Guitar legend Les Paul is onstage at Manhattan’s Iridium Club, where he has been its star attraction every Monday evening for the past 13 years. With the practiced timing of someone who has been entertaining audiences for more than eight decades, he calls out to longtime rhythm guitarist Lou Pallo, “How old are you now?… 71,” he repeats, in mock exasperation, eyes widening in disbelief. “That’s too old to be playing the guitar.”

The audience’s members, most of whom are aware that Paul is 93, eat it up. The love and affection in the air is readily discernable. Three of Paul’s disciples, Eric Johnson, Zakk Wylde, and Joe Satriani will join the maestro onstage during the evening’s proceedings, where the likes of Paul McCartney, Tony Bennett, Keith Richards and godson Steve Miller have also previous stopped in to pay homage.

Although arthritis has affected his formidable guitar prowess which now makes chording or swift chromatic runs impractical, his undeniable charm and professionalism, plus the chance to see this iconic musician in the flesh renders those flaws impervious as Paul cheerfully runs though such old favorites as “Caravan” and “Tennessee Waltz.”

Les Paul’s musical career is, of course, one of the most celebrated of the past century. Born Lester Polsfuss on June 9, 1915, in Waukesha, Wis., he is not only the inventor of the solid body electric guitar which bears his name, the one which has been effectively utilized by such esteemed axe wielders as Jimmy Page, Pete Townshend, Slash, Duane Allman, Ron Wood, Neil Young, Eddie Van Halen and numerous others, Paul is also the pioneer of multi-tracking which he virtually invented in the late 1940s, along with such other crucial innovations as reverb, phasing, tape delay, and close-miking.

As a recording artist, Paul hit paydirt in the late ‘40s when he teamed up with wife Mary Ford to create a string of memorable hits including “Vaya Con Dios,” “Mockin’ Bird Hill,” and their signature hit, “How High the Moon” in 1951. Their popularity was such that between 1950 and 1954, they ran off 16 Top Ten hits, five during a highly productive nine month period.

Although rock and roll’s emergence in 1955 rendered their sound passé to the new generation of record buyers, Les and Mary’s TV show enjoyed an impressive 14-year run which ended in 1963, two years after their divorce. Paul then went into a period of semi-retirement as a live performer and recording artist, but in 1976 returned with the Grammy Award-winning album, Chester And Lester, an inspired pairing with fellow guitar legend, the late Chet Atkins.

A Rock and Roll Hall of Famer and five-time Grammy Award winner, the spry nonagenarian has no intention of slowing down. His most recent recordings only two years ago featured such staunch admirers as Eric Clapton, Billy Gibbons, Jeff Beck, Peter Frampton and Sting. He is also currently in the process of designing two new electric guitars and four new amplifiers, one which tentatively will be called “The Dream.”

Paul cautions, “A lot of people say, ‘Boy, I can’t wait until I’m 65.’ Then they go down to Florida and die a few months later. My philosophy is that if you love your work, it’s not a dirty word.”
From all outward appearances the so-called Wizard of Waukesha still has a lot to contribute to an industry he helped create.

How did you happen to begin your career a Rhubarb Red?
Well, when I first started, I got an offer to play in St. Louis, and they wanted to call me that. When I got down there they said my natural hair wasn’t red enough. I first believed they were saying it as a joke, but before I knew it, they were putting henna on my hair to make it redder. They asked who my mentor was, and I said, Pie Plant Pete, and pie plant of course means rhubarb. Hank Richards, the station’s program director, and all the rest of them decided that was a better name for me than Red Hot Red, which I had been using.

What attracted you to the harmonica when you were only eight?
When I was a little kid, I was sittin’ on our front porch one day, and these sewer diggers were out front. On their lunch hour, they would have a little time of their own, and this one fellow would play the harmonica. I was very intrigued with a sound I wasn’t too familiar with, but it sure attracted me. There were no stairs on our porch, so I would just jump off and stare at this fellow. I was in awe with the fact that he not only played the harmonica, he played it good. The more I looked and watched…until he finally said to me, “I think you’d like to have this harmonica more than I do. I’m gonna give it to you.” After he handed it to me, my mother’s hand came in to take it away, and she says, “You don’t play this thing until I boil it!”

Were you aware or influenced by any of the great early African-American blues harp players?
Well, there were several good harmonica players, maybe three or four of them that I was terribly interested in, because I could learn from them. One of them was DeFord Bailey who performed on WSM in Nashville. In fact, he was one of the first performers to be on WSM when they started the Grand Old Opry. So, I went down to see him and he showed me all the things that he knew on the harmonica. There were a few others players around Chicago that I listened to after I left St. Louis and Springfield, Mo. By the time I got to the World’s Fair in Chicago, I was deep into the harmonica as well as the guitar.

Around what year was this?
Well, that would be 1932.

So, you were only 17 years old?
Um, hmm. I can’t count, but you can. [Laughs]

What was your inspiration was your first prototype of the electric guitar which you later referred to as “The Log?”
In the beginning, I played the harmonica and the guitar, and I’d rigged up a way of singing into the mouthpiece of the telephone that went into my mother’s radio. I was appearing in person playing outdoors at a place called Goerke’s Corner. That was halfway between Waukesha and Milwaukee, and it was interesting because the people would drive in to get their barbecue sandwiches and their root beer, or whatever. I would play and sing for them, and one fellow sitting in a rumble seat of a car wrote a note to me and gave it to the car hop. She brought it to me and it says, “What you got going up there…I can hear your voice and your harmonica fine and I enjoy it, but the guitar is not loud enough.” That made me go home and think about it, and in my own simple way, I said, “Well, now, let me investigate the guitar.” I first tried filling it up with rags, and I ended up with Plaster of Paris in it.

I assume that didn’t correct your problem.
No, finally I was slinging the guitar and I said, “OK. It’s down to, which way do I go?” The thing was, we’re picking up the string, and I’m using the receiver which was no more than a magnet, a diaphragm and a coil. So, one half of the telephone came into use, which I sang into, the other half I placed under the string. Now, the first thing I had to do was to make a decision on was, “Which is the best way to go with something that was terribly rigid, dense and would sustain and give me the vibration of the string, and also not give me coloration with the vibration of the wood?” The other mate to that was a wooden four-by-four of soft pine wood, which would deliberately give me the sound of wood, and then I compared the two again through my mother’s radio. I went running to her in the kitchen and I said, “Mom, I’ve found it.” What I wanted was to have the string vibrate and nothing else. Just do its thing. The lesser of the sounds would be transmitted acoustically via the material that was surrounding the string. I tried it on. I tried it on the run, and I tried it another way. I went to my mother again and said, “I’ve found the answer. It’s a piece a railroad track two-and-a-half feet long, with a string suspended on it.”

This was made out of metal?
Plain railroad track. What a train runs on. So, my mother solved that problem. She says, “The day you see a cowboy on a horse playing a railroad track…” [Laughs] So, that idea went right out the window, knowing that it had to be something else. Then the idea entered my mind to make it out of something that would be the hardest wood that we could use and work with.

Mahogany?
I used a maple top and the rest of it was made of rosewood…pine. It could be anything underneath, you know. That was not as important as it was for me to get that sustain, and of course after I got that, it took quite a long time for me to develop it, because I was learning to play the guitar at the same time.

What was your impression of the first rock performers who arrived in the mid-‘50s like Elvis, The Everly Brothers, Buddy Holly….
Oh, it was very interesting to see the change. The change actually came in 1945.

Eleven years before Elvis?
Yes, the first change came with be-bop. The kids had come back from the War with a strange kind of music that they didn’t dig. So, that went to the side and got replaced with a new kind of music: rock and roll. At the beginning, it was very primitive. A guy would know only two or three [chord] changes, and they would bury the vocals. If the guy couldn’t sing, he was perfect to have a hit record, and of course, there was some pretty bad stuff that came out. There was a mixture of music where they were faltering, or they were looking for something that was difficult to swallow. There were some very well written songs, but there were also some very stupid songs that weren’t very well done. I talked to this one engineer right here on Broadway. I’d say, “Hey, Morty, how you doin’?” He says, “I’m gonna quit being an engineer. They’re stompin’ on boards. They’re singing wrong changes. They’re breaking all the rules.”

But selling millions of records to the new generation of teenaged record buyers.
[Laughs] Sure, and so this guy named Fabian comes along, and others followed him. There were a lot of bow wows in there, but also if you looked back deep, you would see some good things as well. I was just thinking the other day, “What was my reason for going to Memphis?” Oh yeah, that piano player. What was his name?

Jerry Lee Lewis?
Jerry Lee Lewis, yeah, and so I went to hear him, and I went to hear the B.B. King and all the other guys.

You’ve jammed many times with B.B.
Oh, I love him.

What songwriter to you exemplifies someone who really excelled at his craft?
I wouldn’t hesitate to mention Irving Berlin. How many great songs has he written? “White Christmas,” “Blue Skies…” Just about anything you want to name. He was just tremendous, but of course now the songwriting business has all changed, and everything is different.

What is your secret for staying in shape and active and creative at 93?
Well, first of all, it’s no secret, and the second thing is, I’m not in great shape. [Laughs] I have health problems, and have had a lot of accidents and things. But, probably the greatest part about it is that every time you get knocked down, you still have to find the will to get up and do it again.

You must be doing something right for over 70 years, because people still line up to hear you play.
Well, it makes me happy that people still come and enjoy what I do. You get a standing ovation, and you just say, “Why me?”