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Customer Reviews of Les Paul - Chasing Sound

A Joyous Celebration of Sounds Caught and Thrown Back to Others
This DVD is such a joyous celebration of Les Paul and his life, his influence on the recording industry and his influence on musicians, that for a reviewer, especially a novice one like myself, with some many positives aspects to discuss about this DVD, it would probably be best if I just said, "Buy it." <
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>But, I can't... because there just aren't that many quality biographical DVD's out there that have no flaws. <
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>In "Les Paul Chasing Sound," you have the life of guitarist extraordinaire Les Paul and his amazing story of taking his guitar talents first to Chicago, and all its jazz clubs, then to New York City, and finally to Hollywood. As he takes this journey, he shares with the viewer the reasons for his choices, and how each one built upon another. The editing is superb, with the director choosing clarity for the viewer over continuity, as pieces of interviews conducted in several environments are interwoven to give the viewer an excellent, well thought-out story. <
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>Then, there is the story of Les Paul the inventor, as he recounts the set-backs he encountered in developing a solid core electric guitar, first for Epiphone, then Gibson. It was only after Leo Fender developed the Fender Strat in the early 1950's, did Gibson come a calling for Les to show them what his solid body guitar do for them. It is disputed between McGinty of Gibson and Les Paul as to Paul's actual involvement in the process, but there is not doubt that having the name "Les Paul" on the head stock didn't hurt sales any. <
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>The story isn't always a happy one, the automobile accident on a snowy road broke his right arm so badly that the doctor wanted to cut-it-off; however, another doctor said, "This man is an amazing musician. We cannot end his musical career that way." So, it was decided to set his arm in such as way to allow him to continue to play the guitar. <
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>The late 40's and early to mid-50's were glorious times for Les Paul and his wife Mary Ford (original name Colleen Summers, but renamed by Les so that her name would be short in length, like his), as they had Top-Ten hit after hit. Then, Rock-and-Roll came and his music fell out of favor. <
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>I could go on-and-on about the program, but I won't, why should I tell you everything, but what I will tell you is that, this DVD is worth its price just for the extras: the clips of Les playing with Keith Richards, Chet Atkins, Kay Starr, et. al., the full-length performances of him and the Les Paul Trio playing at he Iridium Jazz Club in New York City, clips from TV appearances, and extended conversations featured in the movie that you can view easier as an extra to the DVD. <
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>Finally, there's one other reason music lovers and musicians, guitarist or otherwise, should buy and listen to this DVD on Les Paul, there is the exuberance that Les Paul, at 90 years young, still shows for life. <
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>I entitled this review "A Joyous Celebration of Sounds Caught and Thrown Back to Others," because, to me, Les Paul took and developed those recording sounds we take for granted today... sound-on-sound, sound with sound, echo, over-dubbing, and he, like one of those fishermen on a TV fishing show does when he catches a 10 pound bass, throws those concepts back so that others can learn them and make better recordings. <
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>This DVD is a celebration, it is a joy to watch, and it gives us so much insight into Les Paul, the evolution of music, especially jazz, in the lower and mid-1900's.

Awesome
My first guitar was a knock off gold top Les Paul. My second was the real deal. My first tape recorder did not have sound on sound or multi-track ability. My second had both. Getting the point here? Maybe it's my age group, but Les Paul and his work meant so much on so many levels and here comes a riveting doc on his life. How could I resist it? And well I should not. <
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>Les Paul Chasing sound is an awesome story told first hand by an awesome man who changed the course of music and the music business so dramatically. Not only as a player/performer, but as a recording enthusiast and inventor of tools to better record music. That's on the story level. <
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>On the production level, PBS and American Masters may very well have outdone themselves with Chasing Sound. I enjoy all of the American Masters profiles from Ella to Bernstein to Rockwell, but this production is simply the best one ever. Maybe it's all the first hand story-telling. Maybe it's all the incredible guitar playing. Maybe it's going into Les' house to see the old stuff laying around and to hear his 'this is how I did it' tales. I can only say that 2 hours into this production I was still sitting tight being entertained by Les Paul... who to this day remains incredibly personabable and insanely entertaining. <
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