i wasn't sure if i should post this in TV or music...this sounds like a good one.

Les Paul: Chasing Sound
Airdate: 7/11/07 9:00pm (Check local listings)



Among inductees of the National Inventors Hall of Fame, his name comes alphabetically after Louis Pasteur. In the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, it follows Parliament-Funkadelic. This singular distinction belongs to Les Paul, whose insatiable curiosity and experiments gave us the musical instrument of the modern era - the solid-body electric guitar - and the predominant studio recording technique - multi-tracking. Audacious and indefatigable at every turn of his career - from small-town Waukesha to Harlem music haunts to Hollywood studios - Paul, at age 92, still holds court every Monday night at the Iridium Jazz Club in New York City. AMERICAN MASTERS explores the revolutionary results of his drive to create sounds that had "never been heard on earth" when Les Paul: Chasing Sound premieres Wednesday, July 11 at 9 p.m. (ET) on PBS.

Biography recounts Les Paul's electrifying effect on music
Tom Dorsey
What do countless boy and girl bands owe to a 92-year-old guy playing guitar in a New York club every Monday night?

Everything.

His name is Les Paul, and "American Masters" tells the story of how he touched nearly everybody in the music business today with his inventions and style. It airs at 9 tonight on KET1.

It's a wonderful 90-minute biography that will introduce Paul and his life to a younger generation and provide a sentimental and exciting journey for an older generation.

Paul was the principal inventor of the solid body electric guitar, which literally changed the music world. It has been the standard instrument of bands and performers for decades.

Everybody from Chuck Berry to Eric Clapton and Keith Richards uses it. Paul also invented the multitrack techniques that revolutionized pop recordings. Beyond that, he and his wife and singing partner, Mary Ford, created a unique sound and style that put them at the top of the charts for years.

But this biography is also the saga of a guy who was curious and incredibly hardworking. He also wouldn't take no for an answer and wound up in musical and inventors' halls of fame as a result.

The trail starts in the tiny Wisconsin town where he was born and first performed at 13. It follows him to Chicago as a young man who played on radio barn-dance shows and then switched to jazz. He knew all the greats of the era, from Louis Armstrong to Duke Ellington, and a host of other famous artists in between.

The film follows Paul to New York, where he auditioned in an elevator for Fred Waring, a bandleader of the time, who hired him on the spot.

The film tags along a few years later when he tries his fortune in Hollywood, where he wrangled an audition with Bing Crosby playing "Back Home in Indiana." Crosby immediately put him on the payroll and later bought Paul his first tape recorder, which opened up a whole new world of arranging music.

Then some really big things started falling into place for Paul, like meeting Iris Colleen Summers, who was singing with Gene Autry at the time. She teamed up with Paul, whose real name is Lester Polfuss, and became Mary Ford, a name they picked out of a phone book.

They were just Les and Mary to their fans, and they created some of the most exciting and romantic recordings of all time. There's a lineup of industry greats who back up that claim in the best part of the show, where those songs are played.

Distinguished names in the business all say they were just stunned by Les and Mary. Every guitarist was saying, "How does he do that, and how can I?"

Paul McCartney remembers that a Les Paul song was the first one the Beatles ever played. B.B. King, who recalls that Paul was always his American idol, just says, "Oh, my gosh, listening to songs like 'How High the Moon.' " If that rendition doesn't get your toes tapping, you must be comatose.

Tony Bennett weighs in with heaps of praise. When Bonnie Raitt hears the couple smoking with a performance of "Hold That Tiger," she just exclaims, "Get out of here!" "There was nothing like it before or since," says Richard Carpenter, who couldn't get enough of them.

Then came the day the music almost died. Rock 'n' roll was in, and Les and Mary and a whole generation of performers were out. Mary wanted to quit. Les couldn't. They parted and eventually divorced in the only sad part of this account.

When he went into a bit of a funk, Chet Atkins pulled him out of it and got him back on track with a Grammy-winning duo recording. It took a while for him to graduate to a senior statesman and be recognized for his genius.

The show opens with CNN's Anderson Cooper paying tribute to Paul on a recent birthday, saying the sound of music we hear today never would have existed without him.

We go along with Paul to his Monday night gig, where he's still as sharp as a brand-new razor blade. Will there be any surprises tonight, an accompanist asks. "The surprise is that I'll be there," Paul quips. We listen to him pluck "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" and watch the moist, admiring eyes of young and old in the audience.

The phrase "a legend in his time" is vastly overused in show business today, but it was never more appropriate than in this case.

think I'll be DVRing this...

Thanks Bill.
J