Speaker 1: misread that one. Sorry, broadcaster with the case sounds evil?
22:47
Speaker 1: Remember yeah, yeah, yeah, um Gretch still makes beautiful guitars
22:51
Speaker 1: and great drums, but they had a drum set with
22:53
Speaker 1: a k. Uh. So they said, all right, we gotta
22:56
Speaker 1: think of a different name. And so TV was the
22:59
Speaker 1: latest thing, and so they literally called it the Telecaster
23:01
Speaker 1: because of that, I know, and people were like, boy, howdy,
23:05
Speaker 1: I love this. They did, so that was a big deal.
23:08
Speaker 1: The Telecaster was I guess the first mass produced, widely
23:12
Speaker 1: available electric guitar, solid body electric guitar that shredded, that
23:18
Speaker 1: you could shred on. I guess. Yeah. It kind of
23:21
Speaker 1: started at all. Yeah, and so um Less Paul by
23:25
Speaker 1: this time he had gotten in that car rec in
23:27
Speaker 1: n you said. It took him about a year to recover. Um.
23:31
Speaker 1: He got divorced from his wife. He ended up marrying
23:34
Speaker 1: Mary Ford um, and together they actually his his music
23:40
Speaker 1: career got even even greater than it was when he
23:42
Speaker 1: was working with Bing Crosby. Um. This is when they
23:45
Speaker 1: had four slots on the Billboard top charts at one
23:50
Speaker 1: time on one week. That's enormous. They were the first
23:53
Speaker 1: to do it. I'm sure maybe some others like Michael Jackson,
23:57
Speaker 1: the Beatles and a couple others have done it since,
23:59
Speaker 1: but there were only kind of gets across just how
24:01
Speaker 1: huge less Paul was as a popular musician. Right. Yeah,
24:07
Speaker 1: Mary was great and um, everyone loved her. She had
24:09
Speaker 1: a beautiful voice. Again, he was not a good husband
24:13
Speaker 1: to her. He was eventually when they got divorced, it
24:16
Speaker 1: was on grounds of cruelty. Was one of them because
24:20
Speaker 1: he was just a workaholic and would never stop, and
24:23
Speaker 1: he would not let her stop. And she was like
24:25
Speaker 1: where they were really really wealthy at this point from
24:28
Speaker 1: their career, and she was like, can we enjoy life
24:31
Speaker 1: a little bit? Can we stop and and live? And
24:34
Speaker 1: he was like no, Like, we're not getting anything accomplished
24:36
Speaker 1: if we're doing that. And the stage act was a
24:40
Speaker 1: little I mean, I guess for the time it was
24:43
Speaker 1: what it was, but it was kind of misogynistic. He
24:45
Speaker 1: would make cracks about about Mary, you know, singing in
24:49
Speaker 1: between doing the dishes and and kind of you know,
24:52
Speaker 1: making him dinner, and she would sort of laugh, and
24:55
Speaker 1: it was their banter, but it was just the whole
24:57
Speaker 1: thing was kind of gross in retrospect, Yeah, for sure,
24:59
Speaker 1: especially today and then the cats on the unicycles with
25:02
Speaker 1: the Sparklers. It was just widely considered to be over
25:05
Speaker 1: the top. Yeah, way over the top. So um, But
25:09
Speaker 1: because Leo knew Less Paul, I mean, like you said,
25:13
Speaker 1: they they and Paul Bigsby were all working in a
25:15
Speaker 1: garage together, working on electric guitars. Like you kne him.
25:19
Speaker 1: He was friendly with him enough so that, um, Leo
25:22
Speaker 1: Fender and Don Randall said, you know, if we could
25:25
Speaker 1: get Less Paul, who's like the most well known guitar
25:28
Speaker 1: player in the world, to endorse our Fender guitars, this
25:32
Speaker 1: would be a huge deal, huge. So they sent him
25:35
Speaker 1: a telecaster and with a note saying like, hey, this
25:38
Speaker 1: is where I'm going, I'd like you to to consider
25:41
Speaker 1: coming here with me something along I'm paraphrasing, um and uh,
25:46
Speaker 1: Less Paul was like, no, that's all right, I don't
25:49
Speaker 1: really like this guitar that much. Yeah, I think he
25:53
Speaker 1: was fairly kind about it, but he just said, this
25:55
Speaker 1: sound is too bright at that bolt on neck and
25:58
Speaker 1: you know, it's a different sound, and he didn't like it.
26:00
Speaker 1: And remember, like that was the whole reason he dedicated
26:03
Speaker 1: himself to coming up with the electric guitar and cracking
26:06
Speaker 1: this code for a decade or more a couple of
26:08
Speaker 1: decades by that, because he wanted to. He was searching
26:11
Speaker 1: for that one perfect sound and so that actually he
26:14
Speaker 1: didn't give up the quest after Fender said, you know,
26:17
Speaker 1: here's my guitar and it didn't work. Um Les Paul,
26:21
Speaker 1: despite having been turned away by Gibson a full decade before,
26:26
Speaker 1: went back to Gibson and said, hey, you guys have
26:29
Speaker 1: to listen to me this time, like it's this is
26:31
Speaker 1: this is where things are going. Look, Leo Fender has
26:33
Speaker 1: just come out with this telecaster, Like it's very clear
26:37
Speaker 1: that you guys need to be developing a solid body
26:39
Speaker 1: electric guitar. And Gibson said, funny, you should mention that
26:43
Speaker 1: because we've been working on it ever since we saw
26:45
Speaker 1: that Esquire at that music convention and it knocked our
26:47
Speaker 1: socks off, that's right, So they were kind of already
26:50
Speaker 1: on it um. They were different, they were they were
26:56
Speaker 1: sort of modeled after those acoustics with the tuning pegs
26:58
Speaker 1: on both sides. The Gibson guitar was really heavy, and
27:03
Speaker 1: that's it's funny. Later on, many many guitar players started
27:07
Speaker 1: with what would end up being the Less Paul. Eric
27:10
Speaker 1: Clapton and uh and Keith Richards and all these people
27:15
Speaker 1: played the less Paul early on, and a lot I
27:17
Speaker 1: think Pete Townsend and they all eventually switch to fenders
27:21
Speaker 1: later in their career because the less Paul weighs between
27:24
Speaker 1: nine and ten pounds and the strats and Telly's way
27:27
Speaker 1: about seven pounds, and it's difference two or three pounds
27:30
Speaker 1: strapped on your back when you're touring is a big deal.
27:33
Speaker 1: Like I can tell a difference when I play a
27:35
Speaker 1: heavy guitar, you know, being fifty years old in my
27:38
Speaker 1: basement after a few hours, so I can imagine what
27:40
Speaker 1: like touring year after year, what what kind of told
27:42
Speaker 1: that takes, for sure. But this Gibson was heavy. It
27:47
Speaker 1: had that glued on neck which gives you a little
27:49
Speaker 1: more warmth, a little more resonance, and it was a
27:53
Speaker 1: really good guitar. And so they say to less Paul like,
27:57
Speaker 1: now he's being courted by Gibson officially, like, hey, what
28:00
Speaker 1: do you think of this? We will let this be
28:03
Speaker 1: your guitar, We will slap your name on it, will
28:05
Speaker 1: give you a five percent royalty, and you've got to
28:08
Speaker 1: play it exclusively. And he said the done deal, my friends. Yeah,
28:12
Speaker 1: because he was like like he'd always only played Gibsons.
28:15
Speaker 1: He loved Gibson. This is like a dream come true
28:18
Speaker 1: for him, you know, and for them also to come
28:21
Speaker 1: back to him now, um had had to feel awfully sweet.
28:25
Speaker 1: But it was so stupid too, because this is a
28:27
Speaker 1: decade after he went to them with this idea of
28:29
Speaker 1: the first time and now they're finally getting around to it.
28:32
Speaker 1: But it was a big deal. So Less Paul now
28:34
Speaker 1: played Gibson guitars exclusively and they named that first model
28:38
Speaker 1: the Lebson the Gibson. Less Paul. Yeah, I wonder if
28:43
Speaker 1: in that meeting he said, can also tell people that
28:45
Speaker 1: I U I designed and invented this thing, because that's
28:48
Speaker 1: what I'm gonna do for the rest of my life. Yeah,
28:51
Speaker 1: which which is really something because he apparently didn't. There's
28:54
Speaker 1: a guy named uh, I think Paul McCarty, George McCarty.
28:59
Speaker 1: I think George McCarty. I'm sorry, I'm pretty sure his
29:03
Speaker 1: name is George McCarty. UM. He was the president of
29:06
Speaker 1: Gibson at the time. His last name is McCarty. Let's
29:08
Speaker 1: just call him that or mr X. Mr X was
29:11
Speaker 1: the president of Gibson at the time, and he um
29:15
Speaker 1: largely designed the guitar. But yeah, they kind of let
29:18
Speaker 1: I guess as part of the endorsement deal, they let
29:21
Speaker 1: um less Paul just basically claim it like he had
29:24
Speaker 1: a lot to do with it. He made some tweaks
29:26
Speaker 1: um for sure, but he never designed the less ball
29:30
Speaker 1: that that is also a fact. And he did not
29:33
Speaker 1: admit the electric guitar. A lot of people still say
29:34
Speaker 1: that Les Paul invented the electric guitar, and he was
29:37
Speaker 1: always happy to just sort of nod his head right,
29:40
Speaker 1: all right, Chuck. So like by the by the mid fifties,
29:43
Speaker 1: by the early fifties, um Fender had the Telecaster out,
29:47
Speaker 1: um Gibson had their less Palm model out, So they
29:51
Speaker 1: were now widely available electric guitars being produced, and that
29:55
Speaker 1: that sounded awesome, like this sound had finally been a
29:58
Speaker 1: cheap loudness, clarity, shredding nous, gnarly nous. All of that
30:04
Speaker 1: stuff was now extant in the world. Did not exist
30:08
Speaker 1: before now it did. But the one that really changed everything,
30:14
Speaker 1: the the electric guitar that changed at all was um Offenders.
30:19
Speaker 1: If not their second model, they're definitely their second well
30:22
Speaker 1: known model, the Stratocaster, right, which came out in nine. Yeah,
30:28
Speaker 1: this was a huge innovation because the problems with the
30:30
Speaker 1: Telly is that it uh like I said it was
30:34
Speaker 1: it was. It wasn't rounded, it wasn't sharp, and I'm
30:37
Speaker 1: talking about the edges of it. It was you know,
30:39
Speaker 1: it kind of dug into your body and wasn't super comfortable.
30:43
Speaker 1: So Leo Finder does what he does, which is making
30:45
Speaker 1: improvements like the Japanese, and he got into the back
30:48
Speaker 1: of it and he he carved out where the top
30:53
Speaker 1: of the back of the guitar meets your belly. He
30:55
Speaker 1: shaved that down to where it was contoured and then
30:58
Speaker 1: where your right arm if you're right and player your
31:01
Speaker 1: pick hand, where it where your forearm kind of rests
31:04
Speaker 1: on the top front of the guitar. He carved that
31:07
Speaker 1: down to and contoured it so your arm and your
31:10
Speaker 1: belly weren't pressed against these sharp edges, and it was
31:13
Speaker 1: just a more comfortable guitar all the way around. It
31:15
Speaker 1: had a had a cool look. This was a time
31:17
Speaker 1: in the early fifties, mid fifties when you know, these
31:21
Speaker 1: these cars has had these big fins on them and
31:24
Speaker 1: everything just had this sort of look like it's hard
31:27
Speaker 1: to describe what the how weird the stratocaster and how
31:31
Speaker 1: sort of modern and futuristic it looked at the time
31:34
Speaker 1: because we all just see that it's like, oh, that's
31:36
Speaker 1: what a guitar looks like. But at the time it
31:39
Speaker 1: was revolutionary and everyone literally was like, what in the
31:42
Speaker 1: world is that hot looking thing? Yeah. One of the
31:45
Speaker 1: other things that made it look hot, those fins had
31:47
Speaker 1: a purpose. The horns at the top of the guitar,
31:50
Speaker 1: where the neck met the body. Um, it carved out
31:54
Speaker 1: space so you could get your fingers to press those
31:58
Speaker 1: frets on the higher notes a lot more easily than
32:01
Speaker 1: you could have before when you were reaching all the
32:03
Speaker 1: way around it, which again allowed for greater shredding. That's right,
32:08
Speaker 1: And the fenders did those on both sides, whereas the
32:11
Speaker 1: Less Paul was only carved on the underside, so you
32:14
Speaker 1: could still get into some strings, but it took a
32:17
Speaker 1: little bit of finagling. Uh. Later on, Les Paul would
32:20
Speaker 1: come up and I have one of these two what's
32:22
Speaker 1: called the double cut where it's cut on both sides,
32:25
Speaker 1: and the Gibson s G which is cut on both sides.
32:28
Speaker 1: But originally it was just Fender doing that, and then
32:30
Speaker 1: the Less Paul did something that just did away with
32:33
Speaker 1: that all together and made the coolest guitar of all time,
32:37
Speaker 1: the Flying V, which is the one I always associated
32:41
Speaker 1: with heavy metal. And by Less Paul, of course I
32:43
Speaker 1: mean Gibson, but that that that's the one. Like Jimmy
32:47
Speaker 1: Hendricks played that one, like, um, I can't remember, like
32:51
Speaker 1: a bunch of people played it. You've seen this before,
32:53
Speaker 1: but when he looked, well, he also played a Flying
32:56
Speaker 1: V I've seen. I've seen pictures on of it on
32:59
Speaker 1: the internet. Um, but the the UM like it's what
33:02
Speaker 1: you associate with, like like just just rocking out with
33:07
Speaker 1: a guitar, and it turns out the thing was designed
33:10
Speaker 1: in It's one of the most mind blowing facts I
33:12
Speaker 1: learned in this podcast. I couldn't believe because I associated
33:15
Speaker 1: with eighties hair metal, and um, it's been it was.
33:18
Speaker 1: It had been around for a good thirty years by then,
33:21
Speaker 1: and it like the fifties is when this thing came out.
33:23
Speaker 1: It's like the coolest looking guitar of all time for
33:26
Speaker 1: my money. No, I love the Flying V and I'll
33:28
Speaker 1: probably own one at one point. At some point, you
33:31
Speaker 1: should look up reverse Flying be because they were one
33:34
Speaker 1: of the ugliest guitars. Yeah, I've seen that before, but yeah,
33:37
Speaker 1: Gibson was tinkering around. They made the Flying V, and
33:39
Speaker 1: they made the Explorer, which is the one that's kind
33:41
Speaker 1: of looks like a lightning bolt. Uh, and then the
33:44
Speaker 1: Firebird and those all did okay, but they weren't like
33:48
Speaker 1: you know, and Leo fendered the same thing. After the
33:50
Speaker 1: Stratocaster success, he came up with the jazz Master and
33:53
Speaker 1: the Jaguar, and he thought these were all improvements on
33:56
Speaker 1: those guitars because they added a lot more options for
33:59
Speaker 1: switches and switching in additional pickups. But they were I mean,
34:04
Speaker 1: they're kind of cool now, but they were a little
34:06
Speaker 1: busy for a lot of players back then, so they
34:09
Speaker 1: didn't take off like the strat did. It was just
34:11
Speaker 1: this utilitarian, really comfortable players guitar that everyone really wanted
34:18
Speaker 1: after Buddy Holly jumped on TV and and played one.
34:23
Speaker 1: Because Buddy Holly was huge. Yeah, he was huge, and
34:26
Speaker 1: he was actually bigger in the UK than he was
34:28
Speaker 1: in America at the time. UM, and I didn't realize
34:33
Speaker 1: to see this is another factor the podcast. There were
34:35
Speaker 1: two tours of the UK and ninety that changed music history.
34:40
Speaker 1: I just think it's so cool. But one was Buddy Holly,
34:43
Speaker 1: who Buddy Holly and the Crickets went on tour with
34:46
Speaker 1: the Stratocaster front and center. And then Muddy Waters came
34:50
Speaker 1: to the UK. And Muddy Waters have been around for
34:53
Speaker 1: years by then. He actually was just kind of like
34:55
Speaker 1: an old relic in America by then. But it was
34:57
Speaker 1: super cool in the sixties and the UK to be
35:00
Speaker 1: into old style blues, so they brought Muddy Waters over
35:04
Speaker 1: and Muddy Waters didn't show up with the Spanish style guitar.
35:06
Speaker 1: He showed up with the strato caster and blared it.
35:09
Speaker 1: Then those two tours produced bands like the Beatles, The Who,
35:13
Speaker 1: the Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, UM like basically every band
35:19
Speaker 1: in the British Invasion were in the audience as kids
35:24
Speaker 1: are slightly younger men, uh for those two tours and
35:29
Speaker 1: were inspired to go on and form some really amazing
35:32
Speaker 1: bands afterward. Yeah, it was funny. It was kind of
35:36
Speaker 1: like either you were in the Beatles camp where you
35:39
Speaker 1: saw Buddy Holly and you wanted to do sort of
35:41
Speaker 1: upbeat pop music, or you were Eric Clapton going to
35:44
Speaker 1: see Muddy Waters and you wanted to do this sort
35:46
Speaker 1: of raunchy blues rock thing. But either way, it was
35:50
Speaker 1: a strato caster front and center and another. Well, I
35:53
Speaker 1: guess we should take a break now before we get
35:55
Speaker 1: to the next guy. Right, all right, all right, we'll
35:57
Speaker 1: take our final break and talk about surf guitar legend
36:01
Speaker 1: Dick Dale right after this blooms and shock. Okay, welcome, Wait,
36:33
Speaker 1: hold on, let me do it differently. We're back, all right.
36:39
Speaker 1: So all these people are being influenced by people like
36:42
Speaker 1: Buddy Holly and Muddy Waters. Then comes a gentleman named
36:45
Speaker 1: Dick Dale in the nineteen fifties, the you know everyone
36:49
Speaker 1: knows him now, of course, is the the head of
36:51
Speaker 1: the surf guitar surf music movement. And that was big.
36:55
Speaker 1: That wasn't just like a sort of like, oh, some
36:58
Speaker 1: people are listening to that. That was like the most
37:00
Speaker 1: popular form of music for a little while in the
37:02
Speaker 1: nineteen fifties. And Dick Dale's thing was he wanted He
37:06
Speaker 1: was the first guy to really want enormous amounts of volume,
37:11
Speaker 1: like more than just like let me amplify this so
37:13
Speaker 1: we can cut through. He wanted to blow people's ear
37:15
Speaker 1: drums out, and he actually accidentally blew out Leo Fender's
37:19
Speaker 1: ear drum when they were working together trying to figure
37:22
Speaker 1: out this problem. Leo Fender bent down and said he
37:26
Speaker 1: he thinks he hears a hum. He said, don't play
37:28
Speaker 1: for a minute. He literally put his ear on the
37:31
Speaker 1: amplifier speaker, and no one knows what happened. If he
37:35
Speaker 1: bumped the guitar or something, but cranked all the way up,
37:38
Speaker 1: which is how you would listen for a buzz or
37:40
Speaker 1: a hum. He literally destroyed one of Leo Fender's ear
37:43
Speaker 1: so now he's down to one ear and one eye. Yeah.
37:46
Speaker 1: Leo Fender famously clutched his ears and went, cratch my ears,
37:52
Speaker 1: and they said, hey, we'll see you for that. It's
37:54
Speaker 1: like Marty McFly getting blown across the room and Doc Yeah,
37:58
Speaker 1: Slan sort of is. But he was a huge, huge
38:03
Speaker 1: influence on UM achieving volume for rock bands that would
38:07
Speaker 1: come along later. I actually saw him in Athens, you know, uh,
38:11
Speaker 1: towards not towards the end of his life, because he
38:13
Speaker 1: just died a few years ago, but it was saw
38:14
Speaker 1: him at forty. What it was amazing, that's awesome, but
38:17
Speaker 1: that was Yeah. Supposedly he inspired Jimmy Hendrix. Um, he
38:22
Speaker 1: was like a guitar god himself, for sure, an overlooked one.
38:25
Speaker 1: I saw I think an article you sent that he's
38:28
Speaker 1: not in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, which
38:30
Speaker 1: is like the cookiest thing I've heard in a while.
38:32
Speaker 1: It's ridiculous. Yeah, so he's playing the strat the Beach
38:36
Speaker 1: Boys are playing Fenders. Uh, we have to shout out
38:40
Speaker 1: legendary session bass player Carol Kaye, a woman among men
38:44
Speaker 1: who played the Fender Precision bass. Yeah. I mean, if
38:49
Speaker 1: you think of just about any popular song from the
38:52
Speaker 1: nineteen fifties and sixties, there's probably about a chance that
38:56
Speaker 1: Carol k played bass on it. Yeah, motown song, every
39:01
Speaker 1: Beach Boys up record like you name it. Wow, that's
39:03
Speaker 1: really cool. I hadn't heard of her. Yeah, it was
39:06
Speaker 1: there's a great documentary called The wreck and Crew about
39:09
Speaker 1: these legendary studio musicians who basically played all that stuff.
39:12
Speaker 1: Like the Beach Boys didn't play their instruments on the records.
39:15
Speaker 1: What it was the Wrecking Crew. Be quiet, don't tell
39:18
Speaker 1: me things like that. I'm sorry. Brian Wilson's a genius,
39:21
Speaker 1: but he played bass on stage. Carol k played bass
39:24
Speaker 1: in the studio. Okay, so, um, Leo Fender, here's the
39:28
Speaker 1: thing about him. Remember we said that he was a
39:30
Speaker 1: tinker and engineer. Those guys don't translate to head of
39:35
Speaker 1: highly successful and quickly growing company very well. They tend
39:40
Speaker 1: to get a little stressed out and overwhelmed. And that's
39:42
Speaker 1: exactly what happened to good old Leo. He apparently had ulcers,
39:46
Speaker 1: which has nothing to do with stress, as we learned
39:48
Speaker 1: thanks to the guinea pig scientists who drank a bunch
39:51
Speaker 1: of that bacteria to prove that it was caused by
39:54
Speaker 1: a bacteria rather than stress anyway, So he tried to
39:59
Speaker 1: s l out in the early sixties, I believe, yeah,
40:03
Speaker 1: And um, I guess Randall didn't accept that. What do
40:06
Speaker 1: you why? Why not? I think they had been partners
40:09
Speaker 1: for so long at Randall. It seems like genuinely thought, like,
40:13
Speaker 1: you don't understand the value of this company asking for
40:15
Speaker 1: a million dollars, And so he started uh courting other companies.
40:21
Speaker 1: He courted Baldwin to sell the whole company. He courted
40:24
Speaker 1: eventually CBS UH, CBS, CBS Records UH, and they ended
40:29
Speaker 1: up paying what would be the equivalent of a hundred
40:32
Speaker 1: and ten million dollars for the Fender Music Corporation, and
40:36
Speaker 1: Don Randall and Leo Fender each got checks uh for
40:40
Speaker 1: five million bucks, which is about fifty something million dollars today.
40:44
Speaker 1: That's amazing. Wow. Don Randall was great, great kind of
40:46
Speaker 1: have in your corner. Huh. He really was, um and
40:50
Speaker 1: they were friends. And I think you know, Leo also
40:52
Speaker 1: had this. He was just always in bad health. He
40:54
Speaker 1: had this and I had never heard of this, be
40:57
Speaker 1: in a case of strep that apparently literally never went
40:59
Speaker 1: away like he had it for years and years and
41:02
Speaker 1: years and was always so a week sucks. But I
41:05
Speaker 1: can't imagine having a chronic case of strip. Yeah, so
41:09
Speaker 1: he I think part of the terms of the deal
41:11
Speaker 1: was there were two parts of the company that were
41:14
Speaker 1: brand new that didn't make any money. Actually lost money,
41:16
Speaker 1: which was the Fender Rhodes Electric piano, which everyone was like,
41:21
Speaker 1: what the heck is this? Of course now it's amazing,
41:23
Speaker 1: and then the Fender Acoustic division, which really never did
41:26
Speaker 1: take off, like I mentioned earlier. And part of the
41:28
Speaker 1: deal was that they had to include those even though
41:31
Speaker 1: they weren't profitable. As he said, fine, and then they
41:34
Speaker 1: had to keep Leo on for five years as a consultant,
41:37
Speaker 1: which they were happy to do. And I think he
41:39
Speaker 1: couldn't do anything else with anyone. I think he had
41:41
Speaker 1: a noncompete for ten years. But he would go on
41:43
Speaker 1: later to start new companies even after that, and he
41:46
Speaker 1: died in Um. He lived a pretty pretty good life,
41:51
Speaker 1: pretty good long life, got to tinker for a pretty
41:54
Speaker 1: long time, ended up being a wealthy man, and really
41:57
Speaker 1: kind of like became one of the people who's known
41:59
Speaker 1: as the inventor of the electric guitar. For better or worse,
42:03
Speaker 1: UM and Less Paul's story kind of took a slightly
42:07
Speaker 1: different turn um than Leo Fenders. Leo wanted to fade
42:11
Speaker 1: into the background. That decision was made for Less Paul,
42:15
Speaker 1: not necessarily UM in conjunction with his wishes, his innovations
42:20
Speaker 1: with electric guitar. His and Leo fenders creation and introduction
42:25
Speaker 1: of electric guitars changed music like we saw Um created
42:30
Speaker 1: rock and roll or led the found created the foundation
42:33
Speaker 1: that rock and roll was built on. And all the
42:35
Speaker 1: kids said, we don't really like less Paul's music anymore.
42:38
Speaker 1: So this he created this monster that ended up swallowing
42:41
Speaker 1: him basically, Um, and he kind of faded off into uh,
42:46
Speaker 1: into nothingness there for a little while. He was gonna
42:48
Speaker 1: become this obscure, incredibly wealthy guy. Yeah, he got divorced
42:55
Speaker 1: from Mary. Like I said earlier, Um, he ended up
42:59
Speaker 1: getting custody the kids, which was just crazy at the time,
43:02
Speaker 1: and that was kind of the only thing she wanted.
43:04
Speaker 1: It was really ugly, kind of public divorce. It was
43:07
Speaker 1: very sad. And he uh, you know, I mentioned the
43:11
Speaker 1: Gibson SG earlier, the solid guitar they made that to
43:13
Speaker 1: be lighter and to kind of compete with these. That
43:16
Speaker 1: was originally called the Gibson Les Paul s G. And
43:19
Speaker 1: eventually he didn't like it at all, so they took
43:21
Speaker 1: his name off of it and then it was just
43:23
Speaker 1: the Gibson s G. And Yeah, he just kind of
43:26
Speaker 1: faded away. He he lived to be ninety two. I
43:28
Speaker 1: mean he had a great life, like you said, as
43:30
Speaker 1: a wealthy guy who he would always play these live
43:33
Speaker 1: kind of small club gigs in New York, and very
43:36
Speaker 1: famous people like Slash would stop through and everyone would
43:39
Speaker 1: come through to play with Less Paul and he would
43:41
Speaker 1: regale people's stories. And it wasn't like a sideshow act.
43:44
Speaker 1: He just he couldn't fill large halls anymore. Basically. Yeah,
43:49
Speaker 1: but he you know, he he got the recognition that
43:52
Speaker 1: he I'm sure liked. I mean, he seemed like a
43:55
Speaker 1: pretty good guy as long as you weren't married to him. Um.
43:59
Speaker 1: But he Uh, he's known as like the guitar God's
44:03
Speaker 1: guitar god. I saw put somewhere that like, if you
44:07
Speaker 1: are a guitar player, guitar hero, you look up till
44:10
Speaker 1: Less Paul for what he did, not just with creating
44:13
Speaker 1: or helping to create or at least saying that he
44:15
Speaker 1: created the electric guitar, but also for all the other
44:18
Speaker 1: innovations that he really did invent, like multi track recording
44:21
Speaker 1: and sound sound you know. Yeah, and just to sort
44:24
Speaker 1: of button up the story of the guitar itself, Uh,
44:27
Speaker 1: they only made them in fifty nine sixty and I'm sorry,
44:31
Speaker 1: fifty fifty nine and sixty made of these. And after
44:36
Speaker 1: Muddy Waters is when people like Eric Clapton and Pete
44:40
Speaker 1: Townsend and uh like kind of any big English guitar
44:46
Speaker 1: player at the time played less Paul's. Remember how seeing
44:49
Speaker 1: at the very beginning in the first episode, how when
44:51
Speaker 1: Finder was up less Paul was down on the other
44:53
Speaker 1: way around, the strat kind of changed the world. And
44:56
Speaker 1: then the strat became kind of uncool for a little
44:58
Speaker 1: while in the six stas when all these guys started
45:01
Speaker 1: playing the less Paul Jimmy page of course, and um,
45:06
Speaker 1: people are like, wait a minute, we need less Paul's.
45:09
Speaker 1: Like there was only of them, so they started making
45:11
Speaker 1: them again by popular demand, and I think sixty something, Yeah,
45:17
Speaker 1: sixty eight, and they never went out of production again, Yeah,
45:21
Speaker 1: sixty eight to start making him again. And since then
45:25
Speaker 1: it's you know, there are plenty of people who have both,
45:28
Speaker 1: but the questions sort of always unless you play like
45:31
Speaker 1: an off like like a Rick and Bucker or something,
45:32
Speaker 1: people are always like you Gibson person or a or
45:35
Speaker 1: a Fender person, And I'm a Gibson person, always have been.
45:38
Speaker 1: That's well, less Paul ended up he died in two
45:41
Speaker 1: does and nine, but he ended up being the only
45:43
Speaker 1: person to date who has been inducted in both the
45:46
Speaker 1: Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the National Inventors
45:49
Speaker 1: Hall of Fame, which is pretty cool, pretty amazing. Great story.
45:53
Speaker 1: That's it, the story of the solid body electric guitar,
45:57
Speaker 1: as told through the eyes of Leo Fender. Unless Paul
46:01
Speaker 1: the end, thanks for indulging me on this. That was
46:04
Speaker 1: a good one, man. It was nice to hear you
46:06
Speaker 1: just so just jazzed like a precision jazz bass. Well,
46:11
Speaker 1: after thirteen years, it was we finally tackled something. I
46:13
Speaker 1: knew something. Whatever. Well, if you want to know more
46:18
Speaker 1: about the electric guitar, go pick one up, see what happens,
46:21
Speaker 1: and maybe you'll start your own shredding rock band yourself.
46:25
Speaker 1: And since I said shredding rock band, of course, it's
46:28
Speaker 1: time for a listener mail. You know what, Let's not
46:33
Speaker 1: do a listener mail today. And we we do this
46:36
Speaker 1: occasionally where we will not do listener mail and ask
46:39
Speaker 1: people for a favor. We do this like once every
46:41
Speaker 1: three years. Never been good at self marketing, but we
46:44
Speaker 1: like to call out occasionally for people to go on
46:47
Speaker 1: iTunes or your pod player of choice. Leave reviews, leave ratings.
46:52
Speaker 1: It helps us out. I don't care how long we've
46:54
Speaker 1: been around, we still need people saying positive, hopefully positive
46:57
Speaker 1: things about us out there. So instead of listener mail,
47:01
Speaker 1: just do us favorite telefriend about us, tell a relative,
47:03
Speaker 1: tell a coworker that they might hate us or love us.
47:09
Speaker 1: Well done. That's why we only do this at once
47:11
Speaker 1: every three years. That's right, so clunky. Well, Like Chuck said,
47:15
Speaker 1: we would love it if you left us a review,
47:17
Speaker 1: specifically a positive one. But whatever, you know, speak from
47:19
Speaker 1: your heart. How about that? That's what Josh and Chuck
47:21
Speaker 1: think you should do. And in the meantime, if you
47:24
Speaker 1: want to get in touch with us as well as always,
47:26
Speaker 1: you can send us an email to stuff podcast at
47:28
Speaker 1: iHeart radio dot com. Stuff you Should Know is a
47:34
Speaker 1: production of I heart Radio. For more podcasts my heart Radio,
47:38
Speaker 1: visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
47:41
Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows.