MR HANSoN Podcast "The Man Who Wouldn't Stop Tinkering: The Rise of Les Paul" He was told flat-out that what he built wasn't even a guitar. They called it a broomstick with pickups. Eleven years later, every guitar company in America was racing to copy it. This is the cinematic true story of Les Paul — born Lester William Polsfuss on June 9, 1915 in Waukesha, Wisconsin. The boy his teacher said would "never learn music." The kid who heard a ditch digger play harmonica on a sidewalk and never recovered. The eight-year-old who built a crystal radio from scratch. The ten-year-old who bent a coat hanger into a hands-free harmonica holder — a design still manufactured today. The twelve-year-old who pulled a piece of railroad rail from the train tracks behind his house and proved, with a single guitar string and a phonograph needle, that a note could l ...