On Saturday, the Junior High where Les Paul attended school in Waukesha, WI officially changed its name to Les Paul Middle School.
The Les Paul Foundation made the transition of the name possible and the school now carries numerous reminders of the home town great including a number of his quotes on the walls and a historical display on his life. Michael Braustein, executive director of the foundation, told the Merced Sun-Star “He would be blown away that the fact his hometown thought so much of him that they would this. This would make Les emotional.”
History shows that it was the teachers at the, then, Waukesha Junior High that started to mentor and work with the young boy with the curious nature. Paul performed with his guitar on the school stage and questioned teachers on the nature of such things as electronics which would eventually serve him in his music profession.
It was the curiosity that made Paul one of the greatest innovators in music history through his development of the solid body electric guitar, overdubbing, multi-track recording, tape echo, phasing, tape delay and much more.
Those developments came with a price. In 1941, he electrocuted himself in an accident that laid him up for two years. Seven years later, his burgoning fame as a guitarist was put in jeopardy when he and Mary Ford were in a serious car accident which shattered his right arm and elbow. Instead of having the arm amputated, he had surgeons set it at a 90-degree angle so that he could continue to play the guitar, although with a limited range of motion. It was with his rebuilt arm that he made so many of his classic recordings.
The ceremony on Saturday included tours of the school and its new displays, performances by the students and a short video on Les. Principle Rob Bennett said the students are acting positively to the change and the legacy of Paul. “You can kind of see that ‘ah ha’ moment for them of, ‘It could be me, I could be that next person.’ So I think that is pretty powerful.”
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