Chords for Tom Doyle with Les Paul's BLACK BEAUTY 1954 Prototype - Guitar Player Magazine
Tempo:
102.7 bpm
Chords used:
C
Eb
Tuning:Standard Tuning (EADGBE)Capo:+0fret
Start Jamming...
About Les Paul and some of the things he had given me,
amongst other things, the most prized possessions
are the first gold top that he used
and the first black beauty, which we call the custom,
all black beauty.
He gave me both of those guitars to have,
and I've had them for all of these years.
That's probably close to 40 years
for both of these guitars now.
And prized possessions that were just
How can you put a value on them?
They're so valuable.
This particular Les Paul guitar is really
the Mona Lisa, really, of the Les Paul guitar.
This is the first custom that was a prototype
that Les got, and then he slowly morphed
through the years to make it what it is today.
Without this guitar, the other Les Paul guitars
would not have any kind of credence
because all of the problems that were in the gold top
were solved in this guitar.
This was the guitar, number one Les Paul black custom,
and Les Paul used this extensively
on the Listerine commercials.
And Les only asked about two colors,
and that was gold and black,
and this was the one to say,
Les, we made the black one with all of the changes
that you wanted.
Now this is the guitar.
And being number one Les Paul custom,
you can see this guitar, as it morphed,
he would change it constantly
looking for that perfect sound.
So one week he would have just a pickguard covering,
there would be no pickup that you could see on the front
or what we call neck pickup.
You did not even know he had a pickup there.
Then he had a P90 in the back here,
and that pickguard covered this whole area
except the P90.
He then changed the controls.
He chopped this section out with Wally Kamen,
his brother-in-law,
and changed all of this to be,
everything balanced controls being low impedance.
So that was one of the major morphs that he did
so he could record directly into the board.
He tried different vibrolas,
and one of them that he used on this guitar,
which I have, is the vibrola that was made by Rickenbacker,
and he had those on his original clunker guitars also,
but on this guitar he put a nickel or a chrome vibrola
instead of the Bigsby.
The Bigsby came later.
The original bridge on this guitar
was certainly a great bridge because it was a tunamatic,
but Les decided to put posts in it
that were twice or three times the size of those posts
so he would drive the sound into the top.
And by doing that, he would have much more sustain.
He was looking for sustain,
but he didn't play with distortion.
Remember, he worked his whole life to get distortion out,
and this is why he developed these pickups,
these low impedance pickups.
He wanted to be more in control of walking up to a microphone,
and he decided to do the unique invention
of running the cables through the guitar,
[N] creating a jack that was right on the top here, an XLR,
that he could put a gooseneck in and have a microphone
so he could talk and play the guitar,
and that was a very unique idea.
He had a volume control right here
to turn the volume of the mic down if he wanted to.
This was pickup selection here,
but this was the volume control for the mic.
Les would chop out the inside of the area between the pickups
so he could move these pickups either slanted
or put them close together,
rewind them to see if it made a different sound.
And so in order to do that,
you had to chop out this whole section from here to there.
There's no wood in between there
except a little bit in the back.
But that gave him the ability
to move these pickups any way he wanted.
Inventing was the most important aspect of his life at that point
because he wanted to give the sound
that he had on his recordings to the average guitar player,
and that became the guitar that he called the Les Paul recording.
We have a master volume control here.
We have just a, that's actually a switch.
It looked like a control, but it's actually a switch for phasing.
He has another control here,
which is actually controlling another part of a transformer
that he has in here so he could dial in
whether he wanted 50 ohms, 200 ohms, 500 ohms, or 600 ohms.
He has no tone control in this guitar at this time.
He's going directly into the board through here.
Actually, the other thing I should point out,
this would be the low impedance out right here.
This is the original output for high impedance,
but this is the low impedance out.
So this cable would accept the microphone feed
and the amplifier feed with a Y
going into two channels of an amplifier.
What he was looking for was a clear, beautiful bell tone sound
that would just melt you.
When he would play the guitar,
he would talk about mothering the notes.
These pickups were the thing that could mother those notes.
You could just lay on that note forever,
and it would just give a beautiful tone.
Well, now, here comes the rock and roll guys.
They're going, man, I'm going to rip the speaker and my amplifier.
I'm going to hit the guitar as hard as I can with a strong pickup,
and I'm going to create distortion
because I need something else to help me make a sound
that I feel would be more apropos for the times.
And that was a raunchy sound.
You know, Bo Diddley was one of those guys too.
But Les realized that he and Mary could not really [C] compete with that.
You developed the 8-track recorder.
You developed multiple recordings with cell sync,
which is selective synchronization,
which is what the 8-track eventually had on it,
so that you had to develop another board to run that 8-track.
He did all of that to create a beautiful bell-like sound.
Now, the kids come along, and he can't compete with that
because how can you be at that level of beauty of sound
and go down and put distortion back into your sound and try to be a kid?
[Eb] And then he realized, you know what,
they are kids looking just like I was a kid looking for something.
And he realized, that's not bad at all.
They're still buying less Paul guitars.
amongst other things, the most prized possessions
are the first gold top that he used
and the first black beauty, which we call the custom,
all black beauty.
He gave me both of those guitars to have,
and I've had them for all of these years.
That's probably close to 40 years
for both of these guitars now.
And prized possessions that were just
How can you put a value on them?
They're so valuable.
This particular Les Paul guitar is really
the Mona Lisa, really, of the Les Paul guitar.
This is the first custom that was a prototype
that Les got, and then he slowly morphed
through the years to make it what it is today.
Without this guitar, the other Les Paul guitars
would not have any kind of credence
because all of the problems that were in the gold top
were solved in this guitar.
This was the guitar, number one Les Paul black custom,
and Les Paul used this extensively
on the Listerine commercials.
And Les only asked about two colors,
and that was gold and black,
and this was the one to say,
Les, we made the black one with all of the changes
that you wanted.
Now this is the guitar.
And being number one Les Paul custom,
you can see this guitar, as it morphed,
he would change it constantly
looking for that perfect sound.
So one week he would have just a pickguard covering,
there would be no pickup that you could see on the front
or what we call neck pickup.
You did not even know he had a pickup there.
Then he had a P90 in the back here,
and that pickguard covered this whole area
except the P90.
He then changed the controls.
He chopped this section out with Wally Kamen,
his brother-in-law,
and changed all of this to be,
everything balanced controls being low impedance.
So that was one of the major morphs that he did
so he could record directly into the board.
He tried different vibrolas,
and one of them that he used on this guitar,
which I have, is the vibrola that was made by Rickenbacker,
and he had those on his original clunker guitars also,
but on this guitar he put a nickel or a chrome vibrola
instead of the Bigsby.
The Bigsby came later.
The original bridge on this guitar
was certainly a great bridge because it was a tunamatic,
but Les decided to put posts in it
that were twice or three times the size of those posts
so he would drive the sound into the top.
And by doing that, he would have much more sustain.
He was looking for sustain,
but he didn't play with distortion.
Remember, he worked his whole life to get distortion out,
and this is why he developed these pickups,
these low impedance pickups.
He wanted to be more in control of walking up to a microphone,
and he decided to do the unique invention
of running the cables through the guitar,
[N] creating a jack that was right on the top here, an XLR,
that he could put a gooseneck in and have a microphone
so he could talk and play the guitar,
and that was a very unique idea.
He had a volume control right here
to turn the volume of the mic down if he wanted to.
This was pickup selection here,
but this was the volume control for the mic.
Les would chop out the inside of the area between the pickups
so he could move these pickups either slanted
or put them close together,
rewind them to see if it made a different sound.
And so in order to do that,
you had to chop out this whole section from here to there.
There's no wood in between there
except a little bit in the back.
But that gave him the ability
to move these pickups any way he wanted.
Inventing was the most important aspect of his life at that point
because he wanted to give the sound
that he had on his recordings to the average guitar player,
and that became the guitar that he called the Les Paul recording.
We have a master volume control here.
We have just a, that's actually a switch.
It looked like a control, but it's actually a switch for phasing.
He has another control here,
which is actually controlling another part of a transformer
that he has in here so he could dial in
whether he wanted 50 ohms, 200 ohms, 500 ohms, or 600 ohms.
He has no tone control in this guitar at this time.
He's going directly into the board through here.
Actually, the other thing I should point out,
this would be the low impedance out right here.
This is the original output for high impedance,
but this is the low impedance out.
So this cable would accept the microphone feed
and the amplifier feed with a Y
going into two channels of an amplifier.
What he was looking for was a clear, beautiful bell tone sound
that would just melt you.
When he would play the guitar,
he would talk about mothering the notes.
These pickups were the thing that could mother those notes.
You could just lay on that note forever,
and it would just give a beautiful tone.
Well, now, here comes the rock and roll guys.
They're going, man, I'm going to rip the speaker and my amplifier.
I'm going to hit the guitar as hard as I can with a strong pickup,
and I'm going to create distortion
because I need something else to help me make a sound
that I feel would be more apropos for the times.
And that was a raunchy sound.
You know, Bo Diddley was one of those guys too.
But Les realized that he and Mary could not really [C] compete with that.
You developed the 8-track recorder.
You developed multiple recordings with cell sync,
which is selective synchronization,
which is what the 8-track eventually had on it,
so that you had to develop another board to run that 8-track.
He did all of that to create a beautiful bell-like sound.
Now, the kids come along, and he can't compete with that
because how can you be at that level of beauty of sound
and go down and put distortion back into your sound and try to be a kid?
[Eb] And then he realized, you know what,
they are kids looking just like I was a kid looking for something.
And he realized, that's not bad at all.
They're still buying less Paul guitars.
Key:
C
Eb
C
Eb
C
Eb
C
Eb
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ About Les Paul and some of the things he had given me,
amongst other things, the most prized possessions
are the first gold top that he used
and the first black beauty, which we call the custom,
all black beauty.
He gave me both of those guitars to have,
and I've had them for all of these years.
That's probably close to 40 years
for both of these guitars now.
And prized possessions that were just_
How can you put a value on them?
They're so valuable. _ _ _
This particular Les Paul guitar is really
the Mona Lisa, really, of the Les Paul guitar.
This is the first custom that was a prototype
that Les got, _ and then he slowly morphed
through the years to make it what it is today.
Without this guitar, the other Les Paul guitars
would not have any kind of credence
because all of the problems that were in the gold top
were solved in this guitar.
This was the guitar, number one Les Paul _ black custom,
and Les Paul used this extensively
on the Listerine commercials.
And Les only asked about two colors,
and that was gold and black,
and this was the one to say,
Les, we made the black one with all of the changes
that you wanted.
Now this is the guitar.
And being number one Les Paul custom,
you can see this guitar, as it morphed,
he would change it constantly
looking for that perfect sound.
So one week he would have just a pickguard covering,
there would be no pickup that you could see on the front
or what we call neck pickup.
You did not even know he had a pickup there.
Then he had a P90 in the back here,
and that pickguard covered this whole area
except the P90.
He then changed the controls.
He chopped this section out with Wally Kamen,
his brother-in-law,
and changed all of this to be,
everything balanced controls being low impedance.
So that was one of the major morphs that he did
so he could record directly into the board.
He tried different vibrolas,
and one of them that he used on this guitar,
which I have, is the vibrola that was made by Rickenbacker,
and he had those on his original clunker guitars also,
but on this guitar he put a nickel or a chrome vibrola
instead of the Bigsby.
The Bigsby came later.
The original bridge on this guitar _ _
was certainly a great bridge because it was a tunamatic,
but Les decided to put posts in it
that were twice or three times the size of those posts
so he would drive the sound into the top.
And by doing that, he would have much more sustain.
He was looking for sustain,
but he didn't play with distortion.
Remember, he worked his whole life to get distortion out,
and this is why he developed these pickups,
these low impedance pickups.
He wanted to be more in control of walking up to a microphone,
and he decided to do the unique invention
of running the cables through the guitar,
[N] creating a jack that was right on the top here, an XLR,
that he could put a gooseneck in and have a microphone
so he could talk and play the guitar,
and that was a very unique idea.
He had a volume control right here
to turn the volume of the mic down if he wanted to.
This was pickup selection here,
but this was the volume control for the mic.
Les would chop out the inside of the area between the pickups
so he could move these pickups either slanted
or put them close together,
rewind them to see if it made a different sound.
And so in order to do that,
you had to chop out this whole section from here to there.
There's no wood in between there
except a little bit in the back.
_ But that gave him the ability
to move these pickups any way he wanted. _
Inventing was the most important aspect of his life at that point
because he wanted to give the sound
that he had on his recordings _ to the average guitar player,
and that became the guitar that he called the Les Paul recording.
We have a master volume control here.
We have just a, _ that's actually a switch.
It looked like a control, but it's actually a switch for phasing. _
He has another control here,
which is actually controlling _ another part of a transformer
that he has in here so he could dial in
whether he wanted 50 ohms, 200 ohms, 500 ohms, or 600 ohms.
He has no tone control in this guitar at this time.
He's going directly into the board through here.
Actually, the other thing I should point out,
this would be the low impedance out right here.
This is the original output for high impedance,
but this is the low impedance out.
So this cable would accept the microphone feed
and the amplifier feed with a Y
going into two channels of an amplifier.
What he was looking for was a clear, beautiful bell tone _ sound
that would just melt you.
When he would play the guitar,
he would talk about mothering the notes.
These pickups were the thing that could mother those notes.
You could just lay on that note forever,
and it would just give a beautiful tone.
Well, now, here comes the rock and roll guys. _
They're going, man, I'm going to rip the speaker and my amplifier.
I'm going to hit the guitar as hard as I can with a strong pickup,
and I'm going to create distortion
because I need something else to help me make a sound
that I feel would be more apropos for the times.
And that was a raunchy sound.
You know, Bo Diddley was one of those guys too.
_ But Les realized that he and Mary could not really [C] compete with that.
You developed the 8-track recorder.
You developed multiple recordings with cell sync,
which is selective synchronization,
which is what the 8-track eventually had on it,
so that you had to develop another board to run that 8-track.
He did all of that to create a beautiful bell-like sound.
_ Now, the kids come along, and he can't compete with that
because how can you be at that level of beauty of sound
and go down and put distortion back into your sound and try to be a kid?
[Eb] And then he realized, you know what,
they are kids looking just like I was a kid looking for something.
And he realized, that's not bad at all.
They're still buying less Paul guitars. _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ About Les Paul and some of the things he had given me,
amongst other things, the most prized possessions
are the first gold top that he used
and the first black beauty, which we call the custom,
all black beauty.
He gave me both of those guitars to have,
and I've had them for all of these years.
That's probably close to 40 years
for both of these guitars now.
And prized possessions that were just_
How can you put a value on them?
They're so valuable. _ _ _
This particular Les Paul guitar is really
the Mona Lisa, really, of the Les Paul guitar.
This is the first custom that was a prototype
that Les got, _ and then he slowly morphed
through the years to make it what it is today.
Without this guitar, the other Les Paul guitars
would not have any kind of credence
because all of the problems that were in the gold top
were solved in this guitar.
This was the guitar, number one Les Paul _ black custom,
and Les Paul used this extensively
on the Listerine commercials.
And Les only asked about two colors,
and that was gold and black,
and this was the one to say,
Les, we made the black one with all of the changes
that you wanted.
Now this is the guitar.
And being number one Les Paul custom,
you can see this guitar, as it morphed,
he would change it constantly
looking for that perfect sound.
So one week he would have just a pickguard covering,
there would be no pickup that you could see on the front
or what we call neck pickup.
You did not even know he had a pickup there.
Then he had a P90 in the back here,
and that pickguard covered this whole area
except the P90.
He then changed the controls.
He chopped this section out with Wally Kamen,
his brother-in-law,
and changed all of this to be,
everything balanced controls being low impedance.
So that was one of the major morphs that he did
so he could record directly into the board.
He tried different vibrolas,
and one of them that he used on this guitar,
which I have, is the vibrola that was made by Rickenbacker,
and he had those on his original clunker guitars also,
but on this guitar he put a nickel or a chrome vibrola
instead of the Bigsby.
The Bigsby came later.
The original bridge on this guitar _ _
was certainly a great bridge because it was a tunamatic,
but Les decided to put posts in it
that were twice or three times the size of those posts
so he would drive the sound into the top.
And by doing that, he would have much more sustain.
He was looking for sustain,
but he didn't play with distortion.
Remember, he worked his whole life to get distortion out,
and this is why he developed these pickups,
these low impedance pickups.
He wanted to be more in control of walking up to a microphone,
and he decided to do the unique invention
of running the cables through the guitar,
[N] creating a jack that was right on the top here, an XLR,
that he could put a gooseneck in and have a microphone
so he could talk and play the guitar,
and that was a very unique idea.
He had a volume control right here
to turn the volume of the mic down if he wanted to.
This was pickup selection here,
but this was the volume control for the mic.
Les would chop out the inside of the area between the pickups
so he could move these pickups either slanted
or put them close together,
rewind them to see if it made a different sound.
And so in order to do that,
you had to chop out this whole section from here to there.
There's no wood in between there
except a little bit in the back.
_ But that gave him the ability
to move these pickups any way he wanted. _
Inventing was the most important aspect of his life at that point
because he wanted to give the sound
that he had on his recordings _ to the average guitar player,
and that became the guitar that he called the Les Paul recording.
We have a master volume control here.
We have just a, _ that's actually a switch.
It looked like a control, but it's actually a switch for phasing. _
He has another control here,
which is actually controlling _ another part of a transformer
that he has in here so he could dial in
whether he wanted 50 ohms, 200 ohms, 500 ohms, or 600 ohms.
He has no tone control in this guitar at this time.
He's going directly into the board through here.
Actually, the other thing I should point out,
this would be the low impedance out right here.
This is the original output for high impedance,
but this is the low impedance out.
So this cable would accept the microphone feed
and the amplifier feed with a Y
going into two channels of an amplifier.
What he was looking for was a clear, beautiful bell tone _ sound
that would just melt you.
When he would play the guitar,
he would talk about mothering the notes.
These pickups were the thing that could mother those notes.
You could just lay on that note forever,
and it would just give a beautiful tone.
Well, now, here comes the rock and roll guys. _
They're going, man, I'm going to rip the speaker and my amplifier.
I'm going to hit the guitar as hard as I can with a strong pickup,
and I'm going to create distortion
because I need something else to help me make a sound
that I feel would be more apropos for the times.
And that was a raunchy sound.
You know, Bo Diddley was one of those guys too.
_ But Les realized that he and Mary could not really [C] compete with that.
You developed the 8-track recorder.
You developed multiple recordings with cell sync,
which is selective synchronization,
which is what the 8-track eventually had on it,
so that you had to develop another board to run that 8-track.
He did all of that to create a beautiful bell-like sound.
_ Now, the kids come along, and he can't compete with that
because how can you be at that level of beauty of sound
and go down and put distortion back into your sound and try to be a kid?
[Eb] And then he realized, you know what,
they are kids looking just like I was a kid looking for something.
And he realized, that's not bad at all.
They're still buying less Paul guitars. _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _