
The Birth of Loud
Leo Fender, Les Paul, and the Guitar-Pioneering Rivalry That Shaped Rock 'n' Roll
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Narrated by:
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Pete Simonelli
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By:
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Ian S. Port
A riveting saga in the history of rock ‘n’ roll: the decades-long rivalry between the two men who innovated the electric guitar’s amplified sound - Leo Fender and Les Paul - 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 the primordial elements of rock ’n’ roll - and these louder styles demanded revolutionary instruments. When Leo Fender’s tiny firm marketed the first solid-body electric guitar, the Esquire, musicians immediately saw its appeal. Not to be outmaneuvered, Gibson, the largest guitar manufacturer, raced to build a competitive product. The company designed an “axe” that would make Fender’s Esquire look cheap and convinced Les Paul - whose endorsement Leo Fender had sought - to put his name on it. Thus was born the guitar world’s most heated rivalry: Gibson versus Fender, Les versus Leo.
While Fender was a quiet, half-blind, self-taught radio repairman from rural Orange County, Paul was a brilliant but egomaniacal 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 1960s - including bluesman Muddy Waters, rocker Buddy Holly, the Beatles, Bob Dylan, and Eric Clapton - adopted one maker’s guitar or another. By the time Jimi Hendrix played “The Star-Spangled Banner” at Woodstock in 1969 on his Fender Stratocaster, it was clear that electric instruments - Fender or Gibson - had launched music into a radical new age, empowering artists with a vibrancy and volume never before attainable.
©2019 Ian S. Port (P)2019 Simon & SchusterListeners also enjoyed...




















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The Best Book I've Read This Year
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A must listen for any musician or guitar aficionado
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Well done!!
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What a Gold Mine!!!!!
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The book’s only flaw is when it veers toward historical fiction by imagining interior feelings, weather specifics and facial expressions these men may well have experienced but they play out as subjective decorative guesses.
However it is easy to recommend this book and know that if the title intrigues you you’ll get the promised story and it is a delightful contribution to 20th-century music history.
Thoughtful Music History
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Much more than about a rivalry,
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excellent
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A fantastic story!!
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Could not stop listening!
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Good Book and a Great Story
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