Les Paul Interview

Great stuff as usual in the Sept/Oct issue of Performing Songwriter. Here's guitarist Les Paul, 90 years old (!) and still gigging, still inventing in his garage. Here are highlights:

On performance:

Starting out as a country player and growing up playing to an audience, and realizing, when you make a record, what sells and what doesn't sell--I learned to give the people what they want. Stan Kenton and I used to have conversations about this. Stan would say, "I'm going to educate the people to good music. That's my goal in life." It was the opposite of my goal. My goal is not to teach anybody anything. Mine is to give them what they wish to hear, and something they can understand without having a book or having to study picking technique. I always wanted to entertain the people. They paid to get in. Give them their money's worth.

On technique:

The key to it is to say something with your instrument, so it's like a conversation. You're getting a message across. If the fellow you're speaking to is very intelligent, you can get more technical. But if he's not particularly intellectual, you realize this, and you don't try to educate the man, but you try to talk to him on his terms.

On simplicity:

Count Basie, the longer he was alive, the less notes he could play because of his illness. The less notes he played, the more he thought about playing the right note. The last time he performed, at the Grammy Awards, I was there. He was in a wheelchair, and we helped him up onto the ramp and got him to the piano. He put his left hand up, and he counted the band off, and they're playing like crazy. All of a sudden they break, and he hits one note. And I thought, "God almighty, that's the best note I ever heard."