Chords for Les Paul's Original 1954 Black Custom 'BLACK BEAUTY" - Tom Doyle
Tempo:
98 bpm
Chords used:
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.
It'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 we called 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.
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.
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,
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 pickup 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, he has a,
he has 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.
And he would, when he would play the guitar,
he would talk about mothering the notes.
And 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.
And 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 compete with that.
You develop 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 boards
that 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?
And then he realized, you know what?
They are kids looking just like I was a kid
looking for something.
And he realized, it'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.
It'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 we called 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.
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.
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,
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 pickup 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, he has a,
he has 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.
And he would, when he would play the guitar,
he would talk about mothering the notes.
And 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.
And 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 compete with that.
You develop 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 boards
that 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?
And then he realized, you know what?
They are kids looking just like I was a kid
looking for something.
And he realized, it's not bad at all.
They're still buying less Paul guitars.
Key:
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _
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.
It'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 we called 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.
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.
_ 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,
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 pickup 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, he has a,
he has 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.
And he would, when he would play the guitar,
he would talk about mothering the notes.
And 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.
And 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 compete with that.
You develop 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 boards
that 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?
And then he realized, you know what?
They are kids looking just like I was a kid
looking for something.
And he realized, it'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.
It'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 we called 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.
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.
_ 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,
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 pickup 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, he has a,
he has 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.
And he would, when he would play the guitar,
he would talk about mothering the notes.
And 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.
And 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 compete with that.
You develop 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 boards
that 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?
And then he realized, you know what?
They are kids looking just like I was a kid
looking for something.
And he realized, it's not bad at all.
They're still buying less Paul guitars. _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _