113-493: The NAMM Oral History Program is an oral history project and archive of recordings of interviews with people from all aspects of the music products industry, including music instrument retailers , musical instrument and product creators, suppliers and sales representatives, music educators and advocates, publishers , live sound and recording pioneers, innovators, founders, and musicians . Established in 2000 by NAMM: The International Music Products Association to preserve
226-661: A "key inductee" with Sam Phillips and Alan Freed . Paul is the only inductee in both the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the National Inventors Hall of Fame . Paul was born Lester William Polsfuss in Waukesha , Wisconsin, to George and Evelyn (Stutz) Polsfuss, both of German ancestry. Paul's mother was related to the founders of Milwaukee 's Valentin Blatz Brewing Company and the makers of
339-543: A "revolutionary in the music business". The Edge said, "His legacy as a musician and inventor will live on and his influence on rock and roll will never be forgotten." On August 21, 2009, he was buried in Prairie Home Cemetery, Waukesha, Wisconsin . A few of Les Paul's many awards are listed below. In 2007, he was given the National Medal of Arts from U.S. President George W. Bush . Paul
452-403: A Long, Long Time ", which was a No. 1 hit in 1945. Paul recorded several albums for Decca in the 1940s. The Andrews Sisters hired his trio to open for them during a tour in 1946. Their manager, Lou Levy, said watching Paul's fingers while he played guitar was like watching a train go by. Their conductor, Vic Schoen , said his playing was always original. Maxine Andrews said, "He'd tune into
565-483: A common construction material often referred to as a “4×4 stud post”, which provided a unique neck-thru design. The “stud post” (a 4″ × 4″ section of Douglas fir ) was then equipped with a crude bridge and an electromagnetic pickup , neck and strings. The Log was constructed by Paul after-hours in the New York City Epiphone guitar factory, and is one of the first solid-body electric guitars. For
678-436: A day, five days a week, and therefore was used as a brief interlude or fill-in for programming schedules. Since Paul created the entire show himself, including audio and video, he maintained the original recordings and was in the process of restoring them to current quality standards until his death. During his radio shows, Paul introduced the fictional " Les Paulverizer " device, which multiplies anything fed into it, such as
791-484: A discipline has fairly low barriers to entry, so it is an act in which laypeople can readily participate. In his book Doing Oral History , Donald Ritchie wrote that "oral history has room for both the academic and the layperson. With reasonable training... anyone can conduct a useable oral history." This is especially meaningful in cases like the Holocaust, where survivors may be less comfortable telling their story to
904-441: A featured spot with Fred Waring's radio show . Chet Atkins later wrote that his brother, home on a family visit, presented him with an expensive Gibson archtop guitar that Les Paul had given to Jim. Chet recalled that it was the first professional-quality instrument he ever owned. While jamming in his apartment basement in 1941, Paul nearly succumbed to electrocution. During two years of recuperation, he moved to Chicago where he
1017-465: A few years, pianist John Colianni . Paul, Pallo and Nowinski also performed at Fat Tuesdays . Composer Richard Stein sued Paul for plagiarism, charging that Paul's " Johnny (is the Boy for Me) " was taken from Stein's 1937 song "Sanie cu zurgălăi" (Romanian for "Sleigh with Bells"). In 2000, a cover version of "Johnny" by Belgian musical group Vaya Con Dios that credited Paul prompted another action by
1130-584: A flurry of methodological discussions as Palestinian oral history research reached its zenith in the latter quarter of the 20th century. Some of these researchers published their recommendations in manuals specifically designed to standardize and inform oral history research within the Palestinian context. Notable Palestinian oral history projects include the American University of Beirut 's Palestinian Oral History Archive ( POHA ), and
1243-491: A focus on national leaders in the United States, but has expanded to include groups representing the entire population. In Britain, the influence of 'history from below' and interviewing people who had been 'hidden from history' was more influential. In both countries, elite oral history has emerged as an important strand. Scientists, for example, have been covered in numerous oral history projects. Doel (2003) discusses
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#17327975270911356-522: A full virtual museum with intense use of oral history. Czech oral history began to develop beginning in the 1980s with a focus on social movements and political activism. The practice of oral history and any attempts to document stories prior to this is fairly unknown. The practice of oral history began to take shape in the 1990s. In 2000, The Oral History Center (COH) at the Institute of Contemporary History, Academy of Sciences, Czech Republic (AV ČR)
1469-621: A guitar sound or a voice. It was Paul's way of explaining how his single guitar could be multiplied to become a group of guitars. The device even became the subject of comedy, with Ford multiplying herself and her vacuum cleaner with it so she could finish the housework faster. Later, Paul created a real Les Paulverizer that he attached to his guitar. The invention allowed Paul to access pre-recorded layers of songs during live performances so he could replicate his recorded sound on stage. In 1965, Paul went into semi-retirement, although he did return to his studio occasionally. He and Ford had divorced at
1582-441: A hotel room. The show appeared on television a few years later with the same format, but excluding the trio and retitled Les Paul & Mary Ford at Home with "Vaya Con Dios" as the theme song . Sponsored by Warner–Lambert 's Listerine mouthwash , it was aired on NBC television during 1954–1955, and then was syndicated until 1960. The five-minute show, consisting of the performance of only one or two songs, aired five times
1695-550: A journalist than they would be to a historian or family member. In the United States, there are several organizations dedicated to doing oral history which are not affiliated with universities or specific locations. StoryCorps is one of the most well-known of these: following the model of the Federal Writers’ Project created as part of the Works Progress Administration , StoryCorps’ mission
1808-534: A key figure in the Kawai Musical Instruments Manufacturing Company . The collection's interviews also include factory workers and salespeople who worked for music product manufacturers or sold the products those companies produced. The collection includes interviews from Music product retailers , covering the history of such music store chains as Guitar Center and Sam Ash , as well as independent music stores around
1921-403: A large pick that was easier to hold in his arthritic hand. In 2006, at the age of 90, he won two Grammy Awards at the 48th Annual Grammy Awards for his album Les Paul & Friends: American Made World Played . He also performed every Monday night at Manhattan's Iridium Jazz Club with guitarist Lou Pallo, bassist Paul Nowinski (and later, Nicki Parrott ), and guitarist Frank Vignola and for
2034-504: A lesson plan that encourages the study of local community history through interviews. By studying grassroots activism and the lived experiences of its participants, her high school students came to appreciate how African Americans worked to end Jim Crow laws in the 1950s. Mark D. Naison (2005) describes the Bronx African American History Project (BAAHP), an oral community history project developed by
2147-526: A meld of jazz and country improvisation with guitar virtuoso Chet Atkins , backed by some of Nashville 's celebrated studio musicians. In 1969 Paul produced the album Poe Through the Glass Prism for RCA. The album featured songs based on Edgar Allan Poe's writing by the northeastern Pennsylvania band the Glass Prism. The album produced a single titled "The Raven" that appeared on Billboard's Hot 100. As years progressed Paul played at slower tempos with
2260-487: A neck-worn harmonica holder, which allowed him to play both sides of the harmonica, hands-free, while performing on the banjo and guitar. Les Paul's hands-free design is still widely manufactured today. By age thirteen, Paul was performing semi-professionally as a country-music singer, guitarist, and harmonica player. While playing at Waukesha area drive-ins and roadhouses , Paul began his first experiment with sound. Wanting to make his acoustic guitar heard by more people at
2373-630: A professor of psychology at the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago, traveled to Europe to record long interviews with "displaced persons"—most of them Holocaust survivors. Using the first device capable of capturing hours of audio—the wire recorder —Boder came back with the first recorded Holocaust testimonials and in all likelihood the first recorded oral histories of significant length. Over some forty years, Fran Leeper Buss interviewed marginalized women such as Jesusita Aragon ,
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#17327975270912486-571: A public voice to neglected groups, such as women, illiterates, political leftists, and ethnic minorities. In 1987, at Universidade De Santiago de Compostela, Marc Wouters and Isaura Varela started an oral history project focused on the Spanish Civil War, exile, and migration. The project explored victims of the war and the Francoist Dictatorship and includes 2100 interviews and 800 hours of audio. Oral history began with
2599-551: A teen he had built a disc-cutter assembly using the flywheel from a Cadillac , a dental belt and other parts from his father's car repair shop. Years later in his Hollywood garage, he used the acetate disc setup to record parts at different speeds and with delay, resulting in his signature sound with echoes and birdsong-like guitar riffs. In 1949, Crosby gave Paul one of the first Ampex Model 200A reel to reel tape recorders . Paul invented sound on sound recording using this machine by placing an additional playback head, located before
2712-585: A traditionally trained midwife, and Maria Elena Lucas a migrant farm worker activist, using transcripts of the interviews to write their life stories. Many state and local historical societies have oral history programs. Sinclair Kopp (2002) reported on the Oregon Historical Society 's program. It began in 1976 with the hiring of Charles Digregorio, who had studied at Columbia with Nevins. Thousands of sound recordings, reel-to-reel tapes, transcriptions, and radio broadcasts have made it one of
2825-687: A vehicle for "history from above" from Malaysia and Singapore. In terms of "history from below", various oral history initiatives are being undertaken in Cambodia in an effort to record lived experiences from the rule of the Khmer Rouge regime while survivors are still living. These initiative take advantage of crowdsourced history to uncover the silences imposed on the oppressed. Two prominent and ongoing oral history projects out of South Asia stem from time periods of ethnic violence that were decades apart: 1947 and 1984. The 1947 Partition Archive
2938-490: A written work (published or unpublished) based on such data, often preserved in archives and large libraries . Knowledge presented by Oral History (OH) is unique in that it shares the tacit perspective, thoughts, opinions and understanding of the interviewee in its primary form. The term is sometimes used in a more general sense to refer to the study of information about past events that witnesses told anybody else, but professional historians usually consider this to be
3051-501: Is a relatively recent development. Since the 1960s, oral history has been accorded increasing attention on institutional and individual levels, representing "history from above" and "history from below". In Oral History and Public Memories, Blackburn writes about oral history as a tool that was used "by political elites and state-run institutions to contribute to the goal of national building" in postcolonial Southeast Asian countries. Blackburn draws most of his examples of oral history as
3164-459: Is not working as hard. The result is a singing style which diverged from the unamplified theater style of the musical comedies of the 1930s and 1940s. They also performed music-hall style semi-comic routines with Mary mimicking whatever line Les decided to improvise. Paul hosted a 15-minute radio program, The Les Paul Show , on NBC Radio in 1950, featuring his trio (himself, Ford and rhythm player Eddie Stapleton) and his electronics. The program
3277-508: Is one of the important aspects to the technology-based oral historiography. These made it easier to collect and disseminate oral history since access to millions of documents on national and international levels can be instantaneous. Since the early 1970s, oral history in Britain has grown from being a method in folklore studies (see for example the work of the School of Scottish Studies in
3390-492: Is partly attributed to the development of information technology, which allowed a method rooted in orality to contribute to research, particularly the use of personal testimonies made in a wide variety of public settings. For instance, oral historians have discovered the endless possibilities of posting data and information on the Internet , making them readily available to scholars, teachers, and ordinary people. This reinforced
3503-612: Is the Lewis Walpole Library in Farmington, Connecticut , a department of the University Library of Yale . Historians , folklorists , anthropologists , human geographers , sociologists , journalists , linguists , and many others employ some form of interviewing in their research. Although multi-disciplinary, oral historians have promoted common ethics and standards of practice, most importantly
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3616-588: Is thought to signal that the field of oral history studies in China has finally moved into a new phase of organized development. From 2003 to 2004, Professors Marianne Kamp and Russell Zanca researched agricultural collectivization in Uzbekistan in part by using oral history methodology to fill in gaps in information missing from the Central State Archive of Uzbekistan. The goal of the project
3729-458: Is to record the stories of Americans from all walks of life. On contrast to the scholarly tradition of oral history, StoryCorps subjects are interviewed by people they know. There are a number of StoryCorps initiatives that have targeted specific populations or problems, following in the tradition of using oral history as a method to amplify voices that might otherwise be marginalized. The development of digital databases with their text-search tools
3842-753: The British Library Sound Archive in the oral history collection. In one of the largest memory project anywhere, The BBC in 2003-6 invited its audiences to send in recollections of the homefront in the Second World War. It put 47,000 of the recollections online, along with 15,000 photographs. Alessandro Portelli is an Italian oral historian. He is known for his work which compared workers' experiences in Harlan County, Kentucky and Terni, Italy. Other oral historians have drawn on Portelli's analysis of memory, identity, and
3955-662: The New Jersey Hall of Fame (2010). Two of his songs entered the Grammy Hall of Fame : " How High the Moon " and " Vaya Con Dios ". In 1976, he and Chet Atkins received the Grammy Award for Best Country Instrumental . In 2005, he won Best Pop Instrumental for "Caravan" and Best Rock Instrumental for "69 Freedom Special." In 1983, Paul received a Grammy Trustees Award for lifetime achievement. In 2001, he
4068-698: The Oral History Society has played a key role in facilitating and developing the use of oral history. A more complete account of the history of oral history in Britain and Northern Ireland can be found at "Making Oral History" on the Institute of Historical Research 's website. The Bureau of Military History conducted over 1700 interviews with veterans of the First World War and Irish revolutionary period in Ireland. The documentation
4181-649: The Palestinian Oral History Map , Columbia University 's Oral History Project in New York , Duke University 's Palestinian Oral History Project, the Palestinian Rural History Project (PRHP), Palestine Remembered , and Zochrot . The rise of oral history is a new trend in historical studies in China that began in the late twentieth century. Some oral historians, stress the collection of eyewitness accounts of
4294-492: The Stutz automobile. His parents divorced when he was a child. His mother simplified their Prussian family name first to Polfuss, then to Polfus, although Les Paul never legally changed his name . Before taking the stage name Les Paul, he performed as Red Hot Red and Rhubarb Red. At the age of eight, Paul began playing the harmonica. After learning the piano, he switched to the banjo and guitar. During this time, Paul invented
4407-501: The Works Progress Administration (WPA)—sent out interviewers to collect accounts from various groups, including surviving witnesses of the Civil War, slavery, and other major historical events. The Library of Congress also began recording traditional American music and folklore onto acetate discs . With the development of audio tape recordings after World War II, the task of oral historians became easier. In 1946, David P. Boder ,
4520-467: The master . This was the first time he used multitracking in a recording. His early multitrack recordings, including "Lover" and "Brazil", were made with acetate discs . He recorded a track onto a disk, then recorded himself playing another part with the first. He built the multitrack recording with overlaid tracks rather than parallel ones as he did later. By the time he had a result that satisfied him, he had discarded some five hundred recording disks. As
4633-630: The 1934 Chicago World's Fair. While in Chicago, Paul learned jazz from the great performers on Chicago's Southside. During the day, he played country music as Rhubarb Red on the radio. At night, he was Les Paul, playing jazz. He met pianist Art Tatum , whose playing influenced him to continue with the guitar rather than play jazz on the piano. His first two records were released in 1936, credited to "Rhubarb Red", Paul's hillbilly alter ego. He also served as an accompanist for other bands signed to Decca . During this time, he began adding different sounds and adopted his stage name of Les Paul. Paul's guitar style
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4746-432: The 1950s) to becoming a key component in community histories. Oral history continues to be an important means by which non-academics can actively participate in the compilation and study of history. Practitioners in a wide range of academic disciplines have also developed the method into a way of recording, understanding, and archiving narrated memories. Influences have included women's history and labour history. In Britain,
4859-553: The 1960s and '70s, influenced by the rise of new social history, interviewing began to be employed more often when historians investigated history from below . Whatever the field or focus of a project, oral historians attempt to record the memories of many different people when researching a given event. Interviewing a single person provides a single perspective. People misremember events or distort their accounts for various reasons. By interviewing widely, oral historians seek points of agreement among many different sources, and also record
4972-631: The Andrews Sisters . In January 1948, Paul shattered his right arm and elbow among multiple injuries in a near-fatal automobile accident on an icy Route 66 west of Davenport , Oklahoma . Mary Ford was driving the Buick convertible, which plunged off the side of a railroad overpass and dropped twenty feet into a ravine. They were returning from Wisconsin to Los Angeles after visiting family. Doctors at Oklahoma City's Wesley Hospital told Paul that they could not rebuild his elbow. Their other option
5085-867: The Bronx County Historical Society. Its goal was to document the histories of black working- and middle-class residents of the South Bronx neighborhood of Morrisania in New York City since the 1940s. Katharina Lange studied the tribal histories of Syria . The oral histories in this area could not be transposed into tangible, written form due to their positionalities, which Lange describes as "taking sides". The positionality of oral history could lead to conflict and tension. The tribal histories are typically narrated by men. While histories are also told by women, they are not accepted locally as "real history". Oral histories often detail
5198-943: The Creating Emerging Markets project, which "explores the evolution of business leadership in Africa, Asia, and Latin America throughout recent decades" through oral history. "At its core are interviews, many on video, by the School's faculty with leaders or former leaders of firms and NGOs who have had a major impact on their societies and enterprises across three continents." There are now numerous national organizations and an International Oral History Association , which hold workshops and conferences and publish newsletters and journals devoted to oral history theory and practices. Specialized collections of oral history sometimes have archives of widespread global interest; an example
5311-963: The Les Paul Foundation, which was designed to remain dormant until his death. The Les Paul Foundation aims to inspire innovative and creative thinking by sharing the legacy of Les Paul through support of music education, recording, innovation, and medical research related to hearing. The Foundation established the Les Paul Innovation Award in 1991 and the Les Paul Spirit Award in 2016. On August 12, 2009, Paul died of complications from pneumonia at White Plains Hospital in White Plains, New York . After hearing about his death, many musicians commented on his importance. Slash called him "vibrant and full of positive energy", while Richie Sambora called him
5424-642: The Log, served as inspiration for the Gibson Les Paul . Paul taught himself how to play guitar, and while he is mainly known for jazz and popular music, he had an early career in country music. In the 1950s, he and his wife, singer and guitarist Mary Ford , recorded numerous records, selling millions of copies. Paul is credited with many recording innovations. His early experiments with overdubbing (also known as sound on sound ), delay effects such as tape delay, phasing , and multitrack recording were among
5537-1037: The NAMM Foundation's Museum of Making Music as lead interviewer. The first NAMM Oral History interview, with professional harmonica player Bill Walden, was conducted on March 5, 2000 at the Museum of Making Music's opening day. The NAMM Oral History Program seeks to capture one-on-one interviews with those involved with the music products industry to document and preserve the evolution of musical instruments and music retail, and improve music education worldwide. Interview subjects include but are not limited to: music instrument designers, manufacturers, and retailers, composers, arrangers, and publishers, recording and live sound engineers, and musicians. The collection includes interviews with people from over 80 different countries and all 50 U.S. states, born between 1903 and 2001. Musical instrument pioneers and founders of companies that manufacture music products have been interviewed for
5650-497: The Romanian Musical Performing and Mechanical Rights Society. Les Paul married Virginia Webb in 1937. They had two children, Les Paul Jr. (Rusty) (1941–2015), and Gene (1944), who was named after actor-songwriter Gene Lockhart . After getting divorced in 1949, Paul married Mary Ford (born Iris Colleen Summers). The best man and matron of honor were the parents of guitarist Steve Miller , whose family
5763-596: The SG), but then still bearing the Les Paul name. Not liking the new look and severe problems with the strength of the body and neck, made Paul dissatisfied with this new Gibson guitar. This, and a pending divorce from Mary Ford , led to Paul ending his endorsement and use of his name on Gibson guitars from 1964 until 1966, by which time his divorce was completed. Paul continued to suggest technical improvements, although they were not always successful commercially. In 1962, Paul
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#17327975270915876-604: The Study of Totalitarian Regimes . Their oral history project Memory of Nation was created in 2008 and interviews are archived online for user access. As of January 2015, the project has more than 2100 published witness accounts in several languages, with more than 24,000 pictures. Other projects, including articles and books have been funded by the Czech Science Foundation (AV ČR) including: These publications aim to demonstrate that oral history contributes to
5989-730: The Victorian Community History Awards held annually to recognise the contributions made by Victorians in the preservation of the state's history, published during the previous year. In 1948, Allan Nevins , a Columbia University historian, established the Columbia Oral History Research Office, now known as the Columbia Center for Oral History Research , with a mission of recording, transcribing, and preserving oral history interviews. The Regional Oral History Office
6102-427: The accessibility of tape recorders in the 1960s and 1970s led to oral documentation of the era's movements and protests. Following this, oral history has increasingly become a respected record type. Some oral historians now also account for the subjective memories of interviewees due to the research of Italian historian Alessandro Portelli and his associates. Oral histories are also used in many communities to document
6215-594: The agency as the Astrobiology Program, and to collect the oral histories of women in NASA . Contemporary oral history involves recording or transcribing eyewitness accounts of historical events. Some anthropologists started collecting recordings (at first especially of Native American folklore ) on phonograph cylinders in the late 19th century. In the 1930s, the Federal Writers' Project —part of
6328-459: The attaining of the " informed consent " of those being interviewed. Usually this is achieved through a deed of gift , which also establishes copyright ownership that is critical for publication and archival preservation. Oral historians generally prefer to ask open-ended questions and avoid leading questions that encourage people to say what they think the interviewer wants them to say. Some interviews are "life reviews", conducted with people at
6441-538: The benefit of his expertise. His experiments included microphone placement, track speed, and recording overdubs. These methods resulted in a clarity previously unheard in this type of multitrack recording. People began to consider his recording techniques as instruments—as important to production as a guitar, bass, or drums. Capitol Records released " Lover (When You're Near Me) ", on which Paul played eight different parts on electric guitar, some recorded at half-speed, hence "double-fast" when played back at normal speed for
6554-576: The collection include Afrika Bambaataa , Grand Wizzard Theodore , DJ Jazzy Joyce , Grandmaster Caz , and Jazzy Jay . Over the years the scope of the collection has expanded to include audio engineers such as Grand Ole Opry engineer Kevin McGinty, SoundGirls executive director Karrie Keyes , and the "Father of Festival Sound" Bill Hanley , as well as pro audio pioneers such as Al Schmitt and George Massenburg , whose involvement with professional audio equipment and recording studios has helped
6667-1088: The collection include electronic music pioneer Morton Subotnick and former Yes guitarist and film composer Trevor Rabin . A wide variety of musicians from different musical eras and genres are included in the collection, including recording pioneer Les Paul , blues legend and Rock and Roll Hall of Fame member B.B. King , Country Music Hall of Fame members Emmylou Harris and Roy Clark , rock musician Lita Ford , Ike Turner , Steve Miller , John Waite , and Jason Mraz . The collection also includes interviews with Herbie Hancock , Keith Emerson , Rick Wakeman , and 27-time Grammy Award -winning artist Chick Corea , as well as big band leader and former Glenn Miller Orchestra member Ray Anthony , jazz drummer Joe Morello , Elvis Presley guitarist Scotty Moore , Wrecking Crew Drummer Hal Blaine , Sun Studio session drummer J. M. Van Eaton , Johnny Cash and Carl Perkins drummer W. S. Holland , guitarist Brian Setzer , percussionist and singer Sheila E. , and A. R. Rahman . Interviews with pioneering hip-hop artists and DJs in
6780-438: The collection, including Moog Music founder Bob Moog , Roland and Boss founder Ikutaro Kakehashi , Korg co-founder Tsutomu Katoh, Orange founder Clifford Cooper, guitar innovator Ted McCarty , Taylor Guitars co-founder Bob Taylor, Remo founder Remo Belli , Roger Linn , Tom Oberheim , Ray Kurzweil , Henry E. Steinway of Steinway & Sons , Meyer Sound Laboratories co-founder Helen Meyer, and Hirotaka Kawai,
6893-419: The complexity of the issues. The nature of memories is as much a part of the practice of oral history as are the stories collected. Les Paul Lester William Polsfuss (June 9, 1915 – August 12, 2009), known as Les Paul , was an American jazz , country , and blues guitarist, songwriter, luthier , and inventor. He was one of the pioneers of the solid-body electric guitar, and his prototype, called
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#17327975270917006-668: The construction of history. As of 2015 , since the government-run historiography in modern Belarus almost fully excludes repression during the epoch when Belarus was part of the Soviet Union , only private initiatives cover the oral memories of the Belarusians. Citizens' groups in Belarus use the methods of oral history and record narrative interviews on video; the Virtual Museum of Soviet Repression in Belarus presents
7119-481: The conventional erase/record/playback heads. This allowed Paul to play along with a previously recorded track, both of which were mixed together onto a new track. The Ampex was a monophonic tape recorder with only one track across the entire width of quarter-inch tape, and therefore, the recording was "destructive" in the sense that the original recording was permanently replaced with the new, mixed recording. He eventually enhanced this by using one tape machine to play back
7232-499: The end of 1964 after she became tired of touring. One of Paul's most recognizable recordings from then through the mid-1970s was an album for London Records / Phase 4 Stereo , Les Paul Now (1968), on which he updated some of his earlier hits. Paul played the initial guitar track, and George Barnes laid down the additional tracks while Paul engineered in his home studio. He also recorded two albums, Chester and Lester (1976) and Guitar Monsters (1978), for RCA Victor , comprising
7345-404: The end of their careers. Other interviews focus on a specific period or a specific event in people's lives, such as in the case of war veterans or survivors of a hurricane. Feldstein (2004) considers oral history to be akin to journalism, Both are committed to uncovering truths and compiling narratives about people, places, and events. Felstein says each could benefit from adopting techniques from
7458-407: The evolution of a major federal agency. The collection consists primarily of oral histories conducted by scholars working on books about the agency. Since 1996, it has included oral histories of senior NASA administrators and officials, astronauts, and project managers, part of a broader project to document the lives of key agents. Launius emphasizes efforts to include such less-well-known groups within
7571-459: The experiences of survivors of tragedies. Following the Holocaust , there has emerged a rich tradition of oral history, particularly of Jewish survivors. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum has an extensive archive of over 70,000 oral history interviews. There are also several organizations dedicated specifically to collecting and preserving oral histories of survivors. Oral history as
7684-468: The first to attract widespread attention. His licks , trills , chording sequences, fretting techniques, and timing set him apart from his contemporaries and inspired many guitarists of the present day. Among his many honors, Paul is one of a handful of artists with a permanent exhibit in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame . He is prominently named by the music museum on its website as an "architect" and
7797-561: The history of the music products industry as well as improve music education worldwide, the program includes over 5,000 audio or video interviews available to the public via online streaming. In 1996, NAMM established the NAMM Resource Center to preserve the history of the music products industry. In 2000 the Oral History Program was founded, with Dan Del Fiorentino, NAMM Music Historian and former curator of
7910-533: The inaugural Jazz at the Philharmonic concert in Los Angeles , California , on July 2, 1944. His solo on " Body and Soul " is a demonstration of his admiration for and emulation of Django Reinhardt, as well as his development of original lines. Also that year, Paul's trio appeared on Bing Crosby's radio show. Crosby sponsored Paul's recordings. They recorded together several times, including " It's Been
8023-611: The industry grow. Additionally the collection contains interviews with such producers as Quincy Jones , Matt Ross-Spang , and Stax Records executive Al Bell. In 2017, NAMM launched the Music History Project podcast covering interviews and topics from the NAMM Oral History program. The NAMM Oral History Service Award was established in 2011 and recognizes the major contributions of those who have been interviewed themselves and who have strongly supported
8136-557: The largest collections of oral history on the Pacific Coast. In addition to political figures and prominent businessmen, the Oregon Historical Society has done interviews with minorities, women, farmers, and other ordinary citizens, who have contributed extraordinary stories reflecting the state's cultural and social heritage. Hill (2004) encourages oral history projects in high school courses. She demonstrates
8249-432: The lives and feats of ancestors. Genealogy is a prominent subject in the area. According to Lange, the oral historians often tell their own personalized genealogies to demonstrate their credibility, both in their social standing and their expertise in the field. Oral sources have established themselves as a vital, diverse, and adaptable source of information for the study of Palestinian history. Researchers benefited from
8362-569: The local venues, he wired a phonograph needle to his guitar and connected it to a radio speaker. As a teen Paul experimented with sustain by using a 2-foot piece of rail from a nearby train line. At age seventeen, Paul played with Rube Tronson's Texas Cowboys, and soon after he dropped out of high school to team up with Sunny Joe Wolverton's Radio Band in St. Louis , Missouri, on KMOX . Paul and Wolverton moved to Chicago in 1934, where they continued to perform country music on radio station WBBM and at
8475-519: The material contributions of oral studies to studies examining a wide range of topics, including folktales, food and clothing , linguistics and toponymy , genealogy , agricultural activities, and religious cult . Furthermore, due to the dearth of extant indigenous documentation , oral histories continue to play a crucial role in Palestinian academics' continuous efforts to narrate significant moments in Palestine's history. Researchers engaged in
8588-842: The method. Because of repression in Francoist Spain (1939–75), the development of oral history in Spain was quite limited until the 1970s. It became well-developed in the early 1980s, and often had a focus on the Civil War years (1936–39), especially regarding the ones who lost the war and whose stories had been suppressed. At the University of Barcelona, Professor Mercedes Vilanova was a leading scholar, who combined oral history with her interest in quantification and social history. Barcelona scholars sought to integrate oral sources with traditional written sources to create mainstream, not ghettoized, historical interpretations. They sought to give
8701-410: The microphone is less than 6 inches (15 cm) from the singer's mouth. This produces a more intimate, less reverberant sound than when a singer is 1 foot (30 cm) or more from the microphone. When using a pressure-gradient (uni- or bi-directional) microphone, it emphasizes low-frequency sounds in the voice due to the microphone's proximity effect and gives a more relaxed feel because the performer
8814-508: The music industry with his New Sound in 1948. Paul recorded several songs with Bing Crosby, most notably " It's Been a Long, Long Time ," which was a number-one single in 1945. After a recording session, Bing Crosby suggested that Paul build a recording studio so he could produce the sound he wanted. Paul started his studio in the garage of his home on North Curson Street in Hollywood. The studio drew many vocalists and musicians who wanted
8927-412: The original recording and a second to record the combined track. This preserved the original recording. In 1952, Paul invented the flange effect , wherein two recordings of the same sound run slightly asynchronously, causing phase cancellations that sweep through the frequency range. The first example of this can be heard on his song "Mammy's Boogie". Observing film recordings inspired Paul to design
9040-504: The other. Journalism could benefit by emulating the exhaustive and nuanced research methodologies used by oral historians. The practice of oral historians could be enhanced by utilizing the more sophisticated interviewing techniques employed by journalists, in particular, the use of adversarial encounters as a tactic for obtaining information from a respondent. The first oral history archives focused on interviews with prominent politicians, diplomats, military officers, and business leaders. By
9153-438: The passages we were singing and lightly play the melody, sometimes in harmony. We'd sing these fancy licks and he'd keep up with us note for note in exactly the same rhythm... almost contributing a fourth voice. But he never once took the attention away from what we were doing. He did everything he could to make us sound better." In the 1950s, when he recorded Mary Ford's vocals on multiple tracks, he created music that sounded like
9266-969: The program by providing historical context and suggesting others to be included. The award is presented at the NAMM Show each year by the NAMM CEO and the NAMM Music Historian. The list of winners is as follows: Oral history Oral history is the collection and study of historical information from people, families, important events, or everyday life using audiotapes, videotapes, or transcriptions of planned interviews . These interviews are conducted with people who participated in or observed past events and whose memories and perceptions of these are to be preserved as an aural record for future generations. Oral history strives to obtain information from different perspectives and most of these cannot be found in written sources. Oral history also refers to information gathered in this manner and to
9379-580: The role scientists played in shaping US policy after World War II. Interviews furthermore can provide road maps for researching archives, and can even serve as a fail-safe resource when written documents have been lost or destroyed. Roger D. Launius (2003) shows the huge size and complexity of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) oral history program since 1959. NASA systematically documented its operations through oral histories. They can help to explore broader issues regarding
9492-411: The sake of appearance, he attached the body of an Epiphone hollow-body guitar sawn lengthwise with The Log in the middle. This solved his two main problems: feedback , as the acoustic body no longer resonated with the amplified sound, and sustain, as the energy of the strings was not dissipated in generating sound through the guitar body. These instruments were constantly being improved and modified over
9605-489: The stacking of eight tape recorders. He worked with Ross Snyder on the design of the first eight-track recording deck built for him by Ampex for his home studio. Rein Narma built a custom 8-channel mixing console for him. The mixing board included in-line equalization and vibrato effects. He named the recorder "The Octopus" and the mixing console "The Monster". The name "octopus" was inspired by comedian W. C. Fields , who
9718-588: The stage name Mary Ford . They married in Milwaukee in 1949. Their hits included " How High the Moon ", " Bye Bye Blues ", "Song in Blue", "Don'cha Hear Them Bells", " The World Is Waiting for the Sunrise ", and " Vaya con Dios ". The songs were recorded with multiple tracks where Ford harmonized with herself and Paul played multiple layers of guitars. They used the recording technique known as close miking where
9831-525: The stories of Indigenous Australians and others involved in or affected by the child removals resulting in the Stolen Generations . Other contributors included missionaries , police and government administrators. There are now many organisations and projects all over Australia involved in recording oral histories from Australians of all ethnicities and in all walks of life. Oral History Victoria support an annual Oral history award as part of
9944-503: The study of oral tradition or traditional oral history due to the source receiving the information aurally. It is believed that the term oral history originates with Joe Gould , a homeless man living in New York City who solicited donations by claiming that he was working on a massive manuscript called "An Oral History of Our Time", which he said consisted of thousands of recorded conversations on various topics. Although he
10057-558: The understanding of human lives and history itself, such as the motives behind the dissidents' activities, the formation of opposition groups, communication between dissidents and state representatives and the emergence of ex-communist elites and their decision-making processes. Oral history centers in the Czech Republic emphasize educational activities (seminars, lectures, conferences), archiving and maintaining interview collections, and providing consultations to those interested in
10170-525: The use of oral interviews by scholars as primary sources, He lists major oral history projects in the history of science begun after 1950. Oral histories, he concludes, can augment the biographies of scientists and help spotlight how their social origins influenced their research. Doel acknowledges the common concerns historians have regarding the validity of oral history accounts. He identifies studies that used oral histories successfully to provide critical and unique insight into otherwise obscure subjects, such as
10283-499: The viability of oral history since the new modes of transmission allowed history to get off archival shelves and reach the larger community. Oral historians in different countries have approached the collection, analysis, and dissemination of oral history in different modes. There are many ways of creating and studying oral histories even within individual national contexts. According to the Columbia Encyclopedia :,
10396-519: The words and deeds of important historical figures and what really happened during those important historical events, which is similar to common practice in the west, while the others focus more on important people and event, asking important figures to describe the decision making and details of important historical events. In December 2004, the Chinese Association of Oral History Studies was established. The establishment of this institution
10509-592: The world such as Andertons Music Co. in England, Daynes Music in the U.S., and Tom Lee Music in Hong Kong. Other interviews include key figures in music product retailing, such as Henry Goldrich of Manny's Music and George Gruhn of Gruhn Guitars . Interviews with songwriters within the collection include interviews with Songwriters Hall of Fame members Allee Willis and Marilyn Bergman , and folk singer and songwriter Pete Seeger . Composers interviewed for
10622-606: The years, and Paul continued to use them in his recordings even after the development of his eponymous Gibson model. Paul approached the Gibson Guitar Corporation with his idea of a solid-body electric guitar in 1941, but Gibson showed no interest until Fender began marketing its Esquire and Broadcaster guitars in 1950 (the Broadcaster was renamed the Telecaster in 1952). Gibson's Ted McCarty
10735-412: Was amputation . Paul was flown to Los Angeles, where his arm was set at an angle—just over 90 degrees—that allowed him to cradle and pick the guitar. It took him nearly a year and a half to recover. In 1940, Les Paul revisited his experiments with the train rail. This time he created a similar prototype instrument, a one-off solid-body electric guitar known as "The Log", which was manufactured utilizing
10848-708: Was a lecturer at Stanford University in California. The project focuses on interviews with members of the Sikh diaspora in the U.S. and Canada, including the many who migrated after the 1984 massacre of Sikhs in India. Hazel de Berg began recording Australian writers, artists, musicians and others in the Arts community in 1957. She conducted nearly 1300 interviews. Together with the National Library of Australia , she
10961-824: Was a pioneer in the field in Australia, working together for twenty-seven years. In December 1997, in response to the first recommendation of the Bringing Them Home : Report of the National Inquiry into the Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children from Their Families report, the Australian Government announced funding for the National Library to develop and manage an oral history project. The Bringing Them Home Oral History Project (1998–2002) collected and preserved
11074-448: Was established with the aim of "systematically support the development of oral history methodology and its application in historical research". In 2001, Post Bellum , a nonprofit organization, was established to "documents the memories of witnesses of the important historical phenomenons of the 20th century" within the Czech Republic and surrounding European countries. Post Bellum works in partnership with Czech Radio and Institute for
11187-608: Was founded in 1954 as a division of the University of California, Berkeley's Bancroft Library . In 1967, American oral historians founded the Oral History Association , and British oral historians founded the Oral History Society in 1969. In 1981, Mansel G. Blackford , a business historian at Ohio State University , argued that oral history was a useful tool to write the history of corporate mergers. More recently, Harvard Business School launched
11300-584: Was founded in 2010 by Guneeta Singe Bhalla, a physicist in Berkeley, California, who began conducting and recording interviews "to collect and preserve the stories of those who lived through this tumultuous time, to make sure this great human tragedy isn't forgotten". [1] The Sikh Diaspora Project was founded in 2014 by Brajesh Samarth, senior lecturer in Hindi-Urdu at Emory University in Atlanta, when he
11413-616: Was from Milwaukee . Paul was Miller's godfather and his first guitar teacher. Ford gave birth to their first child on November 30, 1954, but the girl was born prematurely and died when she was four days old. They adopted a girl, Colleen, in 1958, and their son, Robert (Bobby), was born the following year. Paul and Ford divorced in December 1964. Paul and Ford maintained a house in Mahwah, New Jersey , and after their divorce Ford lived there until her death in 1977. In 1995, Paul established
11526-581: Was further developed by others, most successfully Ned Steinberger . A less-expensive version of the Les Paul guitar is manufactured for Gibson's Epiphone brand. Paul first experimented with sound on sound while in elementary school when he punched holes in the piano roll for his mother's player piano . In 1946, his mother complimented him on a song she had heard on the radio, when in fact she had heard George Barnes, not Paul. This motivated Paul to spend two years in his Hollywood garage recording studio, creating his unique sound, his New Sound. Paul stunned
11639-585: Was honored with the Special Merit/ Technical Grammy Award , which recognizes "individuals or institutions that have set the highest standards of excellence in the creative application of audio technology," a select award given to masters of audio innovation including Thomas Alva Edison , Leo Fender , and Beatles recording engineer Geoff Emerick . In 2004, he received an Emmy Lifetime Achievement Award in Engineering and
11752-642: Was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame (2005) for his development of the solid-body electric guitar. In 1988, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame by guitarist Jeff Beck , who said, "I've copied more licks from Les Paul than I'd like to admit." He was also inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame (2005), the Big Band & Jazz Hall of Fame (1990), the New Jersey Inventors Hall of Fame (1996), and
11865-474: Was issued U.S. patent 3,018,680 , for a pickup in which the coil was integrated into the bridge. In the mid-1940s, he introduced an aluminum guitar with the tuning mechanisms below the bridge. As it had no headstock, and the string attachments were at the nut, it was the first "headless" guitar. Unfortunately, Paul's guitar was so sensitive to the heat from stage lights that it would not keep tune. However, he used it for several of his hit recordings. This style
11978-531: Was known to have a history of mental illness and violence, Gould was beloved by some writers in Greenwich Village , including Ezra Pound and E. E. Cummings . His writing, supposedly excerpts from this "Oral History", was published in elite literary magazines, and he was eventually profiled in The New Yorker . Oral history has become an international movement in historical research. This
12091-609: Was recorded from their home and with gentle humor between Paul and Ford bridging musical selections, some of which had already been successful on records, some of which anticipated the couple's recordings, and many of which presented re-interpretations of such jazz and pop selections as " In the Mood ", "Little Rock Getaway", "Brazil", and " Tiger Rag ". Many of these shows survive and are available from various sources. When Paul used magnetic tape, he could take his recording equipment on tour, making episodes for his fifteen-minute radio show in
12204-567: Was released for research in 2003. During 1998 and 1999, 40 BBC local radio stations recorded personal oral histories from a broad cross-section of the population for The Century Speaks series. The result was 640 half-hour radio documentaries, broadcast in the final weeks of the millennium, and one of the largest single oral history collections in Europe, the Millennium Memory Bank (MMB). The interview based recordings are held by
12317-543: Was strongly influenced by the music of Django Reinhardt , whom he greatly admired. Following World War II , Paul sought out and made friends with Reinhardt. When Reinhardt died in 1953, Paul paid for part of the funeral's cost. One of Paul's prized possessions was a Selmer acoustic guitar given to him by Reinhardt's widow. Paul formed a trio in 1937 with rhythm guitarist Jim Atkins (older half-brother of guitarist Chet Atkins ) and bassist /percussionist Ernie "Darius" Newton. They left Chicago for New York in 1938, landing
12430-414: Was the chief designer of the guitar, which was based on Paul's drawings and later dubbed the Gibson Les Paul . Gibson entered into a promotional and financial arrangement with Les Paul, paying him a royalty on sales. The guitar went on sale in 1952. Paul continued to make design suggestions. In 1960, sales of the original Les Paul model had dropped, so a more modernistic model was introduced (today called
12543-477: Was the first person to hear Paul play his multi-tracked guitar experiments. "He came to my garage to make a little record (in 1946)," Les recalled. "I played him the acetate of 'Lover' that I'd done. When he heard it, he said, 'My boy, you sound like an octopus. ' " In the summer of 1945, Paul met country-western singer Iris Colleen Summers. They began working together on Paul's radio show, as Rhubarb Red and The Ozark Apple Knockers with Mary Lou. Later Paul suggested
12656-521: Was the music director for radio stations WJJD and WIND. In 1943, he moved to Hollywood where he performed on radio and formed a new trio. He was drafted into the U.S. Army in 1943, where he served in the Armed Forces Radio Network , backing such artists as Bing Crosby and the Andrews Sisters , and performing in his own right. As a last-minute replacement for Oscar Moore , Paul played with Nat King Cole and other artists in
12769-557: Was to learn more about life in the 1920s and 1930s to study the impact of the Soviet Union's conquest. 20 interviews each were conducted in the Fergana valley , Tashkent , Bukhara , Khorezm , and Kashkadarya regions. Their interviews uncovered stories of famine and death that had not been widely known outside of local memory in the region. While oral tradition is an integral part of ancient Southeast Asian history, oral history
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