The Birth of Loud: Leo Fender, Les Paul, and the Guitar-Pioneering Rivalry That Shaped Rock ’n’ Roll

A titanic rivalry is rendered in highly personal terms by this loud, racketing history of how two men’s obsession for perfecting the electric guitar shaped the post-WWII music scene. Music critic Port portrays two diametrically opposed innovators: Les Paul, the suave virtuoso who recorded with Bing Crosby and whose hit singles pioneered multitrack recording and put guitars center stage for the first time, and Leo Fender, the reserved tinkerer who found his niche supplying 1940s western swing bands with innovative solid-body electric guitars. Paul’s name was slapped on high-end Gibsons (“a guitar for tuxedos”) while Fender’s company crafted more affordable noisemakers beloved by surf rockers such as Dick Dale. Port plays up the men’s rivalry, but his lushly descriptive and detailed narrative is more interesting as an evolutionary history of how rock and roll was shaped by its primary instrument, as when, in one of the book’s best moments, Jimi Hendrix bested a Les Paul Gibson–playing Eric Clapton onstage in 1966 with an off-the-shelf Fender Stratocaster. Port’s book is less illuminating on Paul and Fender’s competitiveness, but it’s richly illustrative in bringing these rock giants and the tools of their trade to life in a squall of beautiful feedback. [em](Jan.) [/em]