{"id":1012,"date":"2007-08-20T22:30:00","date_gmt":"2007-08-21T02:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/catchingfireflies.com\/blog\/?p=1012"},"modified":"2007-08-20T22:30:00","modified_gmt":"2007-08-21T02:30:00","slug":"les-paul-a-li","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.catchingfirefliesgifts.com\/blog\/2007\/08\/les-paul-a-li\/","title":{"rendered":"les paul &#8211; a living legend"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/catchingfireflies.typepad.com\/photos\/uncategorized\/2007\/08\/20\/les_paul.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"image-full\" title=\"Les_paul\" alt=\"Les_paul\" src=\"http:\/\/catchingfireflies.typepad.com\/photos\/uncategorized\/2007\/08\/20\/les_paul.jpg\" border=\"0\" style=\"FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 5px 5px 0px\" \/><\/a>Since my sweetie, Steve has been diligently playing and practicing the guitar for the past four years, we couldn&#8217;t pass up the opportunity to see the famous <a href=\"http:\/\/www.lespaulonline.com\/index.html\">Les Paul<\/a> perform live at the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.iridiumjazzclub.com\/\">Iridium Jazz Club<\/a> in New York during our recent stay.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/catchingfireflies.typepad.com\/photos\/uncategorized\/2007\/08\/20\/les_paul_7.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"image-full\" title=\"Les_paul_7\" alt=\"Les_paul_7\" src=\"http:\/\/catchingfireflies.typepad.com\/photos\/uncategorized\/2007\/08\/20\/les_paul_7.jpg\" border=\"0\" style=\"FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 5px 5px 0px\" \/><\/a> <\/p>\n<p>At age 92, <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Les_Paul\">this living legend<\/a> plays two shows every Monday <strong><em>and <\/em><\/strong>signs autographs afterwards.&nbsp; What a gracious guy!<a href=\"http:\/\/catchingfireflies.typepad.com\/photos\/uncategorized\/2007\/08\/20\/les_paul_5.jpg\"><\/a> <\/p>\n<p><embed src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/AP7qI5RVtxw\" width=\"425\" height=\"350\" type=\"application\/x-shockwave-flash\" wmode=\"transparent\"><\/embed><\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;s an entertaining segment of a wonderful PBS special about Les.<\/p>\n<p>Some quick facts about this talented guy&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; <span style=\"color: #000000;\">Though he couldn&#8217;t read music, Paul had a magnificent ear and innate sense of structure, conceiving complete arrangements entirely in his head before he set them down track by track on disc or tape.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #666666;\">&#8211; <\/span><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Paul was unsatisfied by the electric guitars that were sold in the mid 1930s and began experimenting with a few designs of his own. Famously, he created &quot;The Log,&quot; which was nothing more than a length of common 4&quot; by 4&quot; fence post with <\/span><span style=\"color: #000000;\">bridge, guitar neck, and pickup<\/span><span style=\"color: #000000;\"> attached&#8230; this design was the beginning of the <em>solid body<\/em> electric guitar.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span face=\"Verdana\">&#8211; Paul was the first musician to use multi-tracking in a recording. Amazingly, these recordings were made, not with magnetic tape, but with wax disks. Paul would record a track onto a disk, then record himself playing another part with the first. He built the multi-track recording with overlaid tracks, rather than parallel ones as he did later.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span face=\"Verdana\">&#8211; Paul had over 40 hit singles in the 1950&#8217;s<\/span><\/p>\n<div id=\"flaresmith\" class=\"feedflare\"><script src=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~s\/http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/catchingfireflies\/TyNo?i=http:\/\/www.catchingfirefliesgifts.com\/blog\/2007\/08\/les-paul-a-li\/\" type=\"text\/javascript\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/div><div class=\"linkwithin_hook\" id=\"http:\/\/www.catchingfirefliesgifts.com\/blog\/2007\/08\/les-paul-a-li\/\"><\/div><script>\n<!-- \/\/LinkWithinCodeStart\nvar linkwithin_site_id = 944859;\nvar linkwithin_div_class = \"linkwithin_hook\";\n\/\/LinkWithinCodeEnd -->\n<\/script>\n<script src=\"http:\/\/www.linkwithin.com\/widget.js\"><\/script>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.linkwithin.com\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.linkwithin.com\/pixel.png\" alt=\"Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...\" style=\"border: 0\" \/><\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Since my sweetie, Steve has been diligently playing and practicing the guitar for the past four years, we couldn&#8217;t pass up the opportunity to see the famous Les Paul perform live at the Iridium Jazz Club in New York during our recent stay. At age 92, this living legend plays two shows every Monday and signs autographs afterwards.&nbsp; What a gracious guy! Here&#8217;s an entertaining segment of a wonderful PBS special about Les. Some quick facts about this talented guy&#8230; &#8211; Though he couldn&#8217;t read music, Paul had a magnificent ear and innate sense of structure, conceiving complete arrangements entirely in his head before he set them down track by track on disc or tape. &#8211; Paul was unsatisfied by the electric guitars that were sold in the mid 1930s and began experimenting with a few designs of his own. Famously, he created &quot;The Log,&quot; which was nothing more than a length of common 4&quot; by 4&quot; fence post with bridge, guitar neck, and pickup attached&#8230; this design was the beginning of the solid body electric guitar. &#8211; Paul was the first musician to use multi-tracking in a recording. Amazingly, these recordings were made, not with magnetic tape, but with&hellip; <a class=\"read-more\" href=\"http:\/\/www.catchingfirefliesgifts.com\/blog\/2007\/08\/les-paul-a-li\/\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n<script>\n<!-- \/\/LinkWithinCodeStart\nvar linkwithin_site_id = 944859;\nvar linkwithin_div_class = \"linkwithin_hook\";\n\/\/LinkWithinCodeEnd -->\n<\/script>\n<script src=\"http:\/\/www.linkwithin.com\/widget.js\"><\/script>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.linkwithin.com\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.linkwithin.com\/pixel.png\" alt=\"Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...\" style=\"border: 0\" \/><\/a>","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,8],"tags":[2139,2141,2138,2140],"class_list":["post-1012","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-about-town","category-music-to-groove-to","tag-chasing-sound","tag-iridium-jazz-club","tag-les-paul","tag-pbs"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.catchingfirefliesgifts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1012","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.catchingfirefliesgifts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.catchingfirefliesgifts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.catchingfirefliesgifts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.catchingfirefliesgifts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1012"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.catchingfirefliesgifts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1012\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.catchingfirefliesgifts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1012"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.catchingfirefliesgifts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1012"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.catchingfirefliesgifts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1012"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}