Les Paul was all about learning. His curiosity was ferocious and he never stopped asking questions. Students everywhere can learn about Les Paul from the curator of the Les Paul House of Sound exhibit at Milwaukee’s Discovery World.

Earlier this year Hal Leonard Corporation, Discovery World in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and the Les Paul Foundation collaborated on a narrated walk-through of Les Paul’s House of Sound exhibit at Discovery World matched with a lesson on Les Paul in the March/April 2013 issue of John Jacobson’s Music Express magazine.

Teachers everywhere can introduce Les Paul to their students through the exhibit narrated by Discovery World’s Paul Krajniak (See Below)

Students doing research projects on Les Paul are invited to search this website and submit questions about Les Paul to info@lespaulfoundation.org.

Four days of celebrations started Thursday evening, June 6, with a Gibson GuitarTown gala event unveiling 10 foot tall as well as “playable” painted Gibson guitars decorated by regional artists.

The Les Paul Trio featuring Lou Pallo, John Colianni on piano and Gary Mazzaroppi on bass engulfed guests with Les’ signature songs.

Friday during the day professional mural artists straddled scaffoldings as they painted permanent Les Paul related murals in historic downtown Waukesha. Friday evening was for everyone and everyone came! Waukesha matched the opening of its annual Friday Night Live weekly musical festivities with the public unveiling of the guitars and introduction of five murals.

Streets blocked to vehicle traffic seemed almost insufficient to accommodate the Grand Central Station volume of people who came to celebrate Les Paul. Restaurants were at capacity. Music was everywhere and people basked in Les Paul festivities.

The air was filled with “How High the Moon”, “Vaya Con Dios” and other Les Paul favorites played by Lou Pallo and the rest of the Les Paul Trio. Waukesha was in love with its favorite son.

Saturday night the Waukesha County Museum rolled out the red carpet (literally) for its opening of “Les Paul the Wizard of Waukesha” exhibit. Again, the number of people was almost crushing, but everyone was smiling.

Kirsten Villegas, Waukesha County Museum President & CEO, kept the evening’s energy on track. Dignitaries spoke. People cheered and after the band played “Happy Birthday” for Les, the museum filled with music and lively conversation. The highlight, of course, was the exhibit. Guests had keepsake photographs taken with a life size photo of Les Paul.

Michael Braunstein, Executive Director of the Les
Paul Foundation toasted Evelyn with a Blatz, her drink of choice.

As Les had requested, the story started relaying how Les Paul had viewed and used his family’s living room as his laboratory.

Artifacts purchased by the museum along with many on loan from the Les Paul Foundation were interspersed throughout Les’ story.

Les’ mother, Evelyn Polsfuss, was prominent in the exhibit.

Sunday the museum opened its doors for the public to visit Les Paul. Parents with small children, senior citizens and every age in between walked through the museum doors, eager to see the exhibit.

Michael Braunstein, Executive Director, and Sue Baker, Program Director of the Les Paul Foundation, stand next to Les’ Inventors Hall of Fame medal.

The city of Waukesha continues to celebrate Les Paul.

Visitors to Waukesha County Museum’s new exhibit will want to stop at Les Paul’s memorial in Waukesha’s Prairie Home Cemetery, take the Les Paul’s Waukesha self-guided tour and visit the complementary Les Paul House of Sound exhibit at Milwaukee’s Discovery World Museum.

The Waukesha Education Foundation raises funds for projects and programs that are not typically funded by the School District’s annual operating budget. Funding priorities include innovative and enrichment programs and recognition of outstanding achievement by students, teachers and programs. http://www.waukeshaeducationfoundation.org/Home.aspx

Photo: Todd Gray, Waukesha School District Superintendent, accepts a donation from the Les Paul Foundation

The Wilson Center Guitar Competition & Festival, scheduled for August 15-17, 2013, will feature competition for guitarists 15 – 30 years of age. First place winners in each of the genres of Rock/Blues, Fingerstyle, Jazz and Classical will receive a $3,000 cash prize and a featured solo performance during the Wilson Center’s 2013-2014 season. http://www.wilson-center.com/onstage/wilson-center-guitar-competition.php.

Photo: Sandy Madden and Jon Winkle of the Sharon Lynne Wilson Center for the Arts hold the donation from the Les Paul Foundation.

GuitarTown Waukesha will feature 10-foot tall fiberglass Gibson Les Paul model guitars and regular sized guitars decorated by local artists. Guitar sculptures celebrate musicians, personalities and artists from the area. GuitarTown raises funds for non-profit organizations and music and art programs in the Waukesha schools. Events begin the weekend of June 7th, 2013 in honor of Les Paul’s birthday. http://www.waukeshaguitartown.com/

Photo: Rick Congdon, chair of GuitarTown Waukesha and Waukesha Mayor Jeff Scrima accept a donation from the Les Paul Foundation.

Waukesha, Wisconsin, birthplace of Lester Polsfuss, is set for a huge Les Paul celebration in just a few days. The big weekend starts on Thursday June 6th, a gala celebrating the city’s second year of being designated a Gibson GuitarTown. Waukesha is one of the rare Gibson GuitarTowns to receive the official designation for two years. Ten more ten-foot guitars painted by artists from the region and multiple “playable” guitars painted by students and local artists will be on display in downtown businesses. See Waukesha Guitar Town for more information.

Friday June 7th

Waukesha begins its annual Friday Night Live music series June 7th with is the public unveiling of the 10-foot guitars and the painted “playable” guitars. The Les Paul Trio, along with other notable musicians, will be on stage in Waukesha to launch the city’s celebration. Michael Braunstein, Executive Director of the Les Paul Foundation, will address the audience.

Saturday June 8th

The energy builds Saturday evening at a gala celebration as Waukesha County Museum opens for a VIP preview of the “Les Paul Wizard of Waukesha” exhibit. Les always held tightly to his hometown and now his hometown is honoring him with an exhibit that focuses on how his hometown affected him and how he affected the world.

Museum President and CEO Kirsten Villegas lend me on a sneak view of the mostly completed exhibit last week. Just as Les had requested, the exhibit starts in his childhood living room and weaves his story through the years before, during and after Mary Ford. The exhibit highlights key artifacts, some of which were purchased by the museum and many that are on loan from the Les Paul Foundation. Of particular note is Les’ sound-on-sound machine, which was pivotal to the recording of his gold records.

The vivid colors and permeating Les Paul music pull the visitor into Les’ story. Not everything can be told in an exhibit, regardless of size, but the Waukesha exhibit does a nice job of giving you a sense of who Waukesha’s Red Hot Red was and how he changed the world.

Sunday June 9th

Sunday the Les Paul exhibit opens to the public from 11 am- 5pm. Michael Braunstein, Executive Director of the Les Paul Foundation, Chris Lentz, Director of Media Archives, and Sue Baker, Program Director, will be at the museum for the public opening.

Take the Waukesha Tour

If you haven’t been to Waukesha recently, it’s time for a pilgrimage. Print out the Les Paul Waukesha tour. (Check out the Waukesha Pewaukee Convention & Visitors Bureau for places to stay, etc.) Start at the Waukesha County Museum’s exhibit to learn about Les Paul. Tour the Les Paul sites in Waukesha. You will want to stop at the Club 400 and be sure to stop at Les’ memorial in Prairie Home Cemetery. From there head east about 20 miles to Milwaukee’s Discovery World Museum to visit “Les Paul’s House of Sound.” Discovery World’s vibrant exhibit looks at the Les Paul story from a different vantage point. If you visit on a weekend, you can even record taking a guitar lesson from Les. Seeing both exhibits gives you a wider view of Waukesha’s musician, inventor, entertainer.

Southeast Wisconsin is the Les Paul epicenter. If you are a fan or even just curious, it’s not “if”; it’s “when” are you coming to Les Paul’s hometown? If you can’t join the excitement this weekend in Waukesha, watch here for photos and an update on the celebration as you plan your Waukesha quest.

Les Paul, the father of the solid-body electric guitar, gold record performer, inventor of the 8-track tape recorder as well as many of today’s recording techniques, had multiple physical challenges. In his autobiography, Les Paul in His own Words, Les reflected on how each circumstance affected him. Text in italics and in parentheses is added to clarify.

Electrical shock at age 26

The doctors said what I’d experienced was very similar to being struck by lightning, the results of which, if not fatal, can leave you with handicaps you don’t recover from. One doctor was of the opinion that the numbness might never go away completely, so I didn’t know to what degree I’d be able to regain my playing ability.

I never really believed I wouldn’t recover, but the future was very uncertain and the course of my life was changed forever.

While I was laid up, for the first time in my life, I had to take it easy. I couldn’t jam, perform or do anything I was used to doing because my hands were dead and my energy level was kaput.

The down time gave me the opportunity to think about everything I’d done, and what I still wanted to do. I was 26 years old and confident of regaining my abilities.

Near-fatal accident at 33 years

Les and Mary were caught in a terrible snowstorm when their convertible went off a railroad overpass and dropped 20 feet. There were no seat belts and both of them were thrown through the roof.

I was busted all to hell. My back, collarbones, a shoulder and six ribs were broken, I had a fractured pelvis, a punctured spleen, and my nose was smashed. My right arm, was completely shattered and the elbow crushed to a pulp. On top of everything else, I contracted pneumonia lying out there in the snow unconscious for what they said was eight hours before help arrived.

They took me by ambulance to Oklahoma City, and as they were wheeling me into Wesley Hospital, I opened my eyes and there was Ken Wright (past band mate) walking right beside me all the way. And I said, “What happened to you? You look like hell.” Ken had the most frightened look on his face, and I was letting him know Rhubarb Red was still alive.

It was the general opinion of everyone involved that if I did survive, I would never play guitar again. There were many, including my Dad, who predicted I wasn’t going to make it.

There was a point where it was very simple, where dying would’ve been the easy thing to do. It felt like hanging from a ledge by the tips of your fingers, and it’s killing you to hang on. And you think, “Why am I doing this? Let’s just let go, and then it will all be over.” I saw the light at the end of the tunnel, and I was thinking about going that way, but then I heard the sounds around me coming through, and it was the doctors and nurses working, fighting to save me. And I thought, “If these people are willing to try this hard to keep me alive, then I’ll try too.” So I decided to fight instead of give up. And Dr. Knight told me later, “We almost lost you. You damn near died.” It was rough.

I had pneumonia, and with broken vertebrae and ribs, the coughing was total hell. I was rigged up like a trapeze act in the hospital bed. My mental state was shot. My future as a musician, as an entertainer, as the person I’d always been was one big question mark. Those first weeks in the hospital were a very dark time.

I passed the time by reading and listening to the radio. I read one book after another about electronics, audio engineering and human behavior, whatever I could find to take an interest in.

I was day after day laying in that hospital bed thinking about how I could continue if the worst happened and I lost the arm. And that’s when it came to me. I had the plans (for a synthesizer) drawn out in detail, but after my arm was saved, I didn’t pursue it.

Adapting To Limitations

The (secondary) surgery (in California) was successful, but there was a long way to go. My right hand stuck out of the cast and was terribly weak and swollen, so I started right away to exercise my fingers, doing whatever I could to try and restore feeling and movement.

The doctors said there was potential nerve damage, that I shouldn’t count on regaining full use of the hand, but I wasn’t buying it.

I was determined it was going to come back and that I would play again, even if I had to learn how all over again.

I could fret okay with my left hand, but couldn’t get my right hand on the strings because of the cast. My solution was to take a guitar stand and have it altered to hold my guitars at a height and angle matching the arm cast.

I couldn’t grasp a straight pick, so we jammed a thumb pick on my swollen thumb, slapped a guitar into the elevator stand, and I starting putting down parts. My arm was getting better and I was adjusting to having a frozen elbow, but it was still one day at a time, and very slow going.

This time provided an important beginning for all the music and invention ideas I’d stored up during my long (18 months) recovery, when my mind was going all the time with the synthesizer, electric guitar experiments, recording experiments and a million other things.

I was thinking, “Oh boy, I could do this, I could do that, and when I get my hand back I’m going to have to learn to pick a different way because it isn’t going to be like it was.”

The long recovery period was quite a challenge, and also a blessing because it gave me a chance to think, and read, and plan, and dream.

Photo by Chris Lentz 2009

Heart troubles and experimental surgery in his 60s

Les learned that he’d had a heart attack and five major arterial blockages.

This was at a time when the success rate for surgical treatment of this problem was too low to consider, so the situation was very troubling. I called Ma, and said, “Well, I have an inoperable heart condition, and I’m going to have to take it very easy if I want to stay alive much longer.”

But Mother interrupted me and said, “I don’t want to hear this foolishness. With technology the way it is today, it can be fixed. All you have to do is go out and find the person who can do it. Now, get with it.”

She gave me a kick in the pants, and it turned me around completely. I started going to heart clinics all over the country, looking for someone with an idea.

The case was turned down (by the Cleveland Clinic), just as it had been at Mayo Clinic, St. Luke’s and the other hospitals I had approached. And all for the same reason: the condition was considered inoperable.

Les asked Dr. Loop at the Cleveland Clinic to reconsider the decision not to operate.

Dr. Loop said, “I’d like to try a new procedure.” I said, “What are the odds?” And he said, “At best, about 50-50.” And I said, “Well, my goodness, why don’t we try it?” And he said, “Because I haven’t thought enough about it.” And I said, “I’ve got all the patience in the world. Just tell me when you’re ready.”

While Dr. Loop prepared for this radical surgery, we set up a little nightclub scene there in the hospital to entertain the other surgery patients and help us all take our minds off medical problems.

Musicians on the hospital staff sat in with us. This went on until one evening a member of Dr. Loop’s staff came in and said, “Dr. Loop is ready, and tomorrow morning you’re going into surgery.”

The surgery Dr. Loop wanted to try was one of the latest advances in heart surgery, so there were no guarantees. And, yes, I was scared. As they wheeled me through the corridors to the operating room, I remember looking up at the lights in the ceiling, wondering if they were the last things I would ever see.

Trying to regain strength

The surgery was termed successful, but getting back my energy and sense of self was rough.

(I was) trying to regain some strength, but for the longest time, I felt weak and vulnerable, with none of the old rhubarb in me. Dr. Loop said, “Promise me two things: that you’ll work hard and you’ll be my friend.” Our friendship was a given and I promised to work hard, but how I was going to go about doing it was a problem.

Planning the future

To help me think I took a piece of paper, drew a line down the center, and started listing the pros and cons of everything I’d done in my career. “If I could do anything in the world I wanted to do, what would it be?” And what I came up with is playing regularly for a live audience in a little club. It keeps your body healthy and your mind young, you make new friends, and keep your old ones, and you make people happy, including yourself.

By this time, my hands were in bad shape from arthritis, so I had to learn a new approach to playing the guitar. I started out sitting in with friends around the general area.

From the time Les was 69 years old he and his friend Lou Pallo played every Monday night at Fat Tuesday’s and then at the Iridium Jazz Club in New York. Their gig lasted 25 years.

Advice from a stranger

Something important happened not long after we started playing there (Iridium.) A nurse came in and said, “Mr. Paul, when you have a moment, may I speak to you?” And I said, “I’ve got a moment right now.” And she said, “Well, I’m a nurse, and I know you have problems. I would like to tell you something, and then I’m going to leave.”

“Okay,” I said, “Lay it on me.” And she said, “You know, many of the people who come in here never heard you play 50 years ago, so don’t be foolish and try to be what you were 50 years ago or think you should be playing like you did then. Just do what you can do now, and if the people like it, you’re home.”

She approached me like a messenger, like it was something she needed to do for me, and basically said, “Relax, kid, and don’t beat yourself up for what you can’t do. Just do what you can do and you’ll be fine.” Her message made a difference and I learned something.

Photo by JoAnn O’Hare 2007

Adapting To Limitations in his 90s

The obvious limitation on my music is the arthritis, and the way it has slowly but surely become a part of my life is interesting. As it ate away my old abilities, I had to replace what was lost with what could be found in order to keep playing.

The only finger I can bend on my left hand is the little finger. All the others are frozen.

But despite this incurable deterioration, and the continual abuse my fingers have taken with all the medications and treatments, the desire to keep going is so strong that I’ve found ways to play without the movement of the fingers, which would not have seemed possible 40 years ago.

How I kept going

To keep going, you have to ask yourself: if the hands are gone, what advantage do you have? And I can tell you one advantage; you have a choice. You’ve gone from having the ability to play all the notes very fast to playing just one single note very selectively. So it becomes something new to learn. And if you’re only going to play one note, which note are you going to play, and exactly where are you going to put it?

That’s the challenge, and there are ways of meeting it. The challenge is to get all that feeling into fewer notes.The advantage comes from having to look further and deeper into what you’re doing to get the feeling you want because you can no longer fall back on the technique as an easy out. And this is just the natural process of adapting your will to what’s available to use.

When I was young, I was a racehorse and much of the time played too fast.

As the years went by and the arthritis progressed, I learned to play less and have it mean more, and now I’m down to playing one note, which is a limitation, but I have all the choices in the world for which note it’s going to be and how I’m going to play it. So you give up something, but you also gain something important through the loss.

Les, the man whose life was all about sound, wore two hearing aids as a result of being cuffed by two different friends on two different occasions.

Role of the Guitar

Guitar players love their instruments for more than the sound they make. We invest something of ourselves into them until they become like an added part, an extension of who we are.

Les often said that his guitar was with him throughout his life, in high points and low. People and things came and went, but his guitar was always with him. Les Paul continued his Monday night performances until a few months before he died on August 12, 2009 at the age of 94.

Guitars for Vets founder Patrick Nettesheim with his favorite Les Paul guitar

(See Les Paul: inventor and performer).

The Les Paul Foundation continues to change the face of music through various grants awarded to organizations around the country.

The foundation supports Guitars for Vets, a program headquartered in Milwaukee that helps ailing and injured military veterans obtain guitars once they have graduated from the Guitars for Vets music program.  Their unique music program uses  the healing power of music to restore the joy and purpose that can be lost after suffering trauma.

For more information about the Guitars for Vets program, visit www.guitars4vets.org.

To find out more about the Les Paul Foundation and it’s programs, visit us at www.lespaulfoundation.org.

Guitars for Vets founder Patrick Nettesheim (r) with a student of the program.

Les Paul, the inventor and guitar-playing sensation, will forever be associated with the solid-body electric guitar that he helped design and bears his name.

Les stated that if there was one thing that he would want in a time capsule that symbolized him it would be the Gibson Les Paul guitar.

His other inventions may not be as visible, but they continue to have a tremendous effect on the music world.

The eight-track tape recorder, for which Les Paul holds the patent, along with his numerous recording techniques swung open the door for Rock and Roll.

Les’ Sel-Sync®, over-dubbing, tape delay, echo, reverb, phase shifting and close miking have become commonplace in today’s recordings.

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, which inducted Les in 1988, states on its website, “It’s safe to say that rock and roll as we know it would not exist without his inventions.”

The National Inventors Hall of Fame added Les to its luminaries in 2005.

Teen Inventor

Les Paul was an inventor from his school days in Waukesha, Wisconsin. Not only did he design the first solid body electric guitar when he was in his teens, but he was the guitar-playing sensation who showed the world how to play the electric guitar.

As a teen, guitar-harmonica playing Les created his first invention, a coat hanger harmonica holder. Commercial versions required taking the harmonica off the holder and repositioning it. Les wanted to be able to flip the harmonica with his chin so he could seamlessly keep singing and playing his guitar. He relayed that his brother Ralph worked at a dry cleaning store, “so there were plenty of wire coat hangers around” and that is what young Les used.

Les’ first solid body guitar was even more unorthodox then his later wooden “Log”.

In search of the hardest substance available for a guitar, Les stretched a guitar string across the top of a two-foot piece of rail from a railroad track, added a microphone from his mother’s telephone, added a magnet, wired it into his mother’s radio and thus the first solid-body electric guitar came into existence at the hands of a teenager.

That was in the 1920s. Les knew that a guitar based on a piece of rail was not practical, but he keep thinking about the unparalleled sustain that strange guitar had. A replica of the “first log” can be seen in Discovery World’s “Les Paul House of Sound” in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

The Gibson Les Paul

In 1941, Lester was known as Les Paul and playing with Fred Waring in New York City. As Les continued his efforts to electrify a guitar that would have volume, tone and sustain that could be controlled, he reflected on his early rail “guitar”.  Years of experimenting resulted in Les’ Log, the 4×4 chunk of pine with homemade pickups, a bridge, Vibrato tailpiece and an Epiphone neck.

The nightclub crowd was not ready for his 4 x4 guitar plugged into an amp. Les added the acoustic wings, “because people hear with their eyes.”

Although he was convinced his Log was the way of the future, it wasn’t until 1952 that the Gibson Guitar Company adapted Les’ invention into the now famous Gibson Les Paul guitar.

Eight Track Tape Recorder

Once other musicians started playing the solid body electric guitar, Les searched for a sound that would make his music stand apart. This led to his revolutionary sound-on-sound machine, which will be on display starting in June at the Waukesha County Museum’s new Les Paul exhibit in Wisconsin.

To explain his multi-level sound during live performances Les developed the Les Paulverizer. Les’ onstage gag became an actual black box he attached to his guitar. The box allowed Les to access pre-recorded layers of the songs he and his wife Mary Ford performed on stage.

Early in his career, Les used wire recorders, then progressed to multiple tape recorders, but at last he developed the machine that could record eight different sounds and blend them onto one tape. The culmination of Les’ search for layering sound was his patented eight-track tape recorder, which was introduced in 1952, the same year that the Gibson Les Paul gold-top guitar was introduced.

Les’ inventions were adapted for other uses.

Retired NASA Engineer Karl F. Anderson relayed, “Les Paul’s multi-track tape recording concept not only revolutionized the recording of music, but the recording of scientific data as well. As a retired NASA engineer, let me say thanks, Les, for this amazing tool.”

Les Paul gave the future to today’s musicians. Rock and Roll, the Blues, Country and all music genres are able to create their sounds using Les’ inventions of reverb, echo, phase shifting, close miking, tape delay and sound-on-sound.

Les’ Legacy

Even in his last years, Les Paul remained the inventor and performer. He was working on improving hearing aids while maintaining his weekly shows at New York’s Iridium Jazz Club.

Les Paul joined the ranks of his hero, Thomas A. Edison, as one who changed the world. His legacy lives on through the Les Paul Foundation www.lespaulfoundation.org, which honors and shares the life, spirit and legacy of Les Paul by supporting music education, engineering and innovation as well as medical research.

Les Paul, often called the Thomas Edison of music technology, didn’t set out to invent. In fact, he stated he had to invent because he could not order or walk into a store and buy what he needed.

 In the preface to Les Paul in His Own Words, Russ and Michael Cochrane referring to Les say, “…and the truth can be told: his greatest invention is himself.” That sums up Les Paul. He was constantly reinventing himself and the things around him, adapting to needs he saw and challenges he faced.

Photos by Chris Lentz of the Les Paul Foundation©

Lou Pallo donated the 50^th Anniversary Les Paul Custom Epiphone (the one with the photos of Les and Mary on back) that was autographed throughout the Thank You, Les project by all musicians who were recorded and interviewed for the project. The autographed guitar will be packaged with a Thank You Les CD/DVD combo package, a limited edition, numbered vinyl (#62 in honor of 1962, the year Danny Thomas founded St. Jude).

The auction end on Sunday, May 19^th at 8 p.m. CDT.  All bids are welcome and benefit the internationally respected children’s hospital. http://www.stjude.org/stjude/v/index.jsp?vgnextoid=89ed1f0534aed310VgnVCM100000290115acRCRD&vgnextchannel=999b1f0534aed310VgnVCM100000290115acRCRD

Les Paul turned 87 on June 9^th, and he’s as sharp as a tack still. We saw him at his birthday party performance and the place was just packed with people, about 60 of his friends were down in front.

After the show they announced that Les’ son Russ was selling CDs at the door. I introduced myself to Russ and told him my story and he said just sit down and wait and I’ll take you back to see him. After most of the crowd had left, he walked us back to Les’ dressing room.

Backstage, there sat Les in a turtleneck, drinking a beer and posing for pictures and signing guitars and autographs. Russ brought us around past the line waiting to see Les and introduced us as being from Waukesha and said that my Dad had played with him in a band. Les asked my name and then he said in an excited voice, “Dean, he was my piano player.” Sure, he remembered Dad and said that he thinks of him often and was just talking about him the day before (that would have been on Les’ 87^th birthday).

He said, “Your Dad taught me so much about music.” I said, “My Dad taught you about music?”

Lester Polsfuss, unknown, Dean Howitt c.1930
I’m thinking dad’s sister Thelma, took the picture when Les and she were on a date and the girl in the photo was possibly dad’s date.

Wow, that really touched me, what a compliment. My Dad couldn’t read music, he would listen to a song and sit down at the piano and play it. I don’t know who taught him to play but he could play piano, organ and accordion. Les said he would show Dad where to start to play, so that it would be in the right key, and Dad would just play it.

Les said that he dated Dad’s sister, which I never knew, and asked if she was still alive and I said, “Everyone’s gone but my Mom,” and he just shook his head.

We must have been backstage for 20 minutes or so; it was too bad he had a second show to do. I would have loved to have spent the entire evening talking to him. Mary (Jim’s wife) said that we should be going so that Les could get ready for his next show and he said, “No, stay, they’ll come and get me when they want me.”

While Les was talking to someone else he reached over with his left hand and grabbed my right hand and just squeezed it, that was really special for me. He seemed as happy that I was there as I was to be there.

He even asked how we knew he was playing at this club and I told him the Internet and that we had ordered tickets in March to see him. He said, “You did all that just to come and hear me?” I told him what a legend he was and what an honor it was to meet him and he said as he waved his arm and hand in the air, “Ahh, I haven’t done anything.” It was like he really doesn’t realize the impact that he has made to the music world. He just enjoys playing and started his show by saying, “Boy, am I happy to be on top of the earth tonight.” Some of Les’ jokes, stories and comments were a tad off color.

He autographed the CD we bought, “To Jim and Mary – It’s Been A Long, Long Time – Les Paul,” that was a big hit he made with Bing Crosby and he said as he laughed, “It really has been a long, long time.”

I told him I worked at Waukesha Engine (the old Motor Works) and he asked if the foundry was still there and I said no but we (Waukesha Engine) are. He wanted to know where we sell our engines and I said that our engines are sold all over the world and he said, “Just imagine that.” That really seemed to impress him. Les grew up on St. Paul Avenue just a few blocks from Waukesha Engine.

Jim Hewitt, 2013

When we finally did leave, I gave Les a shoulder hug and told him what an honor it was to have met him and wished him a very Happy Birthday. He shook my hand and thanked us for coming.

Jim’s experience exemplifies how Les interacted with others. He was excellent at listening to people, asking questions about their lives and always being gracious.

If you would like a story you have about Les Paul considered for Les’ website, send it to sue@lespaulfoundation.org.

This past May, middle school students through adults attended the Les Paul Memphis Guitar Summit where guest instructors taught classes and a representative from Gibson Guitars was on hand to show various guitars and speak about Les Paul and the creation of the electric guitar.

Les Paul Be the Band, another Les Paul Soul School Spring Break activity, guided middle and high school students through various forms of music that culminated in a competition to produce a record on analogue 8-track tape.

We are very proud to partner with the Soulsville Academy where students continue to learn about Les Paul by using the tools he created.

Enjoy this video about the Les Paul Be the Band program.