Lester William Polsfuss (June 9, 1915 – August 12, 2009) — known as Les Paul — was an American jazz and country guitarist, songwriter and inventor of solid body electric guitar.
“My first guitar came from Sears & Roebuck and I believe it was $3.95.”
“I wanted something very dense, something that would sustain long and more pieces of wood that would be soft, sweet, for more of a mellow sound.”
“When I got my first guitar my fingers wouldn't go to the sixth string so I took off the big E and played with just five strings. I was only 6 or 7.”
“I have younger friends who don’t work, and they aren’t doing so well. My secret is to keep going, keep working.”
“Now I need to take a piece of wood and make it sound like the railroad track, but I also had to make it beautiful and lovable so that a person playing it would think of it in terms
“We go in there and we work on altering those ideas and in many cases go in different directions.”
“I used my mother's radio as a PA system. I'd take the telephone, the speaking part, and take those two leads off and lead them into the radio and the sound would come out of the speaker.”
“We're switching the sounds, not so much the tone of the instrument. And when things seem impossible, it's back to grade school, soldering, re-developing - always building.”
“One minute we're over here, the next minute we're doing something completely different. But it's interesting because you are producing so many things you couldn't do with analog.”
“Les Paul and Friends,”
“They've taken the, the licks and the ideas and applied 'em differently, so it's very amusing, or very interesting, to me to see how they've changed it and made it work, made it so new and different. It's always a pleasure to hear someone creating something new.”
“We're the first non-U.S.-based team to be requested, ... They're going to be helping as many people as they can.”
“It has to be said, we must all own up that without Les Paul, generations of flash little punks like us would be in jail or cleaning toilets. This man, by his genius, made the road that we still travel today. I don't know how he did it, but I'm so grateful he did, said Keith Richards, as quoted in the ”
“Steve used to walk through the room I stayed in to get to the bathroom. One day, he must have been 5 years old, Steve said to me, 'Are you Mr. Paul?' I said yes. He was looking at my guitar and I asked him, 'Do you play guitar?' And he said, 'A little bit.' So I handed him my guitar and he played it and I said, 'Gee, you're good. Someday you'll be doing what I'm doing.' I was his mentor . . . but then I watched him take everything he admired and copied and learned and become Steve Miller. He's a very, very good blues guitarist.”
“If Waukesha needs more, I have more. All they've got to do is ask.”
“The worst is over. I am doing better. I am grateful to all of my friends for their thoughts and I will be back shortly making them laugh.”
“The worst is over. I am doing better.”
“I'll be well shortly and back on that stage, believe me.”
“If it wasn't for them, I wouldn't be there. They're the ones.”
“I feel like a condemned building with a new flagpole on it. It's exciting for us.”
