Composition deep dive -B looks behind the scenes of a great song “How High The Moon” (Les Paul & Mary Ford)

By B

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How High The Moon (1951)

• Producer Les Paul 

• Artists Les Paul and Mary Ford

• https://youtu.be/NkGf1GHAxhE

Les Paul’s recording of “How The Moon” topped the charts for nine weeks in 1951.  Unlike other producers of his era, Les Paul did not try and capture a live performance.  Instead he used multitrack recording and tape delay to transform one musician into an orchestra and one singer into a choir.   

Les Paul described his multitrack process in a 2007 interview for Sound on Sound magazine.  He says, “The first thing that was recorded was me just rapping on the guitar. I turned the volume up and hit the strings, no chords — that was the rhythm and it set the tempo. Then the second thing that went down was just chords. This went on and on and on as I built it up, part after part, take after take.”  

Les Paul also used tape delay on his guitar.  He created his delay by placing a play back head directly behind the recording head.  He varied the amount of delay by moving the play back head closer or further away from the recording head.

By embracing technology to create new sounds in a chart topping song, Les Paul created a path for others such a George Martin and Phil Spector to follow. 

Other great reading

Buskin, R. (2007). CLASSIC TRACKS: Les Paul & Mary Ford 'How High The Moon'. [Blog] Sound on Sound. Available at: https://www.soundonsound.com/people/classic-tracks-les-paul-mary-ford-how-high-moon.

Frith, S. and Zagorski-Thomas, S. (2012). The Art of Record Production: An Introductory Reader for a New Academic Field (Ashgate Popular and Folk Music Series). Ashgate Publishing Group.