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BIOGRAPHY WRITTEN BY
Becky Marburger, PBS Wisconsin Education��EDITED BY�Beth Thayer, Hillsboro Elementary School, Hillsboro, WI
Christina Venn, Sheboygan Falls Elementary School, Sheboygan Falls, WI
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First edition ©2014. Revised edition ©2021 Wisconsin Educational Communications Board and The Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System
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Introduction | 4 |
Early Life | 5 |
Instruments and Experiments | 7 |
Hitting the Road | 10 |
Growing Career | 12 |
Conclusion | 15 |
Map | 18 |
“It’s your life. It’s up to you.” These are the words of encouragement Evelyn Polsfuss often spoke to her youngest son, Les. She believed in him and wanted Les to have the confidence to pursue his dreams. For Les, that dream was to discover a new sound. “I wanted sounds that had never been heard before on Earth.” Les did create new sounds, and his inventions and music paved the way for musicians today.
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Lester (Les) William Polsfuss. Photo courtesy of the Les Paul Foundation.
Lester William Polsfuss (who went by “Les”) was born on June 9, 1915, in Waukesha, Wisconsin. His father, George, worked at a car dealership and his mother, Evelyn, cared for their family. Evelyn often sang songs to Les and his older brother, Ralph, as she cleaned. She noticed how Les quickly learned to repeat the words and melodies.
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Evelyn and Les together. Photo �courtesy of the Les Paul Foundation.
Evelyn could tell Les was interested in music because he would also often watch her play the player piano. He punched holes in paper rolls and put them into the piano to try to make new sounds, and even took apart her radio to see how it worked.��She signed Les up for piano lessons, but the teacher sent him home after a few lessons with a note that said Les would never learn music and not to send him anymore. Little did the teacher know that Les would go on to make lots of music, and change the entire music industry.
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player piano (n): a self-playing piano that makes music by reading the holes punched in a spinning paper roll
Les got his first instrument when he was eight years old, but from a source you might not expect. A road worker was playing the harmonica while digging a ditch near Les’s home. Les loved watching him play, and so the worker gave him the harmonica.
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harmonica (n): a musical instrument; sound is made when the player inhales or exhales into it, vibrating the reeds inside
As a boy, Les worked as a newspaper carrier. A fellow carrier once told him how to make a crystal set radio. Les got a crystal and used a bedspring to make his own. When he was eleven years old, he earned enough money to buy his first guitar for $4.50 and taught himself to play. He wanted to play guitar and harmonica at the same time, so he made a harmonica holder from a wire coat hanger to wear around his neck.
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Les’s first invention was a harmonica holder. Photo courtesy of the Les Paul Foundation.
The budding musician began to perform for live audiences and earn tips. His mother gave him the stage name “Red Hot Red” because of his red hair. When he was thirteen years old, he formed a band called the Red Hot Ragtime Band.
The band did not have microphones. People in the back could not hear Les singing very well, so he made a microphone using a broom, a telephone, and radio speakers. Once, a man in the back sent Les a note saying he couldn’t hear his guitar. Les fixed this problem by sticking a phonograph needle inside his guitar. When Les played, the sound came out of the speaker that was hooked up to his instrument. He had created his own electric guitar.
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stage name (n): a name performers use that is not their legal name
When he was fifteen, he spent his summer break traveling with the Texas Cowboys, a country band. From that experience, Les knew that he wanted to make music his career. After discussing it with his mother, he left school at age seventeen and moved to St. Louis, Missouri to join a country radio band called the Scalawags. He changed his name from “Red Hot Red” to “Rhubarb Red” and played both guitar and harmonica with the Scalawags. The group had to call it quits, because the country went into the Great Depression, and the money to pay musicians to perform dried up. But this did not keep Les from making music.
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rhubarb (n): a plant with a thick pink or red stem and large green leaves�
Great Depression (n): a time period from 1929 through the 1930s when it was hard for people around the world to find a job or earn money
He formed a new band with Sunny Joe, one of his Scalawag bandmates, and together they played music and told jokes on a radio show. After two years, Les decided he wanted to play jazz, but Sunny Joe wanted �to stick with country music. The duo decided to split up, but remained friends.
Les changed his stage name from “Rhubarb Red” to �“Les Paul.” He played piano but did not earn enough money to support himself doing that, so he went back to guitar and formed a new jazz trio called the Les Paul Trio.
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The Les Paul Trio became a very popular jazz band. They played for famous singers like Bing Crosby (seated on the far left). Photo courtesy of the Les Paul Foundation.
Les moved to New York City with the Les Paul Trio. The group joined a larger band called the Pennsylvanians that had a half-hour national radio show.
The young inventor also continued to experiment with his electric guitar. He put guitar strings on a wood block. Then he cut a guitar in two and put the halves on each side of the block. Next, he added electricity. His new electric guitar made the sound he was looking for. He proudly named it the Log.
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Les asked the Gibson Guitar Company to manufacture the Log, but they refused. They didn’t like how it looked different from other guitars made at the time. Photo from Discovery World science+technology center. “Les Paul’s House of Sound.” Milwaukee, Wisconsin. 2014.
Les moved to California and formed a new trio in 1943 and continued inventing. He came up with a new tool called a multitrack recorder. His invention changed music recording in a big way. Before, an entire band had to play a song together and record all the instruments and vocals at the same time. But with the multitrack recorder, Les could record each instrument or vocal part separately and then put all the tracks together into a single song, just how he wanted them to be.
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multitrack recorder (n): a machine that enables a musician to record different single tracks and combine them into one recording
Les was asked to put together his own radio show. Since he needed a singer, he hired Iris Colleen Summers to sing and play guitar and had her use the stage name “Mary Ford.” The pair had a hit radio show and played many gigs. Television was becoming more popular than radio. The couple moved to New York City to star in their own television show called “The Les Paul and Mary Ford Show,” which aired from 1953 to 1960.
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Les and Mary performed for many people, including the Queen of England. Photo courtesy of the Les Paul Foundation.
The couple earned a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1960. Photo courtesy of the Les Paul Foundation.
During the 1950s, rock and roll became more popular than jazz. Les and Mary’s show was canceled. When Les stopped performing in 1965, he said he’d had enough of the lifestyle of a musician, but he didn’t stay out of the spotlight forever. In 1984 he formed a new Les Paul Trio and began playing in New York City. He performed a regular show every Monday night until he died on August 12, 2009.
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Les’ music and inventions are his legacy. Photo courtesy of the Les Paul Foundation.
Les Paul’s love of music started early on in his life and never left. It fueled his search for new sounds, new inventions, and new opportunities in the music world. Called the “Wizard of Waukesha” by musicians and music lovers today, his story is one that can inspire us to use what we love to guide our paths, and channel our creativity and curiosity to make changes in our world.
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