We had a fantastic week celebrating American Music Master Les Paul. Our week of public programming at the Rock Hall and Case Western Reserve University brought together many different voices to tell Les Paul’s story and the story of his legacy in rock and roll. Special thanks this year goes to Gibson Guitar for their generous support. We included some of our regular programming formats: Rock & Roll Night School at Case on Monday offered an overview of Paul’s career, and Wednesday’s Teacher’s Rock program featured a virtual tour of the Gibson plant by a Gibson luthier explaining each step in the guitar production process for local teachers and music educators. Ace Frehley of KISS and Gibson CEO Henry Juszkiewicz shared the stage on Tuesday to tell the history of Gibson Guitar from inside and out. Ace told some great stories, especially about how he incorporated pyrotechnics into his guitar design, and demonstrated some of his classic riffs, like “Cold Gin.” A highlight for me was the Case Western Reserve University Community Hour on Friday, when guitarist Jennifer Batten shook the walls of Harkness Chapel with a multimedia guitar clinic, and previewed the version of Les Paul’s “Lover” that she played at Saturday night’s tribute concert.
We returned to Case on Saturday for a Rock & Roll Retrospective on Les’ work, and the Wolstein Research Center was packed. Again we wanted to tell the story from different perspectives, so the morning sessions included Steve Waksman, who’s written a fascinating book on the significance of the electric guitar, Instruments of Desire, Bob Cutarella, who produced Les’ album American Made, World Played (2005), the first album he’d recorded in almost thirty years, and a funny, informative talk by David C. Barnett of ideastream, who talked about Les Paul’s experiments with radio technology and his 1950s radio show. Then the musicians took over the afternoon: Barbara Lynn recalled learning to play the guitar as a young girl and The Ventures took us all to school to show how they put together their 1960 smash, “Walk Don’t Run.” The man himself closed out the day. Les Paul took questions from the audience for an hour-he was funny, irreverent, and inspirational. The audience ranged in age from 10 to 89 and included lots of Case students.
Les himself wasn’t a rock and roller, but his innovations on the solid-body electric guitar and in recording technology made rock and roll possible. He popularized the electric guitar popular and then handed it off to rock and roll. In an interview this summer with our Director of Education, Jason Hanley, Les described that legacy:
“When I first exposed the ideas that I had of marrying the music to the electronics, at first [people] were shocked at it. Even the companies were turned off with the idea of amplifying a guitar. A guitar was meek, it was an apologetic instrument. He was the last guy on the totem pole. Really what we were doing were we to be amplified could be a very important part in the music. And so reluctantly, I didn’t listen to the companies with those that were negative toward my ideas, I just said I’ll shoo them away and find it somewhere. But I found the people-like Capitol Records, like Gibson Guitar-and those that said that this is a great idea. And they could see, Ampex could say, hey we could make 24 tracks, we could make 100 tracks, we can do this, we could do that. These were the people that made it possible for me to fulfill my dreams. And to be honored by this, like I say...I’m not a humble guy, but I’m very grateful that it happened, that I found people that I could convince that this is something that’s so necessary… you must be heard. And of course when we amplified the guitar, then if you need to, you just turn it up. And when you turn it up, you can be the King of the Beasts. It worked out good.”
The artists really turned it up on Saturday night. The show was divided in three parts: as in all our American Mu
Set list:
New Dupree Blues- Barbara Lynn & Billy Gibbons
Take the “A” Train- Jeff “Skunk” Baxter
It’s Been a Long Long Time- Eric Carmen & Steve Lukather
Somewhere Over the Rainbow- Steve Lukather
Lover- ennifer Batten
How High the Moon- Katy Moffatt & Lenny Kaye
Vaya Con Dios- Alannah Myles & Lenny Kaye
Tennessee Waltz- Alannah Myles & Lenny Kaye
Mystery Train- James Burton
Rebel Rouser- Duane Eddy
Walk Don’t Run/Surf Rider- The Ventures
Caravan- The Ventures & Jeff “Skunk” Baxter
Wham!- Lonnie Mack
Scorpio- Dennis Coffey
Just Got Paid- Billy Gibbons
Great Hall of Fame/Wanted Dead or Alive- Richie Sambora
Jizz Da Pit/Vocalise- Slash
Blue Skies/I Can’t Get Started/Brazil/Somewhere Over the Rainbow/Tennessee Waltz/Sweet Georgia Brown- Les Paul & his Trio
Guitar Boogie- All
Posted by: Lauren Onkey, vice president of education and public programs, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame + Museum
