s

History of the Les Paul l Top 6 Guitarists l Talking Shop

GuitarGuru

History
of the
Gibson
Les Paul
This Month:
The Top 6
Guitarists
of All-Time

A Countdown of Historys
Top Six Guitar Gods

Talking Shop:

Dec. 2013 - Vol. 1, Issue 1 - $4.99

Fender vs. Marshall

Amplifiers
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CONTENTS
Guitar Guru | December 2013

F E AT U R E S
The History of the Gibson Les Paul
Its the most iconic guitar in the history of rock and
roll music. How did one man rewrite the standards
of the electric guitar? ..........................................4

The father of the

electric guitar:
Les Paul.
Pg. 4

The Top 6 Greatest Guitarists

of All-Time
A countdown of historys top ten guitar gods. Who is
the greatest guitarist of all time? .........................8

D e pa rt m e n t s
Talking Shop
There has always been a rivalry between the worlds
oldest and most popular amplifier companies.
Guitar Guru makes the final call. ........................13

Reviews
Daft Punks Random Access Memories

Daft punk has been big since the 90s. How did they
conquer the American music scene in just over a decade? ..............................................................15

Disclaimer
Much of Guitar Gurus content has been borrowed
from other generous sources found on the internet.
This content has been taken solely for education purposes, with no commercial benefit intended.

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Jimi Hendrix.
Pg. 11
French EDM group,
Daft Punk.
Pg. 15

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The History of the

Gibson
Les Paul
By: Ricky Haldis

he Gibson Les Paul was the result of a

design collaboration between Gibson
Guitar Corporation and the late jazz
guitarist and electronics inventor Les
Paul. In 1950, with the introduction
of the radically innovative Fender Telecaster to the
musical market, solid-body electric guitars became
a public craze (hollow-body electric guitars have
more acoustic resonance but are, therefore, more
prone to amplifier feedback and have less natural
note duration sustain.) In reaction, Gibson Guitar
president Ted McCarty brought guitarist Les Paul
into the company as a consultant. Les Paul was a
respected innovator who had been experimenting
with guitar design for years to benefit his own music. In fact, he had hand-built a solid-body prototype
called The Log, a design widely considered the
first solid-body Spanish guitar ever built.

The Most Iconic Guitar

in the History of Music

his guitar is known as The Log because the solid core is a pine block whose width and depth
are a little more than the width of the fretboard; conventional hollow guitar sides were added
for shape, a design similar to the popular Gibson ES-335 semi-hollowbody guitar introduced
in 1958. Although numerous other prototypes and limited-production solid-body models by
other makers have since surfaced, it is known that in 19451946, Les Paul had approached
Gibson with The Log prototype, but his solid body design was rejected.
In 1951, this initial rejection became a design collaboration between the Gibson Guitar Corporation and
Les Paul. It was agreed that the new Les Paul guitar was to be an expensive, well-made instrument in Gibsons tradition.Although recollections differ regarding who contributed what to the Les Paul design, it was
far from a market replica of Fender models. Founded in 1902, Gibson began offering electric hollow-body
guitars in the 1930s, such as the ES-150; at minimum, these hollow-body electric models provided a set of
basic design cues for the new Gibson solid-body, including a more traditionally curved body shape than offered by competitor Fender, and a glued-in (set-in) neck, in contrast to Fenders bolt-on neck.
The significance of Les Pauls contributions to his Gibson guitar design remains controversial. The book
50 Years of the Gibson Les Paul limits Pauls contributions to two: advice on the trapeze tailpiece, and a
preference for color (stating that Paul preferred gold as it looks expensive, and a second choice of black
because it makes your fingers appear to move faster on the box, and looks classy like a tuxedo).
Additionally, Gibsons president Ted McCarty states that the Gibson Guitar Corporation merely approached Les Paul for the right to imprint the musicians name on the headstock to increase model sales,
and that in 1951, Gibson showed Paul a nearly finished instrument. McCarty also claims that design discussions with Les Paul were limited to the tailpiece and the fitting of a maple cap over the mahogany body
for increased density and sustain, which Les Paul had requested reversed. However, according to Gibson
Guitar, this reversal would have caused the guitar to become too heavy, and Pauls request was refused.
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History of the Les Paul

he Les Paul guitar line was originally

conceived to include two models: the
regular model (nicknamed
the Goldtop), and the Custom model, which offered
upgraded hardware and a more formal
black finish. However, advancements in
pickup, body, and hardware designs allowed
the Les Paul to become a long-term series of
electric solid-body guitars that targeted every
price-point and market level except for the
complete novice guitarist. This beginner guitar
market was filled by the Melody Maker model,
and although the inexpensive Melody Maker
did not bear the Les Paul name, its body consistently followed the design of true Les Pauls
throughout each era.
Beyond shaping and body design, there are a
number of characteristics that distinguish the
Gibson Les Paul line from other electric guitars. For example, in a fashion similar to
Gibsons hollow-body instruments,
the strings of Les Paul guitars are
always mounted on the top of the
guitar body, rather than through the
guitar body, as seen in competitor
Fenders designs. The Gibson also
features a variety of colors, such as
Wine Red, Ebony, Classic White,
Fire Burst, and Alpine White. In
addition, the Les Paul models
offered a variety of finishes and
decorative levels, a diversity of
hardware options, and an innovative array of electric pick-up
options, some of which significantly
impacted the sound of electric music. For instance, in 1957, Gibson introduced the humbucker
(PAF), which revolutionized the sound of the electric guitar, and eliminated the mains hum.

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The 1952 Les Paul featured two P-90 single coil

pickups, and a one-piece, trapeze-style bridge
and tailpiece, with strings that were fitted under
(instead of over) a steel stop-bar. The weight
and the tonal characteristics of the Les Paul
were largely due to the mahogany and maple
construction: maple is a hard and quite heavy
wood, but was restricted to a cap over somewhat
lighter mahogany, to keep weight under control.
In addition, the early 1952 Les Pauls were never
issued serial numbers, did not have bound bodies,
and are considered by some as LP Model prototypes. However, the later 1952 Les Pauls were
issued serial numbers and also came with bound
bodies. Interestingly, the design scheme of some
of these early models varied. For instance, some
of the Les Pauls of this issue were fitted with
black covered P90 pickups instead of the creamcolored plastic covers that are associated with this
guitar, even today. Of note, these early models,
nicknamed Goldtops, have begun to gain the
interest of collectors, and subsequently,
the associated nostalgic value of this
instrument is increasing.

The second issue of the Les
Paul guitar was introduced to the public
in 1954. Called the Gibson Les Paul
Custom, this entirely black guitar
was dubbed the Black Beauty.
The Les Paul Custom featured
a mahogany top to differentiate
the instrument from its Goldtop
predecessors maple top. It also
featured the new Tune-o-Matic
bridge design and a pickup with an
alnico-5 magnet, P-480, in the neck
position. In addition, since 1957, the Custom
was fitted with Gibsons new humbucker pickups,
PAF, and later became available with three pickups
instead of the more usual two.

It makes your
fingers appear
to move faster on
the box, and it
just looks classy,
like a tuxedo.

LES PAUL: Lester

Les Paul Polfus
playing one of his
signature guitars.
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The
Top Six
Guitarists
of All-Time
A countdown of historys
top six guitarists

uitarist; A guitarist (or a guitar player) is a person who plays the guitar. Guitarists
may play a variety of guitar family instruments such as classical guitars, acoustic guitars, electric guitars, and bass guitars. Some guitarists accompany themselves on the
guitar by singing or playing the harmonica. The guitarist has several ways of playing
the guitar depending on the type of strings (Nylon-string guitar or Steel-string acoustic guitar) and including the guitar pick, fingernail, and/or fingertip (fingerstyle guitar). It involves
techniques derived from other stringed instruments such as legato playing and various harmonics.
While music is an art form in itself, playing an instrument such as the guitar has long been a popular
subject for painters. While some guitarists play their music as a hobby, others make it a lifestyle and
eventually show their potential to rewrite history.

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6.

B.B King

B.B.s influences were set at an early stage. Being

from Indianola, Mississippi, he goes back far enough
to remember the sound of field hollers and the cornerstone blues figures, like Charley Patton and Robert Johnson.
The single-note phrasing of T-Bone Walker was another thing.You
can hear those influences in the choice of melodies that he not
only sings vocally but lets his guitar sing instrumentally.
He plays in shortened bursts, with a richness and robust delivery. And there is a technical dexterity, a cleanly delivered phrasing. This was sophisticated soloing. Its so identifiable, so clear, it
could be written out. John Lee Hooker his stuff was too difficult to write out. But B.B. was a genuine soloist.

5.

Randy Rhoads

Randy Rhoads was the frontrunner in introducing

neo-classical influences to metal guitar playing. One
could argue that without Rhoads rise to prominence the way might not have been paved for the success of future
shredders like Malmsteen and Vai. Many hold Rhoads singlehandedly responsible for Ozzys rise from the ashes of Sabbath in 79
to 80s metal prominence. When Blizzard of Oz came out in 80
there was nothing else like it who can forget the opening riff of
Crazy Train or images of Ozzy carrying Rhoads on his shoulders
as the guitarists fingers attacked the fret board of his polka-dotted Jackson Flying V?

4.

Eddie Van Halen

Eddie is a master of riffs: Unchained, Take Your

Whiskey Home, the beginning of Aint Talking
Bout Love. He gets sounds that arent necessarily guitar sounds a lot of harmonics, textures that happen just
because of how he picks. Theres a part in Unchained where it
sounds like theres another instrument in the riff.
A lot of it is in his hands: the way he holds his pick between his
thumb and middle finger, which opens things up for his fingertapping. But underneath that, Eddie has soul. Its like Hendrix
you can play the things hes written, but theres an X factor that
you cant get.
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3.

Eric Clapton

It first appeared in 1965, written on

the walls of the London subway:
Clapton is God. Eric Patrick
Clapton, of Ripley, England fresh out of his
first major band, the Yardbirds, and recently inducted into John Mayalls Bluesbreakers had
just turned twenty and been playing guitar only
since he was fifteen. But Clapton was already
soloing with the improvisational nerve that has
dazzled fans and peers for forty years. In his
1963-65 stint with the Yardbirds, Claptons nickname was Slowhand, an ironic reference to the
velocity of his lead breaks. But Clapton insisted
in a 2001 Rolling Stone interview, I think its
important to say something powerful and keep
it economical. Even when he jammed on a tune
for more than a quarter-hour with Cream, Clapton soloed with a daggerlike tone and pinpoint
attention to melody.

2.

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Jimmy Page

In the 1970s, there was no bigger rock group in the

world than Led Zeppelin and no greater god on six strings
than Zeppelins founder-captain Jimmy Page. Nothing
much has changed. The imperial weight, technical authority
and exotic reach of Pages writing and playing on Zeppelins
eight studio albums have lost none of their power: the rusted,
slow-death groan of Pages solo, played with a violin bow, in
Dazed and Confused, on Zeppelins 1969 debut; the circular, cast-iron stammer of his riffing on Black Dog, on the
bands fourth LP; the melodic momentum and chrome-spear
tone of his closing solo in Zeppelins most popular song,
Stairway to Heaven. Page actually built Zeppelins sound
and might from a wide palette of inspirations and previous
experience. In the early and mid-1960s, Page was a firstcall studio musician in London, playing on Kinks and Everly
Brothers dates and honing his production skills on singles for
John Mayall and future Velvet Underground vocalist Nico.
And before forming Zeppelin in the summer of 1968, Page
had been the lead guitarist in the final lineup of the Yardbirds.

1.

Jimi Hendrix

Jimi Hendrix exploded our idea of what rock music could

be: He manipulated the guitar, the whammy bar, the studio
and the stage. On songs like Machine Gun or Voodoo Chile, his instrument is like a divining rod of the turbulent Sixties you can hear the riots
in the streets and napalm bombs dropping in his Star-Spangled Banner.
He was shy and kind and sweet, and he was fucked up and insecure. If
you were lucky, youd spend a few hours with him after a gig and watch
him descend out of this incredibly colorful, energized face. His playing
was effortless. Theres not one minute of his recorded career that feels
like hes working hard at it it feels like its all flowing through him. The
most beautiful song of the Jimi Hendrix canon is Little Wing. Its just
this gorgeous song that, as a guitar player, you can study your whole life
and not get down, never get inside it the way that he does. He seamlessly
weaves chords and single-note runs together and uses chord voicings that
dont appear in any music book. His riffs were a pre-metal funk bulldozer, and his lead lines were an electric LSD trip down to the crossroads,
where he pimp-slapped the devil.
There are arguments about who was the first guitar player to use feedback. It doesnt really matter, because Hendrix used it better than anyone; he took what was to become Seventies funk and put it through a
Marshall stack, in a way that nobodys
done since.
Its impossible to think of what Jimi
would be doing now; he seemed like a
pretty mercurial character. Would he be
an elder statesman of rock? Would he be
Sir Jimi Hendrix? Or would he be doing
some residency off the Vegas Strip? The
good news is his legacy is assured as the
greatest guitar player of all time.
He had a kind of alchemists ability;
when he was on the stage, he changed.
He physically changed. He became incredibly graceful and beautiful. It wasnt
just people taking LSD, though that was
going on, theres no question. But he had
a power that almost sobered you up if
you were on an acid trip. He was bigger
than LSD.
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Talking Shop
The Marshall Law
Marshall Amplification is a British company that
designs and manufactures music amplifiers, speaker
cabinets, brands personal headphones/earphones
(made by Zound Industries), and, having acquired
Natal Drums, drums and bongos. It was founded by
drum shop owner and drummer Jim Marshall, and
is now based in Bletchley, Milton Keynes.
Marshalls guitar amplifiers are among the most
recognised brands in amplification. They are known for their
own specific sound (the Marshall
crunch). This signature sound
was due to a long period of time
of guitarists coming into Marshalls drum shop, and complaining about the amps currently on
the market not having the right
sound. After gaining a lot of publicity, they were sought out by
guitarists for this new sound, as
well as the increased volume of
Marshall amps compared to the
amps that were being sold then.
Many of the current (and reissue) models of guitar amplifier
continue to use vacuum tubes, as
is common in this market sector.
Marshall also manufactures less
expensive solid-state and hybrid
equipment.
After a successful career as a
drummer and teacher of drum
technique, Jim Marshall first

Fender vs.
Marshall
Amplifiers

went into business in 1962 with a small shop in
Hanwell, London, selling drums, cymbals and
drum-related accessories; Marshall himself also
gave drum lessons. According to Jim, Ritchie Blackmore, Big Jim Sullivan, and Pete Townshend were
the three main guitarists who often came into the
shop and pushed Marshall to make guitar amplifiers and told him the sound and design they wanted.
Marshall Ltd. then expanded,
hired designers and started making guitar amplifiers to compete
with existing amplifiers, the most
notable of which at the time were
the Fender amplifiers imported
from America. These were very
popular with guitarists and bass
players, but were very expensive.
The three guitarists were among
the first customers of the first 23
Marshall Amplifiers made.
The classic Marshall Stack consists of one head containing the
actual amplifier, on top of two
stacked 4x12s, which are loudspeaker cabinets each containing
four 12 inch loudspeakers arranged in a square layout. The top
cabinet has the top two speakers
angled slightly upwards, giving
the Marshall stack a distinctive
appearance. If only one speaker
cabinet is used, the complete amplifier unit is called a half stack.
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13

Talking Shop

The Fender Legend

Fender Amplifiers have a long history. Leo Fender

began building guitar amps before he started manufacturing guitars. The first of these amps were the
K&F models, which were produced between 1945
and 1946. The original Fender amps were tubepowered and the company also started producing
solid-state models in the late 1960s.
Fenders first transistor amplifiers were introduced in 1966. At the time they were the companys flagship range and aimed to make the
tube-based designs obsolete. The amplifiers were
naturally given traditional Fender model names,
earliest including Dual Showman, Twin Reverb,
and Bassman. Other products in the line were the
Solid-State Reverb Unit and the Solid-State Public-Address System. Super Reverb, Pro Reverb,
Vibrolux Reverb and Deluxe Reverb amplifiers
followed in 1967.
The amplifiers were mainly designed by Robert
Bob Rissi, Sawa Jacobson and Paul Spranger, who
came up with the novel idea of making a heatsink
to operate like a chimney to achieve increased and
non-restricted airflow. Paul also designed the distinctive angled chassis and overall cosmetic styling.
He was granted patents for both accounts.
In 1969 more transistor amplifiers were introduced, including the Zodiac series and the behemoth Super Showman System. Seth Lover, the
legendary designer of the Gibson P.A.F. pickup,

14

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and another former Gibson employee, Richard
Chauncey Evans, were hired to help in designing
the latter series, which consisted of self-powered
speaker cabinets. The head featured three cascadable channels, a Dimension V oil can delay effect,
reverb, vibrato, and a fuzz. The powered cabinets
could switch between normal and tube-emulated
operation.
Zodiac-series amplifiers consisted of Capricorn,
Scorpio, Taurus and Libra models. Aside from
being covered with fake alligator skin, they were
cosmetically very similar to Super Showman. However, these were smaller combo amplifiers with
fewer features and aimed for the lower end of the
market.
Fenders early transistor amplifiers had an extensive marketing campaign but in the end they
proved to be a major disaster. Many key executives
of Fender had resigned after the CBS purchase and
quality control of the PCB-constructed amps was
rather sloppy during the times. Reputedly many of
the early solid-state amplifiers failed simply because
employees didnt bother to clean up the soldering
machines or attach the semiconductors properly
to their heat sinks. The infancy of semiconductor
technology also meant that many designs failed due
to thermal runaway caused by insufficient cooling or
lack of knowledge concerning safe power ratings
of transistors.

Reviews
Daft Punk
Random Access Memories
Columbia Records

For RAM, Daft Punk

recorded in the best studios,
and they used the best
musicians.

Daft Punks
Random Access Memories
In the electronica landscape of the 1990s, Daft Punk
first came over as a novelty. Funny band name, funny sound, funny masks, and a funny (and incredibly
fun) hit called Da Funk, found on their debut album,
Homework. Theyve come a long way since, but the
playfulness remains, and so does their ability to surprise. Every new step in their career, whether positive, negative, or somewhere in between has been met
initially with a collective sense of puzzlement: Now
whats this all about?
Random Access Memories, the
fourth proper studio album from
Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo, continues the trend. But the differences
between their first three albums
and this one are vast. RAM finds
them leaving behind the highly
influential, riff-heavy EDM they
originated to luxuriate in the
sounds, styles, and production
techniques of the 1970s and early 80s. So we get a mix of disco,
soft rock, and prog-pop, along
with some Broadway-style pop
bombast and even a few pinches
of their squelching stadium-dance
aesthetic. Its all rendered with an
amazing level of detail, with no
expense spared. For RAM, Daft
Punk recorded in the best studios,
they used the best musicians, they
added choirs and orchestras when
they felt like it, and they almost
completely avoided samples,
which had been central to most of
their biggest songs.
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