Les Paul
Here Les plays one of his many modified Gibson Les Paul guitars, which he loved to tweak himself. This one is a black Les Paul Custom, probably from the mid-1950s, with small block inlays,
an angled fingerboard end, and customized pickups and controls. Photo by Chris Lentz.
outside of Paul’s family who was asked to
speak at his funeral.
“Around the time we first met, I was also
working as a solo artist at Molly’s Fish Market
in Oakland, NY, and he would come in and
visit all the time,” Pallo remembers of his
old friend. “In one year, we counted all the
times he came in, and he visited 86 times!
Sometimes he would come in two nights a
week, other weeks he would come in three
times, and so forth. After a while, sometime around 1983, he told me that he really
wanted to get back out there playing again
and wanted to play Monday nights somewhere. He wanted to play in New York, so we
hooked it up with Fat Tuesdays in New York
City, and we ended up doing it for the next
12 years … every Monday night.”
Of course, Fat Tuesday’s closed its doors
in 1995, after which Paul and Pallo moved
their Monday-night residency to the Iridium
across the street from New York’s Lincoln
Center. Over the years, however, their
friendship transcended the boundaries of
any normal band leader/band musician
relationship. Paul’s generosity never failed
to amaze Pallo, and his endless yearning for
good times and good humor will always be
fondly remembered by Pallo in the countless Les Paul stories he’s sure to be telling
for the rest of his own life.
“His friendship meant more to me than
anything else,” Pallo said somberly. “When
my mom passed away some years ago, I
remember I had to go to the funeral home
and make all the arrangements. When I
got there I saw this huge arrangement of
flowers that had been sent by Les, and I
just couldn’t believe it. For a man like him,
he didn’t have to do that. Of course, he
showed up at the funeral service, too. He
didn’t like going to funerals, but he showed
up for my mom’s funeral. He said, ‘You
know, let’s go out for dinner. I want to take
you out to dinner and let you know that I
know what you’re going through.’ That really showed me what kind of man Les Paul
really was, and how warm he was to me.
Not a lot of people saw that side of him. I
remember I cried when I saw the flowers.
An icon and legend like him sending flowers to my mother … imagine that.”
Pallo remembered how Paul continued to
show his fondness for cracking jokes right
up until the end, even inside the hospital
room in White Plains, NY, where Paul would
eventually succumb to the pneumonia that
had wreaked havoc on his body for the last
two months of his life. “The last show we
did together was on June 2, 2009,” Pallo
recalled. “He went into the hospital on the
following Monday to have a bunch of tests
done, but then they sent him home. Then
I went to see him and he ended up going
back into the hospital, but they told him
again there was nothing wrong with him.
Then he went back one last time, and I went
to visit him again. He looked fine. He was in
good shape when I last saw him.”
Apparently good enough shape to remember
a scene from the 1970s horror movie, The
Exorcist. Said Pallo, “Here’s a funny story…
when I was there a priest came into the
room and says, ‘Hey, there’s a fly in here.’
Then Les answered him, ‘It wasn’t here until
you walked in!’ The priest didn’t think it was
funny at all, but we were breaking up. He was
always humorous like that.”
