Joel Brennan serves as President of Discovery World and Paul Krajniak serves as its Executive Director. The two collaborated with Les Paul to create "Les Paul's House of Sound," which houses the largest collection of Les Paul's personal sound equipment and guitars in the world (outside of Les' own home). The tribute below is written jointly by Joel Brennan and Paul Krajniak.

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to meet a real, live wizard?  Have you ever thought about getting a first hand look at the lab of a mad scientist?  Do you dream of meeting an inventor who changed the world?  Well, we not only imagined these things, we got the opportunity to meet all three – wrapped up in the person of Les Paul – and we had the honor of working with him and becoming his friend.

We met Les Paul for the first time in March 2008.  As we were ushered into his home, built into a New Jersey hillside, neither of us knew what to expect.  Les shuffled out of his bedroom and joined us for his breakfast – at 3:00 in the afternoon!  This was our introduction to Les’ rock star lifestyle – work until dawn and sleep until the mid-afternoon.

Les was meeting us for the first time, and he suspected we wanted something out of him (we were, after all, from a “museum” in his home state of Wisconsin and coveted some of the copious artifacts that filled his house).  We spent the first few hours of our conversation getting to know one another, and we got the sense he was taking measure of us.  He asked questions about our facility – Discovery World – and our mission, and we answered dutifully, not knowing whether this would ever amount to anything, but we also talked about his passion for his home state of Wisconsin and our work in trying to inspire a different kind of experiential learning in people young and old.

Les was adamant that he didn’t just want his guitars and sound innovations to be placed behind glass – he envisioned an experience that helped people of all ages understand that no matter what your level of education (and Les didn’t have much formal education), asking questions and experimenting was the single most important way to learn and create.  Since our mission is to educate, motivate and inspire innovators with hands-on learning and inquiry, we knew right away that we had met a kindred spirit.

At one point early on in the conversation, Les pointed to a handsome guitar that was propped up by an open drawer that held all the silverware in the kitchen.  “Right there is Les Paul #1,” he said, “that is the first Gibson Les Paul ever made in 1952.”  We looked at each other in amusement and mild disbelief, cognizant that an errant elbow or a misplaced kitchen knife could transform this precious piece of history into twisted metal and broken wood.  But this episode exemplified the real genius and essence of Les – everything about him was right in front of you, without pretense, for everyone to see and to enjoy.

Our conversation and tour stretched into the late evening, and by the time we left more than 8 hours later (close to midnight), both parties had developed mutual respect and regard.  And in the ensuing 90 days, we worked together to build an exhibit that reflected both Les’ contributions to music and sound technology and his lifelong commitment to innovation.  Les was one of the world’s great tinkerers, who took every day items, improved them, and made magic with them.  Everything Les created or worked on has a name – “The Clunker” is the hollow body with which he made many of his greatest hits with Mary Ford, “The Thing” is one of his early sound boards, “The Ding Dong” is a string tester that he fashioned out of a door bell from his home, and, of course “The Log” is the legendary prototype for his first solid body guitar.  Everything Les put his hand to and tinkered with reflects the genius in the simplest things.

The exhibit that resulted from our collective efforts – “Les Paul’s House of Sound” – allows Discovery World visitors of all ages to engage with Les in many ways – through a visit to his childhood living room and his two biggest influences – his mother and Thomas Edison; through a trip to the stage at Beekman’s Barbeque in Waukesha, Wisconsin with teenage Les appearing as “Red Hot Red:” through a trip down Route 66 and Les’ move to Hollywood with Mary Ford; and even through a video green screen “virtual guitar lesson” with 93 year-old Les.  Les was involved intimately in making sure that we got the story right – and in making sure that it inspires creativity in every visitor.

We’re proud to house the world’s largest collection of Les Paul’s artifacts and the innovations that he inspired, but we are prouder to have developed a friendship with this lifelong innovator.  Because the genius in Les is not in the things he did or made – the lasting legacy of Les Paul is that he spent a lifetime in passionate pursuit of innovation, improvement and creativity.  Each one of us has a little bit of the spirit of Les Paul inside.  May our legacy be that we, like him, exhibit an unyielding passion for finding and unlocking the creative spirit Les embodied from the time he was a young boy in Wisconsin until his sad passing in New York.

The Les Paul's House of Sound Exhibit

Les Paul's House of Sound is an exhibit designed around the innovative and creative spirit of Wisconsin native Les Paul. The exhibit lays out Les' life from his humble beginnings in Waukesha, Wisconsin through to the present day, including recreations of Les' Los Angeles "Garage," where he helped usher in a new era of music and sound in the 1940s and 1950s.

In addition, the exhibit uses the Discovery World audio and video studios to provide guests with an opportunity to "play" a virtual jam session with Les or receive a guitar lesson from him.

By DAVE TIANEN
Journal Sentinel Online

Arthritis might have stiffened his fingers, but Les Paul's wits are still fast and supple.

At the news conference Saturday for the opening of Discovery World's "Les Paul's House of Sound," somebody asked the 93-year-old guitarist what he hoped people would take away from the new exhibit.

“I hope they don’t take any of my stuff,” Paul answered with a grin.

That quip was vintage Les Paul, which fits perfectly because vintage Les Paul, with all his multifaceted creativity and talent, is what the “House of Sound” is all about.

The display opens with a re-creation of the 1920s Waukesha living room where Paul grew up. There’s a player piano like the one his mother had, in which he punched extra holes in the perforated rolls to make his own musical improvements. There’s the famous section of railroad tie with the guitar string attached, which constituted his earliest experiment in fashioning a solid-body guitar. There’s also the cobbled together telephone, radio speaker and broomstick that represent one of his earliest experiments in amplification.

Les Paul the emerging musician is on display side-by-side with Les Paul the inventor. We see Paul in his earliest show biz incarnations, as the sailor-suited Red Hot Red and Rhubarb Red. A vintage photograph blown up to mural size shows Paul and his seven-piece Red Hot Rag Time Band. A caption says “Only 1 in 7 people are creative. Can you tell which one?”

The story then follows him down a giant map of Route 66, to his radio days in Chicago and St. Louis and eventually to Hollywood. That’s where he made hits first with Bing Crosby, then as a solo artist and later in tandem with his late wife and singing partner, Mary Ford.

There’s a replica of The Log, and the Ding Dong, his early experiments in building a workable solid-body guitar. There are projection TV videos of vintage performances, including eight episodes of the daily network show that he and Ford had in the early days of TV. Television operated a little differently then. Those shows are five minutes long. Boomers of a certain age will smile at grainy tapes of Paul and Ford’s guest appearance on the ‘50s game show “What’s My Line?”

The really groundbreaking technical stuff is there, too: The very first model of the Gibson Les Paul solid-body guitar is there, and the workshop that Paul built in the garage of his Hollywood home is there, as well. On display in the workshop are antique record lathes and a very early Ampex tape recorder, the same device that Paul used to invent multitrack recording. It’s odd to see the first-generation tape recorders were about the size of a small washing machine.

Blown up comic panels illustrate critical junctures in Paul’s career, such as the near-fatal 1948 car accident that left the guitarist unable to straighten his right arm or the 1941 mishap in which he was nearly electrocuted. There are nods to other musicians who influenced Paul’s career, such as guitar great Django Reinhardt and, of course, Crosby.

Since Discovery World at Pier Wisconsin is a hands-on museum, there are plenty of opportunities to touch and interact. A video studio allows guitarists to jam with a virtual Les Paul. A computerized device called The React Table allows visitors to create their own music by moving a series of discs and cubes around on a large circular computer screen.

At the beginning of the display, back in that re-created living room, a sign says, “Once upon a time there was a house. In this house there lived a boy who heard and saw the world differently than you or I.”

To its credit, “Les Paul’s House of Sound” succeeds by inviting guests to find in themselves a little spark of the imagination and curiosity that define the man known as the Wizard of Waukesha.

Musicians react to the death of Les Paul

• Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
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• Gibson Guitars Tribute
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• CNN
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• Tributes from Musical Artists
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• New York Times
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• Washington Post
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• Les Paul’s House of Sound:

• The Podcast
  
  As Discovery World was getting Les Paul’s House of Sound ready for the grand opening and Les’ 93rd birthday bash, Les stopped in to see how it was all coming along.
   
  Graciously, he let us interview him.
   
  This is the story of how Les Paul changed the world forever. His life. His energy. His music. His determination. His passion. His innovations. His words. Our words. This is the story of how Les Paul built his House of Sound.
   
  Chapter One: Lester Polfus, Boy Wizard
   
  Chapter Two: Beekman’s BBQ
   
  Chapter Three: Lester Becomes a Texas Cowboy
   
  Chapter Four: Route 66 part 1
   
  Chapter Five: Route 66 part 2
   
  Chapter Six: Bing Crosby and the House of Sound

Chapter Seven: There's Something About Mary

Chapter 8 - Sound on Sound

Chapter 9 - The Les Paulverizer

Chapter 10 - Les Paul and Mary Ford at Home

Chapter 11 - The 8-Track Tape Machine

Chapter 12 - The Gibson Les Paul

Chapter 13 - The Spirit of Les Paul