The Birth of Loud: Leo Fender, Les Paul, and the

The Birth of Loud: Leo Fender, Les Paul, and the Guitar-Pioneering Rivalry That Shaped Rock 'n' Roll

â€œA hot-rod joy ride through mid-20th-century American historyâ€ (The New York Times Book Review), this one-of-a-kind narrative masterfully recreates the rivalry between the two men who innovated the electric guitarâ€™s amplified soundâ€”Leo Fender and Les Paulâ€”and their intense competition to convince rock stars like the Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, and Eric Clapton to play the instruments they built.

In the years after World War II, music was evolving from big-band jazz into rock â€™nâ€™ rollâ€”and these louder styles demanded revolutionary instruments. When Leo Fenderâ€™s tiny firm marketed the first solid-body electric guitar, the Esquire, musicians immediately saw its appeal. Not to be out-maneuvered, Gibson, the largest guitar manufacturer, raced to build a competitive product. The company designed an â€œaxeâ€ that would make Fenderâ€™s Esquire look cheap and convinced Les Paulâ€”whose endorsement Leo Fender had soughtâ€”to put his name on it. Thus was born the guitar worldâ€™s most heated rivalry: Gibson versus Fender, Les versus Leo.

While Fender was a quiet, half-blind, self-taught radio repairman, Paul was a brilliant but headstrong pop star and guitarist who spent years toying with new musical technologies. Their contest turned into an arms race as the most inventive musicians of the 1950s and 1960sâ€”including bluesman Muddy Waters, rocker Buddy Holly, the Beatles, Bob Dylan, and Eric Claptonâ€”adopted one makerâ€™s guitar or another. By 1969 it was clear that these new electric instruments had launched music into a radical new age, empowering artists with a vibrancy and volume never before attainable.

In â€œan excellent dual portraitâ€ (The Wall Street Journal), Ian S. Port tells the full story in The Birth of Loud, offering â€œspot-on human characterizations, and erotic paeans to the bodies of guitarsâ€ (The Atlantic). â€œThe story of these instruments is the story of America in the postwar era: loud, cocky, brash, aggressively newâ€ (The Washington Post).
Country USA
Manufacturer Scribner
Binding Kindle Edition
ReleaseDate 2019-01-15
Format Kindle eBook
EANs 9781501141768

Country	USA
Manufacturer	Scribner
Binding	Kindle Edition
ReleaseDate	2019-01-15
Format	Kindle eBook
EANs	9781501141768

The Birth of Loud: Leo Fender, Les Paul, and the Guitar-Pioneering Rivalry That Shaped Rock 'n' Roll

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