Stuff You Should Know - Les Paul & Leo Fender Part II

Episode Date: August 26, 2021

Today we continue the story of Les Paul and Leo Fender, inventors, innovators and rivals. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey friends when you're staying at an Airbnb you might be like me wondering could my place be an Airbnb and if it could what could it earn? So I was pretty surprised to hear about Lisa in Manitoba who got the idea to Airbnb the backyard guest house over childhood home now The extra income helps pay her mortgage. So yeah, you might not realize it But you might have an Airbnb to find out what your place could be earning at air bnb.ca Slash host hey, I'm Lance Bass host of the new I hard podcast frosted tips with Lance Bass Do you ever think to yourself? What advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation if you do you've come to the right place? Because I'm here to help and a different hot sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life

Tell everybody yeah, everybody About my new podcast and make sure to listen so we'll never ever have to say bye bye bye Listen to frosted tips with the Lance Bass on the I heart radio app Apple podcast or wherever you listen to podcasts Welcome to stuff you should know a production of I heart radio Hey and welcome to the podcast everybody, I'm Josh and there's Chuck and Jerry's out there running around somewhere And this is stuff you should know about Fender and less Paul part due

Should we recap real quick. Yeah, I think so it seems appropriate All right. Well where we left off with part one was Leo Fender lifelong engineer tinker and non musician Has made a career making amps and trying to figure out the problem with electric guitar feedback less Paul was a budding superstar guitar player and session player mm-hmm also tinker trying to figure out this problem of Amplifying the electric guitar without feedback. Okay, and they were introduced in 1947 Trying to figure this out together and then enters a third gentleman who may have had more to do With the invention of the solid body electric guitars. We know it then either one of them. Yeah for real

This is where things get a little bit shady little murky when Kerry Grant enters What's the guy's name his name is Bill Paul His name is Paul Bigsby and I've heard of the last name. I've seen those guitars before is it still are that is the company still around? Yeah, so here's the deal Bigsby is now Most well known for what's called the Bigsby tailpiece, which is he's the guy who kind of invented the whammy bar If you know nothing about guitars But you've ever seen like Eddie Van Halen play not all guitarists use these things But if you hit a note and then you reach below the guitar and grab that little steel bar and make it go wow wow wow wow

Wow, mm-hmm. That's a whammy bar Bigsby invented that and he is still most well known Like you can get a Bigsby tailpiece put on to a less Paul or an SG or You can't do it to offenders because they have their own I guess you could with a telecaster, but Any guitar without a whammy bar you could put on a Bigsby tailpiece. They're beautiful They look great, and that's what they're kind of most well known for today. Okay, gotcha, but at the time Bigsby was he was the oldest of so Leo Fender if you didn't realize was older than less Paul and Paul Bigsby was older than Leo Yeah, he had started out his career as a motorcycle racer then went on to start to make up Motorcycle parts I believe and then moved on to instruments and he

Was known to Leo Fender and that they were competitors because Bigsby also made electric steel Guitars at the time. I don't know if they were Friendly necessarily, but I do know that they definitely Worked together in Fender's workshop Kind of working on electric Instruments together, so I would guess you'd have to be somewhat friendly. It wasn't like, you know Macy's and Gimbles or anything like that, you know Yeah, I think I think that's about right Okay

So they definitely worked together at some point in time and they were friendly enough to do that and they're they were dedicated to creating that big electric sound out of a guitar And Bigsby if you ever have seen those the guitars that he made they were beautiful. They were it was a lot like Gibson They were artisan Just just crafted works of art basically One at a time kind of things exactly and so he already had Paul Bigsby already had a name for himself in that respect And he was hanging out at a radio station as guitar makers do in LA

KXLA which featured country music played live kind of like Grand Ole Opry stuff I guess and a country musician named Merle Travis was there I believe playing and Merle Travis a new Paul Bigsby at least by reputation and said hey You know, I heard you can build anybody whatever whatever they're looking for if I draw you a picture of a guitar Can you make it for me? And I guess Paul Bigsby said challenge accepted good sir and And We should probably fast forward about a month or two, huh? Yeah, and I just again I want to stress the fact that at one point in 1947

Les Paul Leo Fender and Paul Bigsby are all together in a garage and count in Southern, California Mm-hmm, and this is like I Mean it makes my mind explode to think about those three men in a room Together like working on something. Yeah, I mean like I'm trying to think of another industry where Like three separate top brains got together like this and I can't even think of a of anything to compare it to it be like if Steve Jobs Bill Gates and Yeah, all Gia Mati all got Couldn't think of it. Yes. Yeah

So anyway a very just special moment in history. So yeah He comes back a few months later Uh with this guitar Leo Fender is backstage at a show and Merle Travis is there playing And he pulls out this thing that uh, Paul Bigsby made And if you look up Merle Travis Bigsby guitar, this thing is beautiful It is a gorgeous guitar and looks like and is a real deal solid body electric guitar Yeah, and he pulls it out in front of Leo Fender. No less who said hey Merle. That's a pretty neat looking guitar there Uh, you mind if I get my hands on that for a little bit and just check it out. I want to see what it's all about

You know, I'm gonna do a little black prototype out of the way, right Uh, and Merle Travis was kind enough to let Leo Fender borrow it and Leo Fender and so so we should we should caveat this Supposedly Leo Fender where he alive today would be like no, no, that's not true. No, this is not correct But supposedly There are informed people who say yeah that Merle Travis let um That let Leo Fender take his guitar that Paul Bigsby had made for him back to Leo Fender's workshop and basically Have a reverse engineer session all over it Yeah, this is where it gets a little hinky because Leo Fender was a great man and a great inventor of things

Um, but what he was really really good at was improving things. He was like the Japanese Yeah, it's maybe and um They make some pretty good guitars too, I think right but they're well the Japanese are well known for taking something That's pretty cool and then just improving the heck out of it and like here's how you should do it. Yeah, exactly Uh, so yeah, I mean definitely a point in history sort of a crossroads where Some people are like Leo Fender stole this from Paul Bigsby And was able to mass produce it whereas Bigsby was intent on making these artisan pieces one by one and just got left in the dust

um There may be something to that if you look at the headstock for that original Bigsby guitar and you look at the headstock and the headstock is at The the very end of the neck where the strings end up and where the little tuning pegs are. Yeah It looks a lot like the Stratocaster headstock almost exactly like it and he denied kind of even Ganking that but in meetings at Fender later on there were higher-ups at Fender that said go out and make us something like that Bigsby

Like they literally said that so it's kind of undeniable at this point Um, he was even sued there was a lawsuit that Bigsby sent about the headstock Sure, and they basically said, you know, they were There were too many just sort of similar kinds of things before this so it's not going to hold water Well, not only that, um There there is some there are other similarities too. Like you talked about that little whammy bar uh, um The the Bigsby had one and it's called the Bigsby pure vibrato where basically you're

You're you're you're pushing pushing down on a bar. That's actually Manip I don't understand actually chuck what is manipulate. Maybe you should take this part All I know is that it affects the sound like wow, wow, wow, wow like that But I don't know the the the mechanism by which it does the wow, wow, wow, wow It's really easy because it's purely mechanical. It's the guitar bridge Is the part where you're if you're right-handed players where the right hand is and that's where the strings are rooted So what the whammy bar and what the Bigsby tailpiece did is It lifts up the back of the bridge and it literally manually loosens the guitar strings

Until you release it and then it snaps them back So if you press on it, it just it's literally loosening the guitar string enough to make it go Oh neat, okay And that's it and you remember when you do this around the pickup the the metal strings the steel strings affect the the electrical signal that's produced So if you're messing with the strings you're messing with the electrical signal and hence the sound Right. The other thing we should point out that Leo Fender probably kind of stole was The all the tuning pegs on the headstock are all on top and in one line

So if you look at telecasters and Stratocasters and that's sort of the Fender thing They're all in a row because it's just really easy to access them as a player whereas Gibson models were based on acoustic or Spanish guitars where there's three on one side and three on the other And in order to turn to tune those lower strings or I guess the higher strings You have to reach under and around And Leo Fender was I guess he saw this design was like hey, that's kind of brilliant actually to put them all on one side That's superior frankly. Yeah Yeah, so yeah, it's really tough to get around like if you put the

I've there's plenty of pictures out there if you put that first Bigsby Merle Travis guitar Next to the first guitar that Fender ever mass produced. It's pretty much the same thing in a lot of ways And so Yeah, I don't know. It was tough to swallow. But like you said the idea The idea of impugning Leo Fender's character Right It just doesn't it doesn't quite make sense because he was a great guy and he did do a lot for the industry And he founded Fender, which just that alone is pretty amazing too

But one of the things that he doesn't necessarily get credit for At least outside of like musicians circles, I'm guessing but Is is the bass that he created, right? Yeah, the precision bass Before the electric bass guitar the basses were all the big standard upright basses And they were a problem because they were huge. You either had to strap it to the strap it to the top of your car And you know, potentially have it get beat up by weather or you had to ride Separately from the rest of the band because that thing filled up the entire back seat

They were just big and bulky and hard to transport. So Leo Fender again was not the first Um, I got a paul tut mark Who worked on he was a big lap steel maker and he founded the audiovox company, which is still around Oh, yeah 15 years before the fender p bass the precision bass he invented What's generally known as the first electric solid body bass guitar? It just didn't take off like the precision

And again the p bass is called a precision because the upright bass doesn't have frets So if you knew how to play it, you know how to play it, but you couldn't be like go to the fourth fret You would just sort of I see not guess but you would generally know where it falls The electric bass guitar the p bass had frets. So they said it had more precision. So that's why they called it that But that's another thing that's easy to overlook too is like, you know, the electric guitar It's it's pretty different from like the electric Spanish guitar But it's still in the same general So it's like a progression from that the electric bass was like whole cloth and a new invention basically

And it changed everything too. I mean like I was reading an article. I think yeah that you sent from maybe pitchfork um where I was talking about like Just how much that changed things having that around like basically motown and then later on funk like like none of that would have existed without the electric bass and like um Um, like another one bites the dust and like pink floyd's dark side of the moon and like, you know, parliament Like all these like bands were predicated on the fact that there was like a nice slappy electric bass that um

You just couldn't get around you couldn't ignore it It became like a part of the band rather than just some background thing that was more visual than than audio or wait oral Yeah, because the upright bass kind of ended up having the same problem as the acoustic guitar and that once they had electric guitars That upright bass wouldn't really cut through live And so you had you know, the a song is driven by the rhythm section the the bass player and the drummer That's when you ever hear about the rhythm section. They they drive the heart of the song Everyone follows them

Like as much as you think is the guitar is out front It's not leading the band the the low end is what's actually leading the song And everyone else kind of falls in line with that because they're setting that beat with the bass and the drums But he's he's working on this and again not to get in the weeds with the amps, but this whole time He's making leaps and bounds Uh on amplification That works at really high volume with these fender amps Yeah, and then one of the other things that made fender really innovative was he um created

the He created like instruments for everyday people That was the big innovation for him like his company set out to create to bring this stuff to the masses So that you know Teenage kids could save up from like their after-school job and like buy one of these things and buy an amp and start a band And maybe actually get kind of good and it like I mean I hate to use this word because it's so overused these days But he kind of democratized starting a band Whereas before you had to you know

You're you had like a 20-piece band and you had to know all these people and you had to do dance halls and everything And now you could you could because everything was amplified and electrified you could get away with just you know three or four pieces and um Everybody could hear you and they could hear you louder than they could hear the big bands from before Because it was amplified, but it was affordable and he also made them really durable too Yeah, and it was because he introduced kind of like a factory process to it Whereas over at Gibson and rickenbacher and big speed. They were all still making these hands kind of Not one at a time, but they were making them by hand very slowly

uh One of the big reasons he was able to factoryize it was he started he was the basically the only company using a bolt-on neck Um, so in other words you take the neck and you literally screw it in to the body of the guitar on the back And that's why anytime you see a fender guitar on the back They have this little silver square plate where the neck meets the body and under that is where it's bolted together um Gibson and basically everyone else was using uh, what's called set neck which are glued on

And you might think that like hey bolting sounds a lot better than glue Yeah, but what glue does is that actually adheres it and makes it more like that log Almost like a through neck. It makes it part of the body And gives you more warmth and a little more sustain and It's just a bit of a different sound whereas a bolt-on guitar got a little more known for sort of being Kind of pluckier and you know, they both have their advantages. Some people swear by one or the other but Uh, neither like nowadays neither one of them is superior to the next really

It's just sort of two different methods. Gotcha. I got you But I could also see that bolt almost represents that mass production to yeah, for sure so chuck, um, leo fenders working on that, um big we'll call it big's be inspired design And at the same time, um less paul Uh is about to have a life changing experience in oklahoma of all places, right? Yeah, so he Well, like I said, it was not a good husband to

Either his first wife or his second really. Uh, he had a long time affair with a woman her with her stage name of mary ford She was a singer and also a champion guitar player Uh, and they had a duo going on it was less paul and mary ford and they had tons and tons of number one hit records And uh, they had been together for quite a few years before he even got divorced from his first wife But in 1948 while traveling, I think back to la from wisconsin They were in a really bad car accident on the icy roads of uh near davinport, oklahoma And it was a a really really bad wreck that could have killed both of them

Um, yeah, so, um, they were both thrown from the car along with all their equipment Um, and from what I understand mary's injuries weren't nearly as bad as les's Um, his spleen was all messed up a bunch of other stuff But the big problem for less paul was that his right elbow was shattered and at first the doctors Said well, we're gonna have to amputate your arm and that obviously would have been that for his guitar playing days Yeah, um, apparently when he was faced with this news one of the first things he started doing was um, coming up with how to Create um, an effect where you could play a guitar one-handed

Um, but he luckily didn't ever have to actually follow through and invent that because uh, some doctor was aware of his His status and that he played guitar and like that. He just They couldn't take his arm. So he said about trying to figure out how to solve the problem While keeping his arm and allowing less paul to somehow play one way or another Yeah, I mean he basically gave less paul the choice. He was like you can either amputate it or we can try this procedure Where we kind of screw your arm back together and we don't know if it'll work And he said but it's gonna be permanently bent in some kind of direction

And less paul said why don't we at least try it? First so we know if it works before we cut the arm off and he said and just Bend it and point it toward my belly button and leave it there. Yeah So he could play guitar and that's what they did and for the rest of less paul's life Like if you ever see a picture of less paul that right arm is bent Yeah, and the doctor just to put a little flourish on it made it so that his thumb was always in the thumbs up position So it always looked like less paul was really happy about whatever was going on when that picture was taken All right, so that's where less paul is he recovers

It literally takes him about a year in the hospital to fully recover from his injuries So he's on pause when leo fender builds The fender esquire guitar and debuts it at the 1950 national association of music merchants That's a convention in chicago. I say we take a break here and then we come back and talk about that and keep going How about that? It sounds great Okay, we'll be right back Hey everybody when you're staying at an airbnb you might be like me wondering could my place be an airbnb

And if it could what could it earn? So I was pretty surprised to hear about lauren and novus scotia who realized she could airbnb her cozy backyard tree house And the extra income helps cover her bills and pays for her travel So yeah, you might not realize it, but you might have an airbnb too find out what your place could be earning at airbnb.ca Slash host hey, i'm lance bass host of the new i hard podcast frosted tips with lance bass The hardest thing can be knowing who to turn to when questions arise or times get tough or you're at the end of the road Ah, okay. I see what you're doing. Do you ever think to yourself? What advice would lance bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation?

If you do you've come to the right place because i'm here to help this. I promise you oh god Seriously, I swear and you won't have to send an sos because i'll be there for you Oh, man, and so will my husband michael. Um, hey, that's me. Yep, we know that michael and a different hot sexy teen crush boybander Each week to guide you through life step by step not another one Kids relationships life in general can get messy. You may be thinking this is the story of my life Just stop now if so tell everybody you everybody About my new podcast and make sure to listen so we'll never ever have to say bye bye bye Listen to frosted tips with the lance bass on the iHeart radio app apple podcast or wherever you listen to podcasts

I'm mongesh aticular and to be honest I don't believe in astrology, but from the moment I was born it's been a part of my life in india It's like smoking you might not smoke But you're gonna get secondhand astrology and lately I've been wondering if the universe has been trying to tell me to stop running and pay attention Because maybe there is magic in the stars if you're willing to look for it So I rounded up some friends and we dove in and let me tell you It got weird fast

Tantric curses major league baseball teams cancelled marriages kpop But just when I thought I had to handle on this sweet and curious show about astrology My whole world came crashing down situation doesn't look good. There is risk to father And my whole view on astrology It changed Whether you're a skeptic or a believer, I think your ideas are going to change too Listen to skyline drive and the iHeart radio app apple podcast or wherever you get your podcasts All right, chuck so um, so leo fender takes his um

um, paul bigsby inspired guitar Uh and creates a prototype out of it that's known as the esquire And I think there's some differences between the esquire and what would become later known as a telecaster, right? It's not the exact same thing just with a different name Uh, yeah, I mean, I think there was only one pickup and the tele ended up having a couple But it was when you look at pictures of the esquire. It's the same body shape very utilitarian Not the most comfortable guitar to play

Which we'll see later on was kind of a big deal in the creation of the stratocaster But it was a real deal guitar and it was loud. It was clear. It could be mass produced And everybody basically said this is the future. Yeah, he's at the national association of music merchants convention going Hey, you like you like this? You like this guitar? And they all said yes very much. So he went back after the convention and kind of tinkered with it a little more He had a collaborator named george fullerton And they ended up producing from the esquire

There were a couple of problems with it apparently from the steel strings when they were tuned tightly Eventually the neck would start to warp a little bit. Yeah, that's a big problem So they figured out how to reinforce that with the rod and they solved some other small problems and then ended up coming up with The broadcaster, right? That's right A guy we should mention here is I think dav called him his marketing sales guy. It's true. He was that don randall But he was leo fender's 50 50 partner in the fender music corporation

And a huge huge part of the story that we really won't get into but don randall was there the whole time and and sort of Was everything that leo fender wasn't as far as when you're looking for a good business partner Um out there hitting the bricks selling this thing Drumming up deals and the broadcaster You know the ads came out and he's got that first cease and desist from Uh gretch the they made drums and guitars and there was actually a drum set called the broadcaster with a k It sounds like a sound you make when you burp and choke at the same time Yeah

Broadcaster no gretch Oh I misread that one. Sorry, you know broadcaster with a k sounds evil remember. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah Um gretch still makes beautiful guitars and great drums, but they had a drum set with a k Uh, so they said all right. We got to think of a different name And so tv was the latest thing and so they literally called it the telecaster because of that I know and people were like boy. Howdy. I love this They did so that was a big deal the telecaster was I guess the first mass produced

Widely available electric guitar solid body electric guitar that Shredded that you could shred on I guess. Yeah, it kind of started it all. Yeah. And so, um Les Paul by this time, uh, he had gotten in that car wreck in 1948. You said it took him about a year to recover Um, he got divorced from his wife. He ended up marrying mary ford um and Together they actually his his music career got even even greater than it was when he was working with bing crossby Yeah, um, this is when they had four

Slots on the billboard top charts, uh, at one time on one week. That's enormous. They were the first to do it I'm sure maybe some others like michael jackson the beetles and a couple others have done it since but They really kind of gets across just how huge les paul was as a popular musician, right? Yeah Mary was great and um, everyone loved her. She had a beautiful voice Uh, again, he was not a good husband to her. He was Uh, eventually when they got divorced, uh, it was on grounds of cruelty was one of them because He was just a a workaholic and would never stop and he would not let her stop and she was like where

They were really really wealthy at this point from their career and She was like, can we enjoy life a little bit? Can we stop and and live and he was like, no, like we're not getting anything accomplished if we're doing that and the stage uh act was a little I mean, I guess for the time it was what it was, but it was kind of misogynistic. He would make cracks about About mary, you know singing in between doing the dishes and And kind of you know making him dinner and she would sort of laugh and it was their banter But it was just the whole thing was kind of gross in retrospect

Yeah, for sure, especially today and then the cats on the unicycles with the sparklers. It was just widely considered to be over the top Yeah way over the top. So um, but because leo knew les paul I mean, like you said they they and paul bigsby were all working in a garage together working on electric guitars Like he knew him. He was friendly with them enough so that um Leo fender and don randall said, you know If we could get les paul who's like the most well known guitar player in the world To endorse our fender guitars. This would be a huge deal Huge so they sent him a telecaster and with a note saying like hey, this is where I'm going

I'd like you to to consider coming here with me something along. I'm paraphrasing. Um, and uh, Les paul was like Nah, that's all right. I don't really like this guitar that much Yeah, I think he was fairly kind about it. But he just said the sound is too bright. I had that bolt on neck And you know, it's a different sound and he didn't like it and remember like that was the whole reason He dedicated himself to coming up with the electric guitar and cracking this code for a decade or more a couple decades by then Because he wanted to he was searching for that one perfect sound And so that actually he didn't give up the quest after fender said, you know, here's my guitar and it didn't work

Um Les paul despite having been turned away by gibson a full decade before Went back to gibson and said hey You guys have to listen to me this time like it's this is this is where things are going Leo fenders just come out with this telecaster Like it's very clear that you guys need to be developing a solid body electric guitar And gibson said funny you should mention that because we've been working on it ever since we saw that esquire at that music convention And it knocked our socks off. That's right. So they were kind of already on it

They Worse different they were they were sort of modeled after those acoustics with the tuning pegs on both sides the gibson guitar was really heavy and that's It's funny later on many many guitar players started with what would end up being the les paul air clapton and the and keith richards and All these people played the les paul early on and a lot I think uh, pete townson and they all eventually switch to fenders later in their career because the les paul

Ways between nine and ten pounds and the strats and telly's weigh about seven pounds And that's a big difference two or three pounds strapped on your back when you're touring is a big deal Like I can tell a difference when I play a heavy guitar You know being 50 years old in my basement after a few hours So I can imagine what like touring year after year what it what kind of toll that takes for sure for sure But this gibson was heavy it had that glued on neck which gives you a little more warmth a little more resonance and

It was a really good guitar and so they say to les paul like now he's being courted by gibson officially like hey What do you think of this? We will let this be your guitar. We will slap your name on it We'll give you a five percent royalty And you've got to play it exclusively and he said the done deal my friends Yeah, because he was like like he'd always only played gibson. He loved gibson. This is like a dream come true for him You know And for them to also to come back to him now

Um, I had to had to feel awfully sweet Yeah, but it was so stupid too because this is a decade after he went to them with this idea the first time And now they're finally getting around to it, but it was a big deal. So les paul now played Gibson guitars exclusively and they named that first model the lebson the gibson les paul Yeah, I wonder if in that meeting he said can also tell people that I uh I designed and invented this thing because that's what I'm gonna do for the rest of my life. Just so you're cool Yeah, which which is really something because he apparently didn't there's a guy named, uh, I think paul mccarty George mccarty. I think George mccarty. I'm sorry. I'm pretty sure his his name is george mccarty

Um, he was the president of gibson at the time. His last name is mccarty. Let's just call him that or mr. X mr. X was the president of gibson at the time and he um largely designed the guitar but yeah, they kind of let I guess as part of the endorsement deal they let um Les paul just basically claim it like he'd had a lot to do with it He made some tweaks, um For sure, but he he never designed the les paul that that is also a fact, right? And he did not invent the electric guitar. A lot of people still say that les paul invented the electric guitar And he was always happy to just sort of nod his head

right All right, chuck. So like by the by the mid fifties by the early fifties Um fender had the telecaster out Um gibson had their les paul model out. So there were now Widely available electric guitars being produced and that that sounded awesome like this sound had finally been achieved loudness charity shreddingness gnarliness all of that stuff

Was now extant in the world did not exist before now it did But the the one that really changed everything the the electric guitar that changed at all was um fenders If not their second model, they're definitely their second well-known model the strata caster, right which came out in 1954 Yeah, this was a huge innovation because the problems with the tele is that it Uh, like I said, it was it was it wasn't rounded. It wasn't sharp and I'm talking about the edges of it It was you know, it kind of dug into your body and wasn't super comfortable So leo fender does what he does which is make improvements like the japanese and he got into the back of it and he

He carved out where the top of the back of the guitar meets your belly He shaved that down to where it was contoured and then where your right arm if you're a right hand player Your pick hand where it Where your forearm kind of rests on the top front of the guitar He carved that down too and contoured it So your arm and your belly weren't pressed against these sharp edges And it was just a more comfortable guitar all the way around it had a it had a cool look this was a time in the early 50s mid 50s when

You know these these cars has had these big fins on them and everything just had this sort of look like It's hard to describe what the how weird the Stratocaster And how sort of modern and futuristic it looked at the time Because we all just see that as like oh, that's what a guitar looks like exactly But at the time it was revolutionary and everyone literally was like what in the world is that hot looking thing Yeah, one of the other things that made it look hot those fins had a purpose the horns at the top of the guitar Where the neck met the body It carved out space so you could get your fingers to press those frets on the higher notes

A lot more easily than you could have before when you were reaching all the way around it Which again allowed for great of shredding That's right and the the fenders did those on both sides Whereas the Les Paul was only carved on the underside so you could still get to some strings, but it took a little bit of finagling Later on Les Paul would come up and I have one of these two What's called the double cut where it's cut on both sides and the Gibson SG Which is cut on both sides, but originally it was just Fender doing that and then the Les Paul did something That just did away with that all together and made the coolest guitar of all time the Flying V

Which is the one I always associated with heavy metal and by Les Paul, of course, I mean Gibson, but that that That's the one like Jimi Hendrix played that one like I can't remember like a bunch of people played it. You've seen this before but it looks like a strat Well, he also played a flying V. I've seen it. I've seen pictures out of it on the internet um, but the the um, like it's what you associate with like like just Just rocking out with a guitar and it turns out the thing was designed in 1958 It's one of the most mind-blowing facts I learned in this podcast

I couldn't believe it because I associated with 80s hair metal And um, it's been it would it had been around for a good 30 years by then and it Like the 50s is when this thing came out. It's like the coolest looking guitar of all time for my money No, I love the flying V and I'll probably own one at one point At some point you should look up reverse flying V because they are one of the ugliest guitars Yeah, I've seen that before But yeah, Gibson was tinkering around they made the flying V and they made the explorer Which is the one that's kind of looks like a lightning bolt

And then the firebird and those all did okay, but they they weren't like You know and leo fender did the same thing after the Stratocaster success He came up with the jazz master and the jaguar and he thought these were all improvements on those guitars Because they added a lot more options for switches and switching and additional pickups, but they were I mean, they're kind of cool now, but they were a little busy for a lot of players back then So they didn't take off like the strat did it was just this utilitarian really comfortable Players guitar that everyone really wanted after buddy holly jumped on tv

And and played one because buddy holly was huge Yeah, he was huge and he was actually bigger in the uk than he was in america at the time. Oh, yeah Um and I didn't realize to see this is another fact of the podcast There were two tours of the uk in 1958 that changed music history I just think it's so cool But one was buddy holly who buddy holly and the crickets went on tour in 1958 with the stratocaster front and center And then muddy waters Came to the uk and muddy waters had been around for years by then

He actually was just kind of like an old relic in america by then But it was super cool in the 60s in the uk to be into old style blues So they brought muddy waters over and muddy waters didn't show up with the spanish style guitar He showed up with the stratocaster and blared it then those two tours Produced bands like the Beatles the who the rolling stones led zeppelin um like basically every band in the british invasion Were in the audience as kids or slightly younger

Men For those two tours and were inspired to go on and form some really amazing bands afterward Yeah, it was funny. It was kind of like either you were in the Beatles camp where You saw buddy holly and you wanted to do sort of upbeat pop music Or you were eric clapton going to see muddy waters and you wanted to do this sort of raunchy blues rock thing, right? But either way it was a stratocaster front and center And uh, another well, I guess we should take a break now before we get to the next guy, right? All right, let's do it. All right. We'll take our final break and talk about surf guitar legend dick dale right after this

Splim Hey friends when you're staying at an airbnb you might be like me wondering could my place be an airbnb and if it could What could it earn? So I was pretty surprised to hear about lisa in manitoba who got the idea to airbnb the backyard guest house over childhood home Now the extra income helps pay her mortgage. So yeah, you might not realize it But you might have an airbnb too find out what your place could be earning at airbnb dot ca slash host Hey, i'm lance bass host of the new i hard podcast frosted tips with lance bass The hardest thing can be knowing who to turn to when questions arise or times get tough or you're at the end of the road

Oh, okay. I see what you're doing. Do you ever think to yourself? What advice would lance bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do you've come to the right place because i'm here to help this. I promise you. Oh god Seriously, I swear and you won't have to send an sos because I'll be there for you Oh, man. And so my husband michael um, hey, that's me. Yep We know that michael and a different hot sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life Step by step. Oh, not another one. Uh-huh kids relationships life in general can get messy You may be thinking this is the story of my life. Just stop now. If so, tell everybody you everybody

About my new podcast and make sure to listen so we'll never ever have to say bye. Bye. Bye. Bye Listen to frosted tips with lance bass on the i heart radio app apple podcast or wherever you listen to podcasts I'm mangueh shatikah there and to be honest, I don't believe in astrology But from the moment I was born it's been a part of my life in india It's like smoking you might not smoke but you're gonna get secondhand astrology and lately I've been wondering if the universe has been trying to tell me to stop running and pay attention Because maybe there is magic in the stars if you're willing to look for it So I rounded up some friends and we dove in and let me tell you

It got weird fast Tantric curses major league baseball teams cancelled marriages k-pop But just when I thought I had to handle on this sweet and curious show about astrology My whole world can crash down situation doesn't look good. There is risk to father And my whole view on astrology It changed Whether you're a skeptic or a believer. I think your ideas are going to change too. Listen to skyline drive and the i heart radio app apple podcast or wherever you get your podcasts

All right, so all these people are being influenced uh by people like buddy holly and muddy waters Then comes a gentleman named dick dale in the 1950s He's a great guy He's a great guy He's a great guy He's a great guy He's a great guy He's a great guy

He's a great guy He's a great guy He's a great guy He's called dick dale in the 1950s Uh, the you know, everyone knows him now, of course is the the head of the surf guitar surf music movement And that was big. That wasn't just like a Sort of like oh, some people are listening to that. That was like the the most popular form of music for a little while in the 1950s And dick dale's thing was he wanted

He was the first guy to really want enormous amounts of volume Like more than just like let me amplify this so it can cut through He wanted to blow people's eardrums out, and he actually accidentally blew out Leo Fender's eardrum When they were working together trying to figure out this problem Leo Fender bent down and said he thinks he hears a hum. He said don't play for a minute He literally put his ear on the amplifier speaker and no one knows what happened If he bumped the guitar or something but cranked all the way up, which is how you would listen for a buzz or a hum

He literally destroyed one of Leo Fender's ears. So now he's down to one ear and one eye Yeah, Leo Fender famously clutched his ears and went Gretch my ears They said hey, we'll see you for that. It's like Marty McFly getting blown across the room and Doc. Yeah sort of is but he was a huge huge influence on Achieving volume for rock bands that would come along later. I actually saw him in Athens You know Toward not toward the end of his life because he just died a few years ago, but it was saw him at the 40 watt

It was amazing. That's awesome. I'll bet that was very cool show. Yeah supposedly he inspired Jimmy Hendrix He was like a guitar god himself for sure an overlooked one I saw and I think an article you sent that it he's not in the rock and roll Hall of Fame Which is like the kookiest thing I've heard in a while. It's ridiculous weird Yeah, so he's playing the strat the Beach Boys are playing vendors We have to shout out legendary session bass player Carol K sure a woman among men who played the Fender precision bass Bonnie Ray Yeah, I mean if you think of just about any popular song from the 1950s and 60s There's probably about a 75% chance that Carol K played bass on it. Oh Nita

Yeah, every Motown song every Beach Boys that record like you name it. Wow, that's really cool. I hadn't heard of her Yeah, it wasn't there's a great documentary called the wrecking crew Mm-hmm about these legendary studio musicians who basically played all that stuff like the Beach Boys didn't play their instruments on the records It was the wrecking crew be quiet Don't tell me things like that. I'm sorry Brian Wilson's a genius, but he played bass on stage Carol K played bass in the studio Okay, so Leo Fender. Well, here's the thing about him. Remember we said that he was a tinkerer and engineer Those guys don't translate to head of Highly successful and grow quickly growing company very well, right?

They tend to get a little stressed out and overwhelmed and that's exactly what happened to good old Leo He apparently had ulcers which has nothing to do with stress as we learned thanks to the guinea pig scientists who drank a bunch of That bacteria to prove that it was caused by a bacteria rather than stress, right? Anyway, so he tried to sell out in the early 60s. I believe yeah, and I guess Randall didn't accept it What do you why why not? I think they had been partners for so long at Randall It seems like genuinely thought like you don't understand the value of this company asking for a million dollars. Yeah, and so he started Cording other companies. He courted Baldwin to sell the whole company. He courted eventually CBS CBS CBS records And they ended up paying what would be the equivalent of a hundred and ten million dollars

for the Fender music corporation and Don Randall and Leo Fender each got checks For five million bucks, which is about fifty something million dollars today. That's amazing. Wow. Don Randall was great Great guy to have in your corner, huh? He really was And they were friends and I think you know Leo also had this he was just always in bad health He had this and I had never heard of this be it a case of strep that apparently literally never went away Like he had it for years and years and years And was always sick for a week sucks, but I can't imagine having a chronic case of strep

Yeah, so he I think part of the terms of the deal was there were two parts of the company that were Brand new that didn't make any money. They actually lost money, which was the Fender Rhodes electric piano Which everyone was like what the heck is this of course now? It's amazing And then the Fender acoustic division which really never did take off like I mentioned earlier And part of the deal was that they had to include those Even though they weren't profitable as he said fine And then they had to keep Leo on for five years as a consultant which they were happy to do And I think he couldn't do anything else with anyone

I think he had a non-compete for ten years, but he would go on later to start new companies even after that and he died in 1991 He's lived a pretty pretty good life pretty good long life got to tinker for a pretty long time Ended up being a wealthy man and really kind of like became one of the people who's known as the inventor of the electric guitar for better or worse And bless Paul's story kind of took a slightly different turn Than Leo Fender's Leo wanted to fade into the background that decision was made for less Paul not necessarily In conjunction with his wishes his innovations with electric guitar his and Leo Fender's

Creation and introduction of electric guitars changed music like we saw Created rock and roll or led the the found bait and created the foundation that rock and roll was built on And all the kids said we don't really like less Paul's music anymore So this yeah created this monster that ended up swallowing him basically And he kind of faded off into into nothingness there for a little while. He's gonna become This obscure incredibly wealthy guy Yeah, he got divorced from Mary like I said earlier He ended up getting custody of the kids, which was just crazy at the time

And that was kind of the only thing she wanted. It was a really ugly kind of public divorce it was very sad and he You know I mentioned the Gibson SG earlier the solid guitar They made that to be lighter and to kind of compete with these that was originally called the Gibson less Paul SG and Eventually he didn't like it at all. So they took his name off of it. And then it was just the Gibson SG and Yeah, he just kind of faded away. He he lived to be 92 I mean he had a great life like you said as a wealthy guy who he would always play these live kind of small club gigs in New York and

Very famous people like slash would stop through and everyone would come through to play with less ball And he would regale people's stories and it wasn't like a sideshow act He just he couldn't fill large halls anymore. Basically. Yeah, but he you know, he he got the recognition that he I'm sure liked. I mean, he seemed like a pretty good guy as long as you weren't married to him but he He's known as like the guitar gods guitar god I saw put somewhere that like if you are a guitar player a guitar hero You look up to less Paul for what he did not just with creating or helping to create or at least saying that he created the

Electric guitar but also for all the other innovations that he really did invent like multi-track recording and sound on sound You know Yeah, and just to sort of button up the story of the guitar itself They only made them in 59 and 60 and I'm sorry 58 59 and 60 made 2400 of these and after muddy waters is when people like Eric Clapton and Pete Townsend and Like kind of any big English guitar player at the time played less Paul's Mm-hmm. Remember how I was saying at the very beginning in the first episode how when Fender was up Less Paul was down on the other way around

The strat kind of changed the world and then the strat became kind of uncool for a little while in the 60s when all these guys started playing the the less Paul Jimmy Page, of course and People are like wait a minute. We need less Paul's like there was only 2400 of them So they started making them again by popular demand and I think 60 something Yeah, 68 and they never went out of production again. Yeah, 68 they start making them again and since then it's you know There are plenty of people who have both but

The question sort of always unless you play like an off like like a rick and buck or something people are always like you Gibson person or Or a Fender person sure and I'm a Gibson person always happened That's neat well less Paul ended up he died in 2009 But he ended up being the only person to date who has been inducted in both the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the National Inventors Hall of Fame Which is pretty cool pretty amazing great story That's it the story of the solid-body electric guitar as told through the eyes of Leo Fender and less Paul the end Thanks for indulging me on this. It was a good one man. I was nice to hear you just so just jazzed like a precision jazz bass Well after 13 years, it was we finally tackled something. I knew something

Well if you want to know more about the electric guitar go pick one up see what happens and maybe you'll start your own shredding rock band yourself And since I said shredding rock band, of course, it's time for listener mail You know what let's not do a listener mail today What unless we we do this occasionally where we will not do listener mail and ask people for a favor We do this like once every three years. Yeah, never been good at self-marketing But we like to call out occasionally for people to go on iTunes or your pod player of choice leave reviews Leave ratings it helps us out. I don't care how long we've been around We still need people saying positive hopefully positive things about us out there

So instead of listener mail just do us a favor tell a friend about us tell a relative tell a co-worker That they might hate us or love us Well done, that's why we only do this at once every three years. That's right. So clunky. Well, like Chuck said We would love it if you left us a review specifically a positive one, but whatever, you know speak from your heart How about that? That's what Josh and Chuck think you should do and in the meantime if you want to get in touch with us as well As always you can send us an email to stuff podcast at I heart radio calm Stuff you should know is a production of I heart radio for more podcasts my heart radio visit the I heart radio app Apple podcasts or wherever you listen to your favorite shows

Hey, I'm Lance Bass host of the new I heart podcast frosted tips with Lance Bass Do you ever think to yourself? What advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands? Give me in this situation if you do you've come to the right place because I'm here to help and a different hot Sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life tell everybody you everybody About my new podcast and make sure to listen So we'll never ever have to say bye bye bye Listen to frosted tips with Lance Bass on the I heart radio app Apple podcast or wherever you listen to podcasts. I'm Munga Shatikler and it turns out astrology is way more widespread than any of us want to believe you can find in major league baseball

International banks k-pop groups even the White House, but just when I thought I had a handle on this subject Something completely unbelievable happened to me and my whole view on astrology changed whether you're a skeptic or a believer Give me a few minutes because I think your ideas are about to change too Listen to skyline drive on the I heart radio app Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcasts Do you love movies? Well, I have the podcast for you. Hey there This is Mike D from movie Mike's movie podcast your go-to source for all things movies each episode explores a different movie Topic plus spoiler-free reviews on the latest streaming and movies in theaters You'll also get interviews with actors and directors to take a look behind the scenes of your favorite movies listen to new episodes of movie

Mike's movie podcast every Monday on the Nashville podcast network available on the I heart radio app Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcasts?