Sleeve Notes from:

"Lover's Luau" / "Bouquet Of Roses" Col CD 6808

"Warma And Wonderful" / "Swingin' South" Col CD 6807

Guitarist Les Paul along with his wife Mary Ford made recordings during their career together that are still enjoyable today due to the many subtle pleasures that they reveal. Les and Mary, with years of performing experience, knew a good song when they heard one. Les' time as both a jazz improvisationalist and a pseudo-cornpone radio personality gave him an appreciation of many genres, and a love and respect for the whole wide range of American music. The legacy of their recordings alone should assure them of immortality.

But there is not a CD made today that does not owe a debt to the father of multi-track recording and the inventor of the solid body electric guitar Les Paul. His innovations in recording techniques and his use of technology to expand the versatility of the guitar mark him as a true visionary. His sound-on-sound method of making a record, known today as over-dubbing, is, with very few exceptions, the way that all contemporary recordings are made. The distinctive tone of a modern guitar is due to design alterations like the electro-dynamic pickup and the floating bridge pickup that Paul is directly responsible for. He also introduced close miking of instruments and echo delay into his own recordings, as well as those of friends and collaborators like Bing Crosby and the Andrews Sisters. Someone had to think of it first, and most of the time it was Les Paul.

As a youth, Les Paul, born Lester William Poisfuss in 1915 in Waukesha, Wisconsin, showed extraordinary knack in adapting what was available for his own needs. He used ham radio headphone parts to build his first guitar pickup, and built a disc-recording lathe from a Cadillac flywheel for use in early multi-track experiments.

He achieved early fame as a folksy singer and humorist using the nom de plume "Rhubarb Red" on radio in St. Louis and Chicago. He spent his time in Chicago, jamming after-hours with some of the best - Art Tatum, Roy Eldridge, and Earl Hines, and refined his improvisational adroitness.

The last years of the 1930s saw Les as a featured performer with Fred Waring and his Pennsylvanians. Relocating to Los Angeles, Les was assigned to the Armed Forces Radio Service during the Second World War. Paul remained in L.A. as a staff musician for NBC Radio working with major stars of the era like Bing Crosby, Jack Benny, and George Burns and Gracie Allen. In 1948, Les' solo recordings "Lover" and "Brazil" featuring his multi-tracked guitar were released by Capitol Records, and "The New Sound" was off and running.

An automobile accident late in 1948 came close to preventing Paul from ever performing again, when his right arm and elbow were shattered, along with other injuries. Les requested that the doctor piece his arm back together and position it in an angle that would allow him to continue to play the guitar. Les spent almost a year and a half in rehabilitation, including many hours of guitar practice.

In 1949, Les married Iris Colleen Summers, a former back up vocalist for Gene Autry. Using the stage name of Mary Ford, she would provide Les with a critical element in his quest for the perfect pop sound. Her sweet, simple vocal style, when combined with the modernism of multi-tracking, created a radically new sound for the time.

Les realised that it is much more subversive to introduce new ideas within a classic pop framework that is pleasing to the ear and readily accessible to casual listeners as well as audiophiles, than to be self-consciously avant garde. Perhaps that is the true genius of his art.

In July of 1958, Les Paul and Mary Ford left Capitol for Columbia Records. Columbia Artist and Repertoire staffer Mitch Miller, himself a bandleader and million-selling recording artist, viewed Les and Mary along with other Columbia labelmates Rosemary Clooney, Frankie Laine and Doris Day as a last ditch attempt to prevent the rock revolution that was turning the owners of upstart independent recording companies like Sun and Chess into instant millionaires.

The duo's first Columbia LP issue "Lovers' Luau", released in 1959, was Miller's way of jumping upon the Hawaiian music bandwagon that generated hundreds of releases during that time period and made stars of heretofore relative unknowns like Les Baxter, Martin Denny, and Arthur Lyman. An instrumental release, one would assume that Mary Ford's contribution is the steady rhythm guitar playing heard throughout the disc. The majority of the longplayer are songs that, while not indigenous to the Islands, quickly became standards appearing on any album with even a remotely tropical theme. "Drifting And Drearning," "Song Of The Islands" (also known as "Na Lei 0 Hawaii'), "Sweet Leilani," and "To You Sweetheart, Aloha" were covered extensively by Fifties and Sixties instrumentalists seeking an exotic sound. "Blue Hawaii", a nod to Elvis, and the uptempo "On The Beach At Waikiki" were more of a precursor to the "Let's Go Away For Awhile" mid-sixties Beach Boy sound than vintage Les Paul pyrotechnics. Les also shows his compositional versatility on three tracks, "Golden Sands," "Hawaiian Charms" and "Pacific Breeze," emphasizing harmony over guitar exhibitionism. And of course, no Hawaiian-themed project would be complete without "Aloha Oe" (Farewell To Thee), a Queen LilWokalani credited composition, and one of the world's most recognizable melodies.

Their 1961 release "Warm and Wonderful" alternates vocal and instrumental tracks, and features predominantly classic Tin Pan Alley compositions. The duo's version of "It's Been A Long, Long Time" must have had special meaning for Les, as he played on the original 1945 Bing Crosby Billboard chart-topper. Some Sinatra-associated tunes are featured - "Makin' Whoopee," "A Cottage For Sale" and "Wrap Your Troubles In Dreams." And like Sinatra in mid-career, Les and Mary knew how to personalise a great song and do it effortlessly.

"Bouquet of Roses", released in 1962, is the closest to a Mary Ford solo LP that the duo ever recorded. Whether by direction or due to the growing discord in their personal lives, Les Paul confines himself to a few well-placed fills here and there. He even gave up the production credit, and recorded in Nashville with Jim Fogelsong at the helm. Instead of a flock of Mary Fords twittering away in the analogue breeze, The Jordanaires are there for background support, as they were for Eivis and hundreds of other country stars. The production is similar to Owen Bradley's production of Patsy Cline, though not quite as lush, and Mary Ford is less inclined to use the vocal dynamics that made every Patsy Cline song an almost operatic experience. The material chosen is suited to what Colleen Summers might have sung pre-Les Paul (Gene Autry, Floyd Tillman, Hank Williams, A. P. Carter of the Carter Family) and is performed with grace and honesty.

"Swingin' South", the 1963 long-player that was to be the duo's swan song takes them almost full circle. Les' guitar is subdued on many tracks, as it was on "Bouquet of Roses", also produced by Nashville producer Jim Fogelsong. Some songs are even piano dominated in their arrangements. There is quite a bit of harmonica featured, the first instrument that fascinated Les as a boy in Waukesha. The opening tune, Gov. Jimmy Davis' opus, "Worried Mind," has an accompaniment that sounds a great deal like California music of the late Sixties. Maybe the duo deserves credit as the unsung founders of country rock as well as their other achievements. The nasty fuzz-tone in their version of Hank Williams "Your Cheatin' Heart" as well as its use in the "heavy" opening chords of "I Just Don't Understand," a 1961 hit for Ann Margret also recorded by the Beatles, shows Les, as usual, changing with the times. It is no wonder that rock guitarists like Jeff Beck, Jimmy Page and Rick Derringer mention Les as one of their main influences.

The duo of Les Paul and Mary Ford broke up personally and professionally in 1964. Mary opted for retirement, while Les chose to continue his consulting with the Gibson Co. on his trademark series of electric guitars, along with designing the first eight-track tape recorder for the Ampex Company.

In 1977, Mary Ford died of complications due to diabetes. As of this writing, Les Paul continues to perform in the intimate setting of a New York City club where he has appeared regularly for many years. The world is still astonished at the charm and gifted talents of the Wizard of Waukesha, Les Paul.

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