Les Paul | Not Now Silly Newsroom

Hello, Headliners! Today’s birthday belongs to guitarist and innovator Les Paul. Here are some other Headlines Du Jour of yesteryear:

68 – The Roman emperor Nero commits suicide, after quoting Homer‘s Iliad, thus ending the Julio-Claudian dynasty and starting the civil war known as the Year of the Four Emperors.
1534 – Jacques Cartier is the first European to discover the Saint Lawrence River.
1650 – The Harvard Corporation, the more powerful of the two administrative boards of Harvard, is established. It is the first legal corporation in the Americas.
1732 – James Oglethorpe is granted a royal charter for the colony of the future U.S. state of Georgia.
1856 – 500 Mormons leave Iowa City, Iowa, and head west for Salt Lake City carrying all their possessions in two-wheeled handcarts.
1915 – William Jennings Bryan resigns as Woodrow Wilson‘s Secretary of State over a disagreement regarding the United States’ handling of the sinking of the RMS Lusitania.
1930 – A Chicago Tribune reporter, Jake Lingle, is killed during rush hour at the Illinois Central train station by Leo Vincent Brothers, allegedly over a $100,000 gambling debt owed to Al Capone.
1934 – Donald Duck makes his debut in The Wise Little Hen.
1954 – McCarthyism: Joseph Welch, special counsel for the United States Army, lashes out at Senator Joseph McCarthy during hearings on whether Communism
has infiltrated the Army giving McCarthy the famous rebuke, “You’ve
done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you
left no sense of decency?”
1958 – Queen Elizabeth II officially opens London’s Gatwick Airport in Crawley, West Sussex, United Kingdom.
1967 – Six-Day War: Israel captures the Golan Heights from Syria
1968 – U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson declares a national day of mourning following the assassination of Senator Robert F. Kennedy.
1973 – In horseracing, Secretariat wins the U.S. Triple Crown.
1978 – The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints opens its priesthood to “all worthy men”, ending a 148-year-old policy of excluding black men.

Here is today’s Headlines Du Jour:

RACE FOR THE WHITE HOUSE:

As he nears a 2016 bid, Louisiana’s Bobby Jindal
hits political bottom

Huckabee’s Answer to
Federal Records Hack:
Let’s ‘Hack China Back’

Don’t Worry, Mike Huckabee Is Still Proudly Endorsed by the Duggars

Lindsey Graham Calls Out Fellow Republican
Candidates Over Climate Change Views

Bush to call for closer economic, security ties with Europe

SO GLAD WE’RE LIVING IN A POST-RACIAL SOCIETY:

McKinney, Texas, and the Racial
History of American Swimming Pools

What role did race play in how
police handled Texas pool party chaos?

Activists Want Black Host Who Blamed
Teens For McKinney Pool Fight FIRED

‘Dinnertimin” and ‘No Tipping’: How Advertisers
Targeted Black Consumers in the 1970s

In an attempt to reach African American customers, many U.S. businesses
began integrating their commercials—often by relying on fraught stereotypes.

VIDEOS DU JOUR:

Headlines Du Jour is a leisure-time activity of Not Now Silly, home of the
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today’s open thread.

Not Now Silly celebrates the birth of the man that made it all possible: Lester William Polsfuss, better known as Les Paul.

Les Paul didn’t invent the guitar, which falls into the family of chordophones.Those go back several thousands of years to India and China. Modern descendants include the lute and violin, not to mention the guitar as we now know it.

Les Paul didn’t even invent the electric guitar. That happened in 1931 when George Beauchamp invented a magnetic pick-up for the Ro-Pat “Frying Pan” lap steel guitar. Les Paul didn’t get around to inventing his solid body electric guitar until 10 years later and even then it was just a 2×4 with the electronics hidden inside. It was so ugly, and Les received so many negative comments on it, he disguised it by hiding it in a dummy guitar.

Les Paul didn’t even invent overdubbing, although he perfected it and popularized the technique.

Yet, Les Paul is often credited with inventing all three. The New York Times 2009 obituary stated:

Mr. Paul was a remarkable musician as well as a tireless tinkerer.
He played guitar alongside leading prewar jazz and pop musicians from Louis Armstrong to Bing Crosby.
In the 1930s he began experimenting with guitar amplification, and by
1941 he had built what was probably the first solid-body electric
guitar, although there are other claimants. With his guitar and the
vocals of his wife, Mary Ford, he used overdubbing, multitrack recording
and new electronic effects to create a string of hits in the 1950s.

Mr.
Paul’s style encompassed the twang of country music, the harmonic
richness of jazz and, later, the bite of rock ’n’ roll. For all his
technological impact, though, he remained a down-home performer whose
main goal, he often said, was to make people happy.

Nothing I could write would explain it any better than the wonderful documentary “Chasing Sound,” which intercuts contemporary footage of Les Paul performing at the Iridium Jazz Club — which he did right up to his death at the age of 94 — with historic footage and music telling Les Paul’s life story. Watch:

I’ve also put together a Les Paul Jukebox for your listening pleasure:

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Tag Archives: Les Paul

Headlines Du Jour ► Tuesday, June 9, 2015

RACE FOR THE WHITE HOUSE:

SO GLAD WE’RE LIVING IN A POST-RACIAL SOCIETY:

TODAY IN CLIMATE CHANGE:

GIMME THAT OLD TIME RELIGION:

FREE THE WEED!!!

ANTI-SOCIAL MEDIA:

HACK ATTACKS:

OUR FUTURE ROBOT OVERLORDS:

ANOTHER EXCITING EPISODE OF COPS GONE WILD:

FOX “NEWS” IN THE NEWS AGAIN:

IN INNER SPACE:

IN OUTER SPACE:

VIDEOS DU JOUR:

Les Paul ► The Man Who Made Rock and Roll Possible