The Birth of Loud: Leo Fender, Les Paul, and the Guitar-Pioneering Rivalry That Shaped Rock 'n' Roll
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The Birth of Loud: Leo Fender, Les Paul, and the Guitar-Pioneering Rivalry That Shaped Rock 'n' Roll Audible Audiobook – Unabridged

Ian S. Port (Author), Pete Simonelli (Narrator), Simon & Schuster Audio (Publisher)
4.8 4.8 out of 5 stars 1,014 ratings
Editors' pick Best Nonfiction
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A riveting saga in the history of rock ‘n’ roll: the decades-long rivalry between the two men who innovated the electric guitar’s amplified sound - Leo Fender and Les Paul - and their intense competition to convince rock stars like the Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, and Eric Clapton to play the instruments they built.

In the years after World War II, music was evolving from big-band jazz into the primordial elements of rock ’n’ roll - and these louder styles demanded revolutionary instruments. When Leo Fender’s tiny firm marketed the first solid-body electric guitar, the Esquire, musicians immediately saw its appeal. Not to be outmaneuvered, Gibson, the largest guitar manufacturer, raced to build a competitive product. The company designed an “axe” that would make Fender’s Esquire look cheap and convinced Les Paul - whose endorsement Leo Fender had sought - to put his name on it. Thus was born the guitar world’s most heated rivalry: Gibson versus Fender, Les versus Leo.

While Fender was a quiet, half-blind, self-taught radio repairman from rural Orange County, Paul was a brilliant but egomaniacal pop star and guitarist who spent years toying with new musical technologies. Their contest turned into an arms race as the most inventive musicians of the 1950s and 1960s - including bluesman Muddy Waters, rocker Buddy Holly, the Beatles, Bob Dylan, and Eric Clapton - adopted one maker’s guitar or another. By the time Jimi Hendrix played “The Star-Spangled Banner” at Woodstock in 1969 on his Fender Stratocaster, it was clear that electric instruments - Fender or Gibson - had launched music into a radical new age, empowering artists with a vibrancy and volume never before attainable.

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  1. Listening Length
    9 hours and 49 minutes
  2. Author
    Ian S. Port
  3. Narrator
    Pete Simonelli
  4. Audible release date
    January 15, 2019
  5. Language
    English
  6. Publisher
    Simon & Schuster Audio
  7. ASIN
    B07H41ZKZ1
  8. Version
    Unabridged
  9. Program Type
    Audiobook
  10. See all details
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Product details

Listening Length 9 hours and 49 minutes
Author Ian S. Port
Narrator Pete Simonelli
Whispersync for Voice Ready
Audible.com Release Date January 15, 2019
Publisher Simon & Schuster Audio
Program Type Audiobook
Version Unabridged
Language English
ASIN B07H41ZKZ1
Best Sellers Rank #36,695 in Audible Books & Originals (See Top 100 in Audible Books & Originals)
#5 in Music Business Aspects
#15 in Music Business (Books)
#86 in Popular Culture Studies

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Top reviews from the United States

Jordan
5.0 out of 5 stars You'll thoroughly enjoy reading this
Reviewed in the United States on February 27, 2024
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The Birth of Loud is an entertaining book full of vivid scenes that feature some of the biggest musicians of the 20th century. But what ultimately stole the show for me didn't take place on stage -- it happened quietly in the homes, garages, and factories of Les Paul and Leo Fender.

Port takes us right into the rooms as these people quite literally invent the future of music by testing, innovating, and occasionally stealing what becomes the electric guitar. The early friendship and rivalry of Fender and Paul is the heart of this book, and it's fascinating to see how their stories intersect over the years, and how their legacies live on many decades later.
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Doug Tull
5.0 out of 5 stars Fantastic Book. Highly recommended.
Reviewed in the United States on April 12, 2024
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This is a great read, even if you don't play guitar or bass. It is a well-researched book that traces the history of the electric guitar and primarily focuses on its two greatest rivals: Gibson and Fender. In addition to being entertaining, there are some good business lessons to be learned.
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William S. Higgins
5.0 out of 5 stars Great book
Reviewed in the United States on September 24, 2023
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As someone newly interested in playing the guitar, I was looking for some history, and this book more than filled the bill. Very well written account of several lives that intertwined over decades. Fascinating detail and an engrossing read!
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Andrew Geshen
4.0 out of 5 stars Who Invented My Guitar?
Reviewed in the United States on February 10, 2019
Verified Purchase
I'm not surprised that there may not be one definitive inventor of the solid body electric guitar. I am surprised that some of these men were acquaintances, if not friends. An earlier book (Play it Loud from 2016) covers the birth of the electric guitar in a more general way. Quite a few other men played a role in the development of the solid body, but the best known to the general public are Paul and Fender. The story of those two inventors is the focus of The Birth of Loud. Some of the information in this book is not news to me, but there are plenty of surprises. I don't think you have to be a guitarist or musician to enjoy this book, but it doesn't hurt...Full disclosure--I no longer own the guitar pictured, but I now have two Stratocasters...The only thing I didn't like about this book is the dearth of photographs, but I recommend it, it's a fascinating story,,,
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Andrew Geshen
4.0 out of 5 stars Who Invented My Guitar?
Reviewed in the United States on February 10, 2019
I'm not surprised that there may not be one definitive inventor of the solid body electric guitar. I am surprised that some of these men were acquaintances, if not friends. An earlier book (Play it Loud from 2016) covers the birth of the electric guitar in a more general way. Quite a few other men played a role in the development of the solid body, but the best known to the general public are Paul and Fender. The story of those two inventors is the focus of The Birth of Loud. Some of the information in this book is not news to me, but there are plenty of surprises. I don't think you have to be a guitarist or musician to enjoy this book, but it doesn't hurt...Full disclosure--I no longer own the guitar pictured, but I now have two Stratocasters...The only thing I didn't like about this book is the dearth of photographs, but I recommend it, it's a fascinating story,,,
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5 people found this helpful
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Skook
5.0 out of 5 stars I liked this fun book about the leaders of the electric guitar race of the 50s and 60s.
Reviewed in the United States on April 10, 2024
Verified Purchase
I couldn't stop reading... I kept wondering what would happen next. I regard the Stratocaster as much a work of design art as a musical instrument... almost in the same way as the Strad violin is a beautiful work of art as well as an instrument. I enjoy just looking at the Strat and taking in the lines. Also the Tele, but the Tele is more of functional design, but really also an art form that I've gotten to really love over time. Of course, the Strat borrows from Paul Bigsby, whose designs were also landmarks, as were all the wonderful instruments of the Gibson line. If you also love these instruments, you will learn all about Leo, Les and the rest. I passed the book on after reading, to a lead guitar player from a Mn 50s/60s band.
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Lectroid Planet10
5.0 out of 5 stars Good stuff man!
Reviewed in the United States on May 23, 2023
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Well done, well researched, and just a darn good story! Myself, I'm a Telecaster / Stratocaster guy and don't necessarily have anything against a Les Paul guitar but pretty sure I don't want to hang a 20# guitar on my shoulder. They sure are pretty tho'! Just not as pretty as a Telecaster, nope!!
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Montelaro
5.0 out of 5 stars Quintessential guitar 101
Reviewed in the United States on March 9, 2019
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Guitar porn! Also an extremely excellent and interesting rendition on the history of music, it’s instruments and performers, as well as it’s cultural influences and nuances. I have received a novice’s education in one reading: a logistically pleasant introduction providing a rudimentary understanding of both the vast power of music in our time and the delicious intrigue of it’s evolution. I am no longer lost in time; I feel grounded in my own country’s history as told by the changing of it’s musical guards. Les Paul and Leo Fender seem to me now like beloved uncles, their lives so intimately described. This tailored temporal accounting of the musical greats we all know and love—their foibles, triumphs, & legacies—is immersive and captivating; grateful am I to have stumbled upon it! I recommend The Birth of Loud as a must-read to anyone interested in their own musical ancestry, as it spans that of us all. Thanks to Mr. Port for his unwavering diligence in completing such an ambitious and inspired endeavor-your work has fulfilled a shameful dearth in my repertoire of popular knowledge, and I will always be grateful! :)
One person found this helpful
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Rico X Ludovici
5.0 out of 5 stars Bet you never knew this!!
Reviewed in the United States on February 2, 2019
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This is not history. This is an adventure! Ian Port tells a story that never stops and never slows down. The development of the modern electric guitar is the development of our modern pop culture, pure and simple. And this is what good writing is made of: keen insight, an expert eye for the most telling details, revelatory anecdotes by the bushel, and the capacity to never take sides, to never slant the telling of events.

Anyone who lived through the 1950s and 1960s will see their own experience reflected in the two men who became icons of electrified music. Port manages to show how their creations were twisted out of their hands by the next generation, how the instruments grew into icons all their own and changed the course of music to the present day.

This book is as thorough as a guitar nerd would wish, but it never wallows in facts. The story moves at a rapid clip and the author is consistent in his nods to every important character, every breakthrough media appearance, and the effect they had on young music fans. Thanks to the internet, his reader can actually watch the very same appearances on e.g. Ed Sullivan or Ready Steady Go! to see for themselves what the hubbub was all about. Port's relative youth gives him an advantage here; he has the requisite distance to observe what is actually going on. And he is a very keen observer.

This book is so good, I'm not just going to read it again ... I'm going to BUY it again!!
14 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

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c. blondin
5.0 out of 5 stars Muss read
Reviewed in Canada on June 10, 2023
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Read it,and was amazed by the author's knowledge and research on these individuals,and the evolvement of the guitar and it's effect on modern music.
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Marcos da Rosa Garcia
5.0 out of 5 stars Great book
Reviewed in Brazil on September 4, 2021
Verified Purchase
The real history of guitar and the people who made it a cultural icon is presented is this book with such a “novel”way of writing.
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Timothy Jones
5.0 out of 5 stars Wow ... great book on the history of the Electric guitar and Bass
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 5, 2023
Verified Purchase
As a guitar player with a keen interest in the myriad roles the electric guitar plays in modern music this book filled in the history, the rivalry and the personalities behind the development of the electric guitar, namely the Fender Telecaster and Stratocaster and Precision Bass alongside the Gibson Les Paul. It introduces the importance of Paul Bigsby (he of the original tremolo arm aka the whammy bar) a keen motorcyclist.
If you love guitars this book is for you!
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Colston
5.0 out of 5 stars A great read for those interested in electric guitar history and rivalry!
Reviewed in Spain on April 5, 2023
Verified Purchase
Very well researched and interesting read that charts the roots and evolution of the electric guitar, and in particular the rivalry that existed from the 1950s between the Fender and Gibson guitar brands. It’s a very reader-friendly book, with each chapter length making it the perfect book to read at bedtime, and also each chapter delivering some great ‘nuggets’ of inside knowledge about both the instruments and the artists of the time. I learnt a lot, and for me this was genuinely a book that I kept picking up to read at every opportunity. Highly recommended!
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Pedro M.
5.0 out of 5 stars Excelente libro!!!
Reviewed in Mexico on August 10, 2020
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Muy bien documentado
Solo faltan imágenes
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