The making of Chester and Lester

[PhilHunt]

I'll never forget Paul Y. telling me a story of when he was in the studio with Chet and Les recording those albums. He asked Les to play a little bit of "How High the Moon", Les rudely answered him back, "I only get paid to play that tune". Les apparently had a very rude side to him that most people didn't see or know. This can be seen on youtube on the NBC clips with him and Chet together. Les just seemed to take over the whole show with his pre-recorded high pitched gimmick recording.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xut3N2O42Ho

[Joe Diamond]

I was friends with a guy named Paul Joyce. He was the guy who did the maintenance work on Les' house. Paul had some of the funniest stories about Les. If Les was walking out of one room to go to another, he would turn out the lights in the first room before he got to the next one and then turn on the lights in the room he just went into. The roof on Les' house started to leak so instead of repairing the original leak, Les had another roof added on top of the first one. He tried to sell me his house for $750.000. Whenever Les was trying to buy something from a private individual, he always had Paul go into the house so that the seller never knew it was for Les. Mary's sister Carol told me that he would keep Mary up for days recording without her getting any sleep. I'll give Les credit for one thing, no matter how bad things were between him and Mary, he never had one bad thing to say about her. He always spoke highly of her.

[Norm]

I'll give Les credit for one thing, no matter how bad things were between him and Mary, he never had one bad thing to say about her. He always spoke highly of her.

It's been my understanding that Les was bitter and vindictive during their divorce. That would be no surprise. Divorces are never a pleasant thing. For anybody.

He terminated the endorsement contract with Gibson at that time. Some say it was because he couldn't abide the 'redesigned' Les Paul guitar (now called the SG series) others say he terminated it to prevent her divorce lawyer from tapping into the royalties from Gibson.

After she died (and knowing how people felt about her contribution to music) as they say "butter wouldn't melt in his mouth" in his "affectionate remembrances" of her. He was a fine guitarist but the money really started coming in when he and Mary combined their talents and he knew it.

In the big biography put out by the Cochran brothers I don't recall Les saying a whole lot about Mary's guitar playing which was, as far as I could tell, rock solid. Whether she played rhythm on the great hits they made is never mentioned. I suspect she probably did but Les would want the world to think he did all the guitar parts.

Allotting praise to others was difficult for Les it seems.

Take a listen to the exchange between Chet and Les on 'Avalon." Chet tells Les how highly he thinks of him and how "I admire you very much."
Les's response?
"Well, you're an old timer too."

Whut? Chet pours out all that praise and that's the best Les can do? I know he later said "Chet does stuff I can't do" but that "Well, you're an old timer too" always struck me as lame.