065 The Rivalry of Leo Fender and Les Paul | Ian S. Port, author of The Birth of Loud
Curiosityness
Travis DeRose
4.8 • 566 Ratings
🗓️ 15 August 2019
⏱️ 58 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Electric guitars have been around since the 1930's but had some serious drawbacks including their inability to get very loud. Both Leo Fender and Les Paul strived to achieve louder sounds which paved the way for new music styles including rock 'n' roll.
Leo Fender was a quiet, half-blind, self-taught radio repairman motivated by his curiosity and requests from local musicians. Les Paul was a brilliant but headstrong pop star and guitarist who spent years toying with new musical technologies for himself. Their contest empowered the most inventive musicians of the 1950s and 1960s—including Muddy Waters, Buddy Holly, the Beatles, Bob Dylan, and Eric Clapton— with a vibrancy and volume never before attainable.
Grab your copy of The Birth of Loud: Leo Fender, Les Paul, and the Guitar-Pioneering Rivalry That Shaped Rock 'n' Roll on Amazon at https://amzn.to/2KzulUC
And visit Ian's website at https://www.iansmithport.com
Find Ian on Twitter: https://twitter.com/iPORT
And on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/iansmithport/
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | A spontaneous and unrehearsed interview. |
| 0:07.2 | Welcome to episode 65 of Curiosityness. |
| 0:12.5 | I am the host, Travis DeRose, and I have on E.N.S. Porte on this episode, and he's the author of a book called The Birth of Loud, which is all |
| 0:22.1 | about the story and invention and whereabouts of the electric guitar, the solid body electric |
| 0:29.5 | guitar with Leo Fender and Les Paul, and it's a really cool, fun story that has a, there's a lot |
| 0:36.5 | of parts to it, and it's crazy how the, |
| 0:39.2 | how much the equipment that these guys kind of invented and came up with influenced music and |
| 0:46.6 | made such a big difference. They really made the tools for like the rock and roll movement. |
| 0:51.9 | So it's pretty fun. You can literally see once Leo Fender kind of invents the electric bass, |
| 0:57.2 | we start to get a ton of bass in our music. |
| 0:59.4 | So it's really cool. |
| 1:00.6 | Ian does a great job of sharing the story and making it fun and interesting. |
| 1:03.9 | So I think you're going to really enjoy this fun episode. |
| 1:07.0 | So that's it. |
| 1:08.3 | Let's get to the podcast interview with E&S Port. |
| 1:15.8 | And boom, we're on. What's up, Ian? |
| 1:18.1 | All right. Great. Hey, how's it going? Thanks for having me. |
| 1:20.8 | Yeah, of course, man. I love excited to talk to you. The story you share, man. Your book is awesome. |
| 1:25.8 | It's such a fascinating, fun, interesting |
| 1:29.1 | story with so many parts that come together to create this history, you know? |
| 1:33.9 | Cool. Yeah. That's great. Yeah, it's a big kind of wild story and getting it all into |
| 1:40.1 | one kind of somewhat neat narrative was definitely part of the challenge. |
... |
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