Gene Paul, the son of the legendary Les Paul, chatted with Digital Journal’s Markos Papadatos about his father’s personal Gibson, which is up for auction.
Les Paul’s personal “Number One” guitar, the first approved Gibson Les Paul model, that Les own and played for years is going to auction at Christie’s in New York on October 13, 2021.
This guitar, which is credited as the foundation of rock & roll, and is being hailed as perhaps the most valuable guitar in the world is featured as lot number 1 in Christie’s much anticipated, once a year, Exceptional Sale. With its undeniable historical impact, industry insiders and aficionados expect the guitar to break all previous auction records.
Gene is also a 9-time Grammy award-winning engineer who has Grammys from Aretha Franklin to Norah Jones. He toured with his dad and Mary Ford for 10 years playing drums when he was a teenager.
When did you first realize how famous your father was? Were you there when he was creating the first electric guitar?
I thought everyone’s father had a musical career, worked on guitars, and played music in front of people everywhere until I was about 15 or 16 and Les took me out with him as his drummer for the band. I realized how special he was when I watched everyone’s reaction to him.
It really came home to me how famous this guy actually was. Most folks don’t realize that Les was married before he was married to Mary Ford (a name made up for her by the way)… so I lived with my mother and not with Dad when he was busy actually developing the “Les Paul Guitar.”
How did your father describe this guitar? Why did he call it Number one? What did it mean to him?
To my father, this was his crowning achievement. He spent 30 years of his life imagining this thing, experimenting on all kinds of ways to make a guitar like this work. People thought he was absolutely crazy, he was so ahead of his time. When he first showed his idea to Gibson back in the early 40’s they laughed at him and ushered him out of their offices.
To Dad, this guitar was it, the culmination of all that work, trial and error, and he was beyond proud of this. Imagine… a guitar that you had dreamed of for 30 years, and it has your name on it! And it’s beautiful, and it sounds amazing! He called it his “NUMBER ONE” because this was the one that was right. Gibson had sent a few prototypes earlier, but they weren’t right. And Les was only going to put his name on it if it was the guitar he wanted…
He said “Close, but no cigar” to the earlier ones which basically flopped, rejects, “no-go’s” as far as Les was concerned. He was simply not going to put his name on something he didn’t approve of… and he APPROVED this one because it was finally right!
He called it Number One because it truly was the first one and to him, it was his go-to guitar for all of those years. Les had a numbering system for all of his guitars, and so literally and figuratively this was Number One. It meant the world to him, his pride and joy. Can you imagine working on something like this for decades, being ridiculed, misunderstood, toiling, and working for years, and then finally getting something as beautiful as this Gibson Goldtop? It was his dream come true.
How important is the guitar to Rock ‘n Roll?
The funny thing about that is, that Dad could not have imagined that the next generation would take this guitar and do what they did with it. He originally wanted it for himself, and for jazz players. But then, some 12 or 13 years later after the first Gibson Les Paul guitars hit the market all these rock players got ahold of these guitars, and wow!
Most people don’t realize that by the time all of these famous rock players started blowing up and blowing minds with this guitar, the Gibson Les Paul was no longer in production… can you imagine? These guys generally had to find these Les Paul guitars second-hand at music stores, and pawnshops.
When those early rock players plugged these Les Paul guitars into loud overdriven amps everyone was amazed, just blown away. No one had ever heard anything like that before. Clapton, Mike Bloomfield, Jeff Beck, Keith Richards, Jimmy Page, Peter Green and the rest were trendsetters and gave this guitar a second life. Rock’ n Roll just simply wouldn’t be, couldn’t be what it was then, and what it is today without this guitar… that’s why we say it’s “The guitar that started it all” – That’s just the truth. I mean, for instance can you imagine Jimmy Page’s Led Zeppelin without the Les Paul guitar, or Slash, Frampton? The list goes on and on!
How do you equate the value of this guitar? Experts are describing it as the “Holy Grail of Guitars” or the “Jewel in the Crown.” How do you describe it?
The value of this guitar it’s just unfathomable really. I get asked that a lot lately of course. What I ask people back in return is, what is the first Wright brother’s plane worth? What is the first lightbulb valued at? What is Neil Armstrong’s moon landing boot worth? What’s the price of the Hope Diamond or the Mona Lisa? I mean we’re talking about the first Les Paul here, it was Mr. Les Paul’s personal guitar… his pride and joy, his prized possession.
What do you think this guitar will sell for?
Well, naturally we get asked that question all the time. Of course, no one has a crystal ball and can tell what the potential bidders will ultimately pay at auction for this one-of-a-kind icon when it’s all said and done. But consider this: Recently the Kurt Cobain Martin guitar sold for 6.2 million dollars at auction… that was for a guitar that was played on an MTV unplugged session in 1993, and this Les Paul Goldtop guitar is the very guitar that literally started it all. Mr. Les Paul’s personal prized possession, his Gibson Les Paul NUMBER ONE.
It was this guitar that Les Paul finally approved of, and then signed off on, giving Gibson the permission to put his name on it. This guitar is the actual living start of the legend, and storied history of the forever famed Les Paul guitar, played by countless rock stars for the last 6 decades. Is there a more famous brand of the guitar? Is there any other guitar that can make that sound? Is there any other guitar that has had such an impact on the very sound and nature of rock and roll and blues? This guitar is THE ONE that started it all… and it isn’t some “off the shelf” guitar sold to someone at a music store.
This is the guitar that Les was striving for 30 plus years to finally make a reality, was his main “NUMBER ONE”, and is the beginning of the beginning. It isn’t very often that one can actually pinpoint and actually touch the very start of a phenomenon… but here it is for the entire world to see, appreciate, and marvel at the contribution of Les Paul, his life’s work, the Gibson Les Paul guitar, and the very legacy of music as we know it… So what is that worth? Incalculably valuable, really… just priceless.
Who are some of the artists your father influenced?
Geez… I think it would be a shorter list to tell you the artists who were NOT influenced by Dad. The list could go on forever really, but if you ever saw Les play at Fat Tuesdays or The Iridium Club for those 27 years you would have seen all the “Greats”. From Jimmy Page to Jeff Beck, to Paul McCartney, Joe Walsh, Steve Miller, Dickey Betts, Billy Gibbons, Slash, Keith Richards… pretty much every rock guitar player you ever heard of since the 60’s really.
And that’s whether they were known for playing a Les Paul guitar or not, mind you. Not to mention all the jazz greats as well. We all used to say half-jokingly, “There’s good ‘Ol Les holding court.”
How are you hoping the Les Paul guitar is regarded in history?
Well, that’s where I get choked up, frankly. My father, Les Paul was my hero of course. But he was also everyone’s hero all around the world. This is his legacy, the very embodiment of his imagination, of his hard work, of his vision, the physical proof of his contribution to mankind. I mean, just stop and think about it for a minute. Music is important to us humans. Without it what are we really?
Without art, and music, and culture we’re all just squatting in a cave somewhere, right? We want this guitar to remind everyone around the world of Les Paul’s contribution, of his genius, of his vision. Most people don’t know this, but dad is the only man on earth to ever be inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and the National Inventors Hall of Fame… and he was inducted because of this guitar!
I pray that when they see this guitar, that they see Les, I mean really see him. He changed the world, and he was my dad… see why I get emotional? It’s just wonderful, just wonderful.
