orig. Lester Polfus
born June 9, 1915, Waukesha, Wis., U.S.
U.S. guitarist and inventor.
He played many styles of popular music, initially country but later jazz, and in the 1940s he was a sideman for Nat King Cole and Bing Crosby . He invented the first solid-body electric guitar and was instrumental in developing modern multitrack recording. His overdubbed, sped-up recordings from the late 1940s and early 1950s
including "Brazil" (1948), "Nola" (1950), and "How High the Moon" (1951), often with his wife, Mary Ford (192477) singing multiple harmony parts
demonstrated the potential of tape. He continued to perform occasionally into his 80s.