A LOOK AT LES PAUL - LOVING MUSIC AND PEOPLE

When it comes to music entertainment, it’s about people as much as it is about music. The legendary guitarist and innovator, Les Paul, was born 100 years ago today. He passed away 6 years ago, but left a legacy of performance in jazz, pop, and country, as well as inventing the famous Gibson Les Paul guitar. Many people only think of the guitar when mentioning "Les Paul." In today's article by NPR Music called The Man Before The Guitar: Remembering Les Paul At 100, Paul's friend and band member for 30 years, Lou Pallo, explains that during some performances, Paul would say to the audience, "See, I'm not a guitar. Here I am. I'm Les Paul!"

Paul loved to perform especially in front of live audiences. Deep down, he wanted to connect with people and enjoyed bringing delight into their lives through music. His first performing experience was playing and singing country music on the radio in the morning, but then he would play jazz at night. Art Tatum and Fats Waller were jazz masters that heavily influenced Paul in the 1930's. Tatum was known as the "musician's musician" and was one of the greatest improvisers in jazz history. Waller was lovingly known as the "clown prince," a comic showman who entertained crowds with his playful stage antics. Even Django Reinhardt, known for his style called "gypsy jazz," became a good friend with Paul. Influenced by these and others, Paul became a skillful performer with increasing popularity.

This is a good example for all musicians who desire to perform. If you seek to connect to your audience, they will appreciate you, enjoy coming to see you again, and want to buy recordings of your music. The opposite would be to love music so much that you only care about the music and not about your audience. I would call this "practicing on stage" rather than truly entertaining. You may want something meaningful, enlightening, even spiritual to touch your audience. This can happen with stories about the songs, expressiveness during songs, even lyrics in the songs. But, you must be intentional and deliberate to present more than just music. Music is communication and the people in the audience are who you are communicating to.

Paul's career really took off after marrying Mary Ford in 1949. They wrote hit songs and performed for seven years on their syndicated TV show called "Les Paul & Mary Ford At Home." You can view many YouTube videos of their songs. One of their hits was The World is Waiting for the Sunrise.

However, there is another aspect of loving music and people that we can learn from Paul's experience. We must not let our love for entertainment business destroy our closest relationships. In 1969, Ford and Paul divorced because she wanted to stop touring. She wanted to settle down for a home life, but he was too caught up with his music and wanted to keep touring. In an earlier NPR Music article called Guitar Legend And Innovator Les Paul Dies, that came out the year Paul died (2009), it explains that Paul was so affected by the divorce that he "retired from the business for ten years." What a paradox! I think he realized he should have made his relationship to Mary more important than touring. It took 10 years for him to sort through that mistake. We must make our marriages top priority as we journey deeper into the world of music entertainment.

The 2009 NPR Music article explains that Paul returned once again to the entertainment business, with even more passion for people. "He made his comeback in 1974 with an old friend, Chet Atkins. The record they made together, Chester and Lester won Les Paul his first Grammy." He played consistently for 35 more years. During these later years, was known for never staying in his dressing room, but always spending time talking with people during breaks and every free moment he had.

It's alright to love music, but let's keep our love for people a high priority as well.

INTRODUCTION

Everyone is on a unique journey both personally and professionally. I am so glad my journey has brought me to where I am today and I want to use all that I am to help others reach their potential.

In this initial post, I would like to give you a brief look into the elements that make up my journey right now. I will be mostly posting my professional endeavors and interests, so I'll start there. I am the Executive Director of Heartfelt Music Ministry. Our website is http://heartfeltmusic.org which gives a ton of information about what we offer like training workshops, concerts, CDs and other products for sale. I also teach at Valley Christian Schools in San Jose equipping students in their quest for excellence. As part of my continued professional development, I am working on an Entertainment Business Master of Science degree from Full Sail University. Feel free to visit my Tumblr blog, Reggie's Mastery Journal, which is dedicated to my Full Sail experience (inspirations, assignments, etc.).

To give you a snippet about me personally, I live in Mount Hermon, California, near Santa Cruz. I've been happily married for 31 years, have two boys in college, and love to play guitar (I am a Taylor Guitar Artist). For more details, visit http://heartfeltmusic.org/about/.