T A B L E__T A L K

Which musicians have you met? Brag about it in the Music area of Table Talk

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R E C E N T L Y

Various Artists
Good Will Hunting Soundtrack
Capitol
(12/23/97)

Various Artists
Jackie Brown, Original Soundtrack
A Band Apart/Maverick
(12/22/97)

Fruitcake music
Andrei Codrescu
Valley of Christmas
Gert Town Records
(12/19/97)

Anonymous 4
11,000 Virgins
Sequentia
O Jerusalem
Tapestry
Celestial Light
(12/18/97)

Ivy
Apartment Life
Atlantic
(12/17/97)

BROWSE THE
MUSIC ARCHIVES

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V O W E L L

Sound Salvation
By Sarah Vowell
Survey says ...
Give the people what they want
(12/12/97)

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F E A T U R E

High notes
By Cynthis Joyce
Salon contributors answer the question: what was your most significant musical moment of 1997?
(12/24/97)

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_les paul >> THE COMPLETE TRIOS PLUS (1936-47)_

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BY GAVIN McNETT

There are a number of recordings that could plausibly be called the "first rock 'n' roll record," with the Orioles' soulful "It's Too Soon to Tell" now drawing consideration ahead of a variety of old jump blues cuts and "hillbilly" sides. That was critic Greil Marcus' call, and it's a good one -- although there are problems with the very idea of assigning firsts in cases like these. In rock history, just as in the larger historical arena, the idea that it's great individuals who turn the wheels of change -- rather than sheer accident and the madness of crowds -- tends to look more threadbare the closer you examine the data. Regardless, there's a case to be made that Les Paul, consistently under-regarded by musicologists and critics even as he was overpraised by guitarists and technophiles, was the first rock 'n' roll star.

Les Paul invented (but never marketed) the world's first solid-body electric guitar, and commissioned the world's first multi-track tape recorder. His fame rests mostly on a series of highly advanced "novelty records" during the 1940s and '50s that used overdubbing and sound-manipulation techniques that would later become indispensable to the music industry. The pop sound of the '50s didn't belong to him -- but that of the '60s did. And every decade since has had his stamp upon its brow. Nearly every pop record released today uses techniques that Paul pioneered, and most carry some aspect of his sound. As a guitarist, he was into a bold, sustaining tone and fast lead runs, while his arrangements of the period tend toward the immediate and the sugar-coated -- the qualities that we now call "poppy" and "slick." His classic recordings are very easy to listen to by modern standards. They speak in a familiar language -- they rock.

At the time, of course, they were bizarre and unprecedented, if highly popular because of it. And for that reason, it's tempting to regard him as a great figure -- a towering oddball who was single-handedly responsible for a series of astounding musical breakthroughs. But again, to go that route is to do a disservice to history. "The Complete Trios Plus" covers Paul's earlier work as a session player and band leader, beginning with his first recordings as "Rhubarb Red" in the mid-'30s and leaving off in the period just before his ascendancy. It reveals him as a highly talented and stylish, though fairly conventional, pop-jazz player who picked up his ideas about guitar tone and sustain from the Hawaiian music vogue of the '40s ("Aloha Oe," "Sweet Hawaiian Moonlight") and who copped ideas from jump blues and country players. Two January 1947 takes of "Guitar Boogie" (recorded a comfortable six months before the Orioles record) could pass for early-'50s Bill Haley sides, while "Steel Guitar Rag" is a cowboy song of familiar type with a tough, pre-rockabilly edge to the solos. These styles were all available for plunder in the '40s, although few players of Paul's stature and sophistication paid them any great mind. Neither did many guitarists of the time jiggle their volume knobs to get a tremolo effect or pop their strings to get a percussive snap ("Caravan") -- and none, certainly, took such a fiendish glee in twirling off flurries of glissandi that threatened never to resolve, but then did -- right where they were supposed to. Paul's greatest single innovation as a guitarist (rather than as a technologist) could well be his world-class showboating. And it's great stuff. But even there he's not alone. The world-at-large has yet to discover the inimitable Roy Smeck, the Jimi Hendrix of the '30s and '40s. But that's for another time. In the interim, "The Complete Trios Plus" is a highly interesting portrait of a crucial figure in rock history, and a great, entertaining frequent-player in its own respect. Bing Crosby, the Andrews Sisters and Dick Haymes all contribute vocals.
SALON | Jan. 5, 1998