Playing with Les Paul at the Iridian Jazz Club beneath the Empire Radison Hotel in NYC - Aug. 25th, 1997.

Being on stage and playing with the great Les Paul that night was terrific. I had no idea that he was such a comedian and had such a "good rap." A real character. I was only aware of his famous guitar playing. On the left you can see Les's rhythm guitar player, Lou Pallo, a killer in his own right. Lou came to see us perform a few months later. Les Paul actually invented the electric guitar ... is the way I heard the story. And you can add overdubbing (double tracking, playing along with your self) as well as making single slap-back guitar delay famous. Eighty-three years old, he was ... and still pickin' good. I'd heard his records as a very young kid at my granny's house, and loved them -- tunes like "How High the Moon," and "Meet Mr. Calahan." Les Paul and Mary Ford were way cool. On this night, I was feeling so good about being there with him that I told him thanks for being so generous on stage. Later on I reflected on the evening and realized that he had not been generous at all. On the contrary. The old fart tried to intimidate and embarrass me. Ha. Honest. When I sat in, he called out the most up-tempo, complicated chord progression, un-jammable type of song that was completely in a big band jazz style as to put me in somewhat shaky waters. I guess he was used to every "gun slinger" guitar player in the West sitting in with him and trying to show up the old master. That wasn't my agenda at all. I was just happy to be there with him. Well, I managed to get through the musical "jam" fairly good, but he was throwing me every curve in the book and I was "dancin' around" the chords ... weaving in and out of scales mostly, with some degree of musical success. Pity. No need. He was the man, and I had no interest in trying to "challenge" him. He is an icon, but unfortunately, also a bit of a reactive old poot that mistakenly tried to embarrass a fan of his. Guess what? I'm still a fan of his. Maybe he just had a bad night. Who knows? I hear Jeff Beck had a similar experience with him and that Les just walked out when Beck got on stage to jam. True? Don't know. Just a story I heard. You'd have to ask Jeff if there's any truth to it. In the end run: I'm proud to have met and played guitar with the great, one and only, Les Paul.    In the picture below right I had just yelled down to Hutton and the boys in the front row, "What are you waiting for? My God, I'm on stage playing with Les Paul. Would somebody please snap some pictures NOW?!!" Of course Les and the audience got a kick out of that, but I was serious as hell. This was before the attempted "carving of the turkey" (meaning me) started. Ahhh, it wasn't really that bad. I had fun.

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