The Tracking Angle: Les Paul's Early Decca Recordings

This article was originally published in the mid-1990s.

LES PAUL: The Trio's Complete Decca Recordings Plus (1936-1947)
Decca/MCA MCAD2-11708

Compilation produced, transferred from disc sources and CEDAR restored by Steven Lasker
Digital editing and assembly by Paul Elmore at MCA Music Media Studios, North Hollywood, CA
Executive Producer: Andy McKaie
Annotation by Joe Laredo

Sound: 7
Music: 11

The first sentence of the liner notes introduce this superbly-documented and produced anthology pretty much the same way I'd start this review: "It is difficult to overstate the scope of Les Paul's influence on the history of popular music." Indeed—Les Paul is not only one of the most brilliant guitarists in musical history—as the father of multi-track recording, he's also single-handedly responsible for the way pop music sounds today. To say nothing of the Wizard of Waukesha's many other technical and musical innovations, and contributions to electric guitar design—to this day, the Gibson Les Paul solid body guitar remains one of the most popular electric guitars ever, an essential tool for today's musicians.

In the most popular years of his recording career, from the late Forties to the end of the Fifties, Les Paul and his wife and singing partner Mary Ford recorded dozens of hit records for Capitol Records, including classics such as "Lover," "The World is Waiting for the Sunrise" and their immortal version of "How High the Moon."

It's understandable that when most people think of Les Paul's music, they think of the Capitol recordings, as these are the most popular and it's safe to say that many of us weren't even born when these records first hit the airwaves. Yet Les Paul's recording career began much earlier—in fact, in the 1930s!

Les Paul: The Trio's Complete Decca Recordings Plus (1936-47) includes all of the recordings Paul made for the Decca label before signing with Capitol, including previously unreleased material and alternate versions of official releases. This set is a remarkable example of musical archiving—remarkable for its completeness and annotation and the depth and insight of its historical analysis. (It deserves to win a Grammy for best liner notes.)

The two-CD set includes recordings Paul made as Rhubarb Red, his early countryfied, singing, acoustic guitar-and-harmonica-playing alter ego; with blues singer Georgia White; with various incarnations of the Les Paul Trio and with Bing Crosby, in addition to sides cut with Terry Shand and his Orchestra, the Delta Rhythm Boys, singers Helen Forrest and Dick Haymes, and with the Andrews Sisters. All material was digitally re-mastered from 78 metal parts and 78 rpm 16-inch, 33 rpm acetate disc masters using the CEDAR noise reduction process.

As you might expect, the musical quality of this re-issue is nothing less than extraordinary. The musicians are of the highest caliber, and the playing and singing is inspired, full of emotion and life, and most of all—since these were the days before overdubbing, where the musicians had to get in the studio and play, the empathy between the players is thrilling. In every sense, what are captured here are brilliant performances. Although stylistically, the music sounds "old-fashioned" and of its time, the range of styles is nonetheless broad, encompassing Hawaiian music, big-band arrangements, rhythm and blues, ballads, straight blues, standards and much more.

Les Paul's unmistakably unique playing and "sound" on this set is so utterly astonishing that it is almost difficult for me to describe it without hyperventilating. Even in an era of guitar amplifiers with rolled-off highs and recording technology with limited frequency response, Les Paul's guitar possesses his trademark clarity and presence. (At times he rolls of the highs for a mellower sound, especially when accompanying a vocalist.) It's a high-fidelity sound in the truest sense of the word—not surprising, considering even then he was using highly modified guitars, pickups and electronics, the state-of-the-art in its day. Paul's rhythm playing is incisive and harmonically sophisticated, with lush, gorgeous jazz chord voicings. (His theory of chord voicing is somewhat unique: never use the same note in a chord more than once, i.e., a "C" chord consisting of C-E-G-C would be inappropriate, while a C-E-G-B Cmajor7 would be OK. Sounds easy, right? Try playing like that sometime.)

And his solo playing! Beyond incredible, with boundless melodic invention, an endless array of expressive techniques such as mercurial slides up to and away from a note, arpeggiated chords, hammer-ons, pull-offs, playing near the bridge for a "twangy" effect, palm muting, infinitely varied pick attack and dynamics, and jaw-dropping speed. At times, Paul plays runs so fast they're almost unbelievable, flying from one end of the fingerboard to the other in literally the blink of an eye.

Because there's no multitracking anywhere here, Les Paul's musicianship is, if anything, even more amazing than his (admittedly dazzling) later multi-overdubbed compositions, as you get to hear just the man and his guitar, straight up—and you hear that the man's virtuosity is flabbergasting.

The musical highlights on this set are so numerous it's impossible to list them all here, so I'll just mention some of my favorites: The two versions of "Blue Skies," where Paul and band state the melody a couple of times around and then rocket into hyperdrive; the intense swinging of the two takes of "Guitar Boogie," the simple beauty of the Hawaiian music, and the Bing Crosby cuts, where Crosby croons in his relaxed, lugubrious style while Paul, by contrast, plays flurry after flurry of frenetic riffs behind him-yet the stylistic juxtaposition works perfectly.

The sound quality is remarkably good, especially considering the nature of the source material. Obviously, a great deal of processing has been applied, because these tracks don't sound like scratchy old 78s and acetate 33 rpm discs at all. Instead, they sound remarkably clean, with surprisingly good presence overall (some cuts are more muted-sounding than others). Tonal balance is on the warm side, with the highs noticeably rolled off-giving the overall sound a somewhat opaque presentation without "air" or "sparkle." The low frequencies are also somewhat subdued, though I have no way of telling if this is a result of the re-mastering or the fact that this is what they sounded like originally (I suspect the latter). The instrumental balances, regardless of date or venue, are similar—the lead instrument or vocal is out front, while the accompanying instruments are much darker tonally, lower in volume, and much more in the background.

There is no trace whatsoever of electronic glaze or enhancement, with essentially a complete lack of digital artifact. A very few times (especially the earliest Georgia White cuts that lead off the set), you can hear distortion on volume peaks, along with a very faint "swoosh" of groove noise on some other tracks—so the producer didn't oversterilize the sound, leaving in some warts in the interest of preserving the musicality of the sound.

My ultimate impression of this incredible anthology? All these decades, I knew Les Paul was a brilliant musician and guitarist. After hearing Les Paul: The Trio's Complete Decca Recordings Plus, I now am aware that, in fact, the man is an even better musician than I realized! If you're a guitarist and a fan of Les Paul (is there a guitarist who isn't?), you simply must have this. I could not give a higher recommendation.