Kim Tomsic - Guitar Genius: How Les Paul Engineered the Solid-Body Electric Guitar and Rocked the World

For Cayman Tomsic, my guitar heroK. T.
For Woody, my guitar teacherB. H.

Text copyright 2019 by Kim Tomsic.
Illustrations copyright 2019 by Brett Helquist.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:

Names: Tomsic, Kim, author. | Helquist, Brett, illustrator.
Title: Guitar genius : how Les Paul engineered the solid-body electric guitar and rocked the world / by Kim Tomsic ; illustrated by Brett Helquist.
Description: San Francisco, California : Chronicle Books, [2019] | Includes bibliographical references.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017045870

ISBN 9781452159195 (hc)
ISBN 978-1-4521-7603-1 (epub2)
ISBN 978-1-4521-8018-2 (epub3)
ISBN 978-1-4521-8017-5(kindle)

Subjects: LCSH: Paul, LesJuvenile literature. | GuitaristsUnited StatesBiographyJuvenile literature. | InventorsUnited StatesBiography Juvenile literature.
Classification: LCC ML3930.P29 T66 2019 | DDC 787.87092 [B] dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017045870

Design by Ryan Hayes.
Typeset in ITC Century & Knockout.
The illustrations in this book were rendered in oil paint on watercolor paper.

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In a three-story schoolhouse near the Fox River in Waukesha, Wisconsin, children scrambled into the music room.

Tambourines shimmied, drums boomed, and bells clanged. Little Lester loved it all the punchy pluck of banjo chords, the bright twinkle of piano keys, and the rise and fall of notes.

Lester couldnt read the music sheets. Those tracks of squiggly lines and black dots didnt make sense. But it didnt matter. The fun part was all the sounds he could make.

At his after-school piano lesson, his teacher sighed and pinned a note to his shirt.

He skipped all the way home.

What does it say? he asked, grinning from freckle to freckle.

Well, Lesters mother said gently. It says youll never be musical.

Lesters shoulders sank. His eyes stung.

Dont listen to her. His mother tore the paper into tiny pieces. You are going to be great.

Really?

You can do anything you put your mind to.

Lester thought about that.

He did a lot of thinking. One day while he was stuffing newspapers for his paper route, his buddy, Harry, showed up wrapping wire around an empty oatmeal can.

What are you doing, Harry?

Im building a crystal radio set.

Well, that was interesting. So Lester gathered bits and parts and built his own crystal kit. Then he wired it right to the bedsprings in his mattress for an antenna...

Out from his home-built radio floated the warm drawl of guitar strings. Wowza!

Lester saved his paper route earnings until he had enough to order his very own guitar.

As Lester opened the box, his finger hit one of the guitar strings.

You already sound great, Lester! his mother said.

He didnt. Lester fumbled through the chords. His fingers floundered over the fret board. He even blundered through the B notes. His hands werent big enough to reach all six strings, so he removed one. And then he practiced and practiced until...

He could play the guitar, the banjo, and even the harmonica. He sounded so slick that the manager of WTMJ invited him to play on the radio!

Mister, his mother said, you dont know how good that sounds. I wish you could hear it like we do when you play on the radio.

Lester wished that, too, but he didnt own a recording device. It was the 1920s. Nobody he knew owned that sort of gadget. But that was okay. If he didnt have a recording device, hed build one.

He scrutinized the familys newfangled gizmos, tinkering in his mothers living room and his fathers garage. And then he took everything apartthings like the phonograph, the player piano, the telephone, and the radio.

Ma, his big brother hollered. The kids at it again!

Leave him alone, Ralph, his mother said. Hes just trying to learn.

With a Cadillac flywheel, a dentists belt, a nail, and other pieces and parts, he built a recording lathe so he could record his music.

He made recordings of his guitar strumming and harmonica humming, and then he played them back to figure out how to make it sound better. Soon, he could whip out all sorts of knee-slapping, hillbilly melodies. Everybody said he was super.

But Lester wanted to be even better. He wanted to play both sides of his harmonica while he plucked his guitar.

You only have two arms, you goofus, Ralph said. You cant flip a harmonica and play a guitar at the same time. Everyone knows thats impossible.

But Lester thought it was possible.

So when Ralph left for work at the neighborhood dry cleaning store, Lester picked up a coat hanger left lying around the house.

He fitted the hanger over his shoulders, and shaped the other ends to fit the harmonica so he could flip the instrument with his chin and play twice as many sounds.