Les Paul & The Last Word

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

Les Paul was born 100 years ago today. Even if you do not remember or can not name any of his couple dozen hit songs, if you are listening to music at this moment, you are listening to his influence, no matter what style of music you have on. He invented multi-track recording in the 1940s, for instance, so unless you are listening to a monaural recording on an acetate disc from that era, you are listening to a multi-track recording.

It is true that multi-track recording is one of those things that someone was going to invent out of necessity, but Les Paul is the man who responded to that necessity.

He also invented the solid-body electric guitar and the amplification system for it, so if you are listening to an electric guitar right now, you are listening to Les Paul’s influence. And you might even be listening to a Gibson Les Paul model guitar—Gibson started selling a model based on his design in the early 1950s—Eric Clapton played a Les Paul while he was with Cream. “Sunshine of Your Love?” That’s a Les Paul.
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Olana

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

Only one person has asked, which means that many have been wondering silently. It’s a clamor of silence. (In the world of a co-dependent, almost complete silence is the same thing as many specific requests.) The question(s): The photo at the top, where is that? What is it photo of?

Indeed, there is one photo on this web site that is not of me or my duck friend, and it has sat at the top of the front page since The Gad About Town made its debut. It is at the top. It is the view of the Hudson River looking south from Frederic Edwin Church‘s home studio, Olana, near Hudson, New York. It is a photo taken in 2013.
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A Sense of Injustice

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

The news this morning from Saudi Arabia is grim: an appeals court in that country has reviewed the case of writer Raif Badawi and decided to uphold his sentence of ten years in prison and 1000 lashes by a whip.
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