I-95 Drive Home Mystery Artist [VIDEO]

Tonight’s mystery artists once interviewed guitar maker Les Paul and got the story of how Les Paul sold his first guitar. Can you guess who our interviewer might have been???

It was in the summer of 1986 when Guitar Center was opening a huge store in California and they decided to honor Les Paul and Eddie Van Halen, a great guitar designer in his own right. According to the Van Halen webpage the two set down for a chat and Les Told Eddie this story:

 EDDIE VAN HALEN: When Leo Fender was doing his thing and you were doing yours, was there ever any competition?

LES PAUL: No, not at all.

 EDDIE VAN HALEN: Did you ever collaborate or talk about your ideas?

LES PAUL :Absolutely. Leo Fender would come over, and so would his engineers. They saw the Log and some of the other guitars I had built. They saw it all happening. There was never any friction. It was just the opposite.

Here’s the story of how Leo really helped me: When I developed my first solid-body guitar in 1941, I took it to Gibson and they dismissed it. They called it that “broomstick with the pickups on it.” From 1941 to 1951, I couldn’t convince Gibson to do a damn thing about putting out a Les Paul guitar. Finally, Leo decided to come out with the Fender solid-body line, and immediately Gibson said, “Find the character with the broomstick with the pickups on it!”

And so they asked me to design a guitar. I thank Leo for coming out with his Broadcaster, because it woke Gibson up. Gibson was asleep and Fender was not asleep. That’s the way it goes. Fender was the first to market, but I was way, way out front.

 EDDIE VAN HALEN: It’s kind of like the car business—Toyota woke up GM.

In this  article originally from Guitar World, Eddie goes on to tell how he took from both Fender and Gibson to create the sound and look he wanted in the guitars he designs and plays. Good article, 6/19 this year  Les Paul would have turned 103^rd.

Here is tonight’s featured song: