The Les Paul and Mary Ford Show

The Les Paul and Mary Ford Show was a syndicated 15-minute NBC show featuring Les Paul on the guitar; Mary Ford (nee Colleen Summers), his wife, as vocalist; and Eddie Stapleton on percussion. Their music had a swinging country/western flavor to it, which is not surprising, in that Les Paul and Gene Autry followed similar musical paths. Indeed, they were good friends; Autry introduced Paul to Mary Ford.

The show was prerecorded using the relatively new technology of tape recording. By overlaying tracks, Paul created a sound bigger than the trio. In the opening of the "Hip Billy Boogie" episode, which is in this collection, Les and Mary briefly discuss how he uses his "electrical gadgets" to enable the trio to produce songs featuring multiple guitars, percussion instruments, and vocal tracks with only three performers.

Les Paul and Mary Ford were towering figures in early 1950s popular music and Paul's musical and technical creativity broke new ground. He invented the solid body electric guitar and, with his musical stylings, helped lay the groundwork for rock and roll, which, ironically, eventually eclipsed his own style of music in popularity.

For more information, see the Les Paul website.

Series description provided by Frank Bell.