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Check out what Google did for Les Paul's birthday. June 9th

PostPosted: Thu Jun 09, 2011 2:05 am
by Doug_H
Google has a guitar app at the top of the page you can play instead of the regular logo pic. You can even record your performance. We should lobby for them to do that for Chet Atkins' birthday coming up on June 20th.

http://www.google.com/

Re: Check out what Google did for Les Paul's birthday. June

PostPosted: Thu Jun 09, 2011 6:35 am
by RonBloor
What a great idea. There must be someone at Google that's a huge fan of Les Paul. Perhaps there might even be a big Chet fan at Google! I'm sure most of you know that they call these things a google doodle.. :) ..
A little article about this one at
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2001425/Les-Paul-Google-Doodle--Guitar-pioneer-Les-Paul-honoured-playable-interactive-Google-Doodle.html?ITO=1490

Re: Check out what Google did for Les Paul's birthday. June

PostPosted: Thu Jun 09, 2011 8:55 am
by RandeDager
Even though I'm a HUGE Chet fan and felt that Les sort of "messed up" the songs that they recorded together, I'm afraid that Les is known by a higher percentage of the world's population than Chet is. That's an opinion that I've just disappointingly formulated over the years. But then, the fact that this Google page exists because of a personal interest of one of the designers, rather than because of international popularity, leaves open the possibility that a Google page dedicated to Chet could also exist for the same reason.

Re: Check out what Google did for Les Paul's birthday. June

PostPosted: Tue Aug 16, 2011 9:38 am
by Stephy
I agree with you. Any updates on this?

Re: Check out what Google did for Les Paul's birthday. June

PostPosted: Tue Aug 16, 2011 11:02 am
by RandeDager
No, I've not heard a thing about this. I doubt it will happen. We love Chet but he just never achieved the high level of popularity that Les Paul and a few others did.

Re: Check out what Google did for Les Paul's birthday. June

PostPosted: Wed Aug 17, 2011 11:23 am
by RonHaft
Sadly, there is little correlation between good and commercial success. I knew of Les Paul long before I knew of Chet because of all the Robert Hall clothes store commercials Les and Mary Ford did in the '50s. "We're doing our Christams shopping at Robert Hall this year, We're saving on clothes for Chrtistmas at Robert Hall this year". And, "Mother knows for better clothes it's back to Robert Hall this year. School bells ring an children sing, it's back to Robert Hall this year." Etc . Actually they were pretty catchy jingles, Though a little hokey! Seemed to be focused on repeat business, this year. Ahh, the good old days.

Re: Check out what Google did for Les Paul's birthday. June

PostPosted: Sun Aug 21, 2011 12:10 am
by mnavos
well even though he's not as famous as the others, Chet is still good on his craft. I have seen a virtual piano but i guess its hard to play guitar on pc. :)

Re: Check out what Google did for Les Paul's birthday. June

PostPosted: Sun Aug 21, 2011 1:22 am
by thenorm
It was Mary...

Les had some instrumental hits, certainly but I really think were it not for Mary Les would have been less famous even than Chet because with Les it was All About Him. Chet had a greater effect on the recording industry I think because of the people he mentored. Sure, Les's sound on sound was spectacular but it got formulaic pretty fast I think and overdubbing or 'punching in' became pretty commonplace.

Pure instrumentals don't sell well or steadily. Never have. When people think of Les Paul the first two songs that come to mind are usually How High The Moon and Vaya Con Dios. Then what comes to mind? Maybe 'Nola' which is an instrumental or, more likely 'Tiger Rag' or Bye Bye Blues and, spectacular asl his guitar work is, it is Mary's voice that you remember... it was Mary's vocals that made Les Paul and Mary Ford household names.

There's no way to prove it but I think without Mary the Les Paul guitar would never have been invented.

Les Paul. Great guitarist. Innovative inventor and certainly long lasting as a performer but lovely, sweet Mary really doesn't get the credit she deserves...