Gibson vs Fender - Les and Leo | 1
Business Wars
Audible
4.6 • 13.5K Ratings
🗓️ 19 June 2019
⏱️ 29 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In the 1930s and ’40s the market for electric guitars is growing, but it’s hindered by the instruments’ flawed designs. But a small group of mavericks is rethinking the guitar for the electronic age.
One of them, guitarist Les Paul, tries unsuccessfully to convince one of America's oldest guitar companies, Gibson, to mass-produce his "Log" — one of the first solid-body electric guitars. Gibson turns him down flat. But when a radio repairman turned inventor named Leo Fender sees Paul's Log, he's inspired to attempt his own version of a solid-body electric — and his creation will go on to forever change the way guitars are made.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hey, prime members, you can listen to business wars at free on Amazon Music. |
| 0:04.6 | Download the app today. |
| 0:06.2 | It's 1942 in Kalamazoo, Michigan, a small industrial city halfway between Detroit and Chicago. |
| 0:22.6 | At the Red Brick factory of the Gibson Guitar Company, a guitarist aim less Paul is idly |
| 0:27.6 | strumming on an electric guitar as a group of Gibson executives files into the conference |
| 0:32.5 | room and take their seats. |
| 0:34.9 | Paul is playing his prototype for a completely new kind of electric guitar. |
| 0:39.8 | The execs, all middle-aged veterans of the business with thinning hair and grey suits, look |
| 0:45.9 | very confused. |
| 0:48.2 | Paul smiles to himself. |
| 0:50.0 | He's confident he can win them over. |
| 0:52.2 | Though he's only 26, the redhead from Wisconsin is already one of the most well-regarded |
| 0:57.1 | electric guitarists in the country. |
| 0:59.9 | He's been building and customizing his own guitar since he was a kid and he's certain |
| 1:05.2 | he's holding his best invention yet. |
| 1:08.8 | The executive stare at the contraptions sitting across Paul's lap, a four by four wooden |
| 1:14.3 | post with guitar strings and a screwed-on neck. |
| 1:19.0 | What the heck is that thing? |
| 1:21.0 | I call it the log. |
| 1:22.0 | It's a solid four by four piece of pine wood. |
| 1:25.4 | The electricity you don't need a hollow body for a sound chamber. |
| 1:29.1 | All the sound comes from the vibration of the strings. |
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