Les Paul

I never stop being amazed by all the different ways of playing the guitar and making it deliver a message.

Now I need to take a piece of wood and make it sound like the railroad track, but I also had to make it beautiful and lovable so that a person playing it would think of it in terms of his mistress, a bartender, his wife, a good psychiatrist – whatever.

I got out of the car and there was a knife in my neck. The guy says, “Don’t move.” And the drummer got out of the car, and he got a gun in his head. This was my entrance to the South Side of Chicago. But it was necessary, because I wanted to play jazz.

There’s millions and millions of people who think Les Paul is a guitar!

Leo wanted me to be partners with him – for it to be the Fender guitar: the Les Paul Fender. When he approached me with the idea, he brought over a guitar and he gave it to me and I have it here. And I thought, if I’m gonna do this I’m going to go with the biggest company in the world: Gibson. Why should I fool around with some guy who is not a musician – I should go to the Gibson people.

If I have to go around telling everyone how great I am, then there’s something wrong with my act.

When you want ’em you can’t get ’em, when you’ve got ’em, you don’t want ’em.

Bird said he worked as dishwasher at Onyx Club on 52nd St. in the early 1940s just to hear Art Tatum play.

What a fool I am to think my breaking heart could kid the moon.

You can separate the men from the boys and ballads.

The time is now.

Jazz has the ability to absorb and transform influences from diverse musical styles.

Always look ahead, but never look back.

I wanted to put jazz on the record, all the loves of music that I had on the record, so I could show people I was ahead of my 19 years. It may have been over the heads of some people.

Why Jazz? This is just the way I see music.

The way I look at it, they’re all part of my musical diary, and I can listen to any one of them and it will bring up memories of what was going on at that time.

Creativity shouldn’t be following radio; it should be the other way around.

Music to me is like breathing. I don’t get tired of breathing, I don’t get tired of music.

Always be a first-rate version of yourself, instead of a second-rate version of someone else.

You know at an early age if you have a talent for music.

Play it f**kin’ loud!