LES and MARY: It's Time To Dream...

Original released on LP Capitol T 802

(US, 1957)

Believe me, this is Pure Gold: Twelve enchanted songs, beautifully played by Les Paul and Mary Ford - a terrific weapon for you to seduce your sweetheart. "Time To Dream" is notable for its' lack of special effects and supersonic guitars. Perhaps Les and Mary wanted to show their public that even without their bag of tricks they could still make compelling music. The melancholy tone of the songs included in this album would have muted the appeal of flash and modernity exhibited in their previous recordings. And so out of respect for or, rather with a great appreciation and simpatico with the honest beauty of songs like "You Call It Madness (But I Call It Love)" and "How Deep Is The Ocean" they chose to tone down their normally ebullient mode for a spoorific mood to great effect. Like contemporaries Frank Sinatra and The Three Suns who made long-players designed for late-night listening, "Time To Dream" succeeds conceptually, as well as a highlight in their amazing careers.

LES AND MARY

Original Released on LP Capitol W 577 
(US, 1955)

They met each other in 1945, when Lester (William Polfuss) was 30 and Colleen (Summers) was 21 years old. They began working together in 1948 (at which time Colleen adopted the stage name Mary Ford) and they got married next year. They had a son, adopted a daughter and their marriage lasted 15 years, until December 1964. Between 1950 and 1963 Les Paul & Mary Ford recorded 10 great albums of originals, which remains until today a really trademark of the Fifties. This one, “Les And Mary”, is one of the very best. The duo treat the songs of Cole Porter, Hank Snow and Kurt Weill and others with an eclecticism and an unabashed love for the whole musical panorama. Instrumentals of brilliant virtuosity along with songs sung with facile sophistication by Mary Ford are fine examples of their best work, albeit less well known than some of their hits. In fact, it is the effortlessness of some of their songs that some modern listeners may find off-putting, believing in error that great art needs to be histrionic and born of turbulent emotions. The America reflected in the songs of Les Paul and Mary Ford is one of love and optimism and the can-do pluck that is characteristic of the resolve that Les Paul put into every endevor he attempted.

With the coming of the Sixties and their popularity waning due to the rock revolution, the duo of Les Paul and Mary Ford broke up personally and professionally in 1964. Mary opted for full time retirement, while Les chose to continue his consulting with the Gibson Co. on his trademark series of electric guitars, along with designing the first eight-track tape recorder for the Amplex Company. In 30 September 1977 Colleen died of complications due to diabetes-pneumonia, at the age of 53. Les didn’t married again and lived until August 13, 2009, when he died also with pneumonia at the age of 94. He was awarded the 2007 National Medal of the Arts for his services to music in Washington D.C. and inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 2005 for the solid-body electric guitar. He was also elected to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (under the category Early Influences) in 1988 and inducted into the Big Band and Jazz Hall of Fame in 1990. With Mary Ford he was also inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. The duo was awarded a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for Recording at 1541 Vine Street in Hollywood, California.

LES And MARY Are The Hit Makers!

Original released on LP Capitol H 416 (US 1953)

and on LP cAPITOL T 416 (US, 1955)

Having turned his creative energies back to the singles market until 1955, Les Paul's only album entry for 1953 was a roundup of his most successful hit singles of the early 1950s. Here is where an LP fan could find Paul and Ford's astonishing rendering of "How High the Moon," and now considered a classic take on jazz's national anthem, along with "The World Is Waiting for the Sunrise," "Mockin' Bird Hill," a wacky "Tiger Rag," and four other concise, imaginative examples of Paul's ability to construct perfectly proportioned hit singles out of nothing but his guitar and Ford's sultry voice. The sleeper of the bunch is the nearly forgotten "Meet Mr. Callaghan" in a sublime arrangement. For their biggest smash "Vaya con Dios" and three other later hits, record buyers had to wait until 1956 for the 12-inch version to come out. (Richard S. Ginell in AllMusic)