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TOM DOYLE – BIOGRAPHY
 After
he first heard Les Paul and Mary
Ford, Tom began playing guitar
at the tender age of eight years
old. Intrigued by their sound,
he began emulating Les Paul as
well as the Chet Atkins guitar
style of playing. Tom began
collecting all the records he
could find of his two guitar
heroes, Les Paul and Chet
Atkins. Then he attempted to
mimic their unique style while
developing his own. Taking
advantage of his musical
environment and coaching, he
performed in High School. This
began the time of the Doyle
family performing which later
became a brother and sister act.
Then the duo worked for the
Bitter End in NYC and became the
opening act for Richie Havens,
the Lovin’ Spoonful, and the
Butterfield Blues Band. As he
evolved as a self-taught
musician, Tom developed his own
fingerstyle technique and became
known by fellow guitarists as
“eight track”. Early on Tom
had experimented with
amplifiers, speaker cabinets,
and tape recorders in order to
re-create in a live environment,
some of the effects that Les
Paul and Mary Ford had on their
studio recordings. Little did he
know that Les would come to see
he and his sister play and
perform this act. From that
point Tom and his sister, Susan
continued touring throughout the
country working at colleges and
universities. That was the
beginning of a friendship and
collaboration with Les Paul that
lasted over 45 years… acting as
Les’ long time luthier,
guitar-tech, sound engineer and
confidant.
 Because
of Tom’s inventive mind he was
always looking for that perfect
sound, just like Les. This made
him experiment, design, and
tinker with his guitars. As
early as the 1960’s, Tom began
developing his own pickups and
designed guitars that would be
aimed at a sound that no one
else had. He also began making
modifications for other
guitarists and doing their
repairs. He became so well known
for his creative work and
started his own Luthier business
in 1970. This was the foundation
for Tom to begin developing of
his own guitars and unique
pickups. In addition to being an
exceptional guitarist, Tom has
been a luthier for over 50 years
and currently runs his own
guitar building school in New
Jersey. He has built,
customized, repaired, and
modified guitars for such
artists as George Benson, Sting,
Bucky Pizzarelli, Al Caiola, Al
Dimeola, Tony Mottola, Jimmy
Page, and Les Paul (of course),
along with many, many more...
too numerous to name. Tom now
plays his own handmade “Doyle
1850 Guitar” featuring his own
low impedance pickups.
 Through the years, as fate would
have it, a student guitarist and
singer, Sandy Cory, came into
the picture. Tom saw Sandy’s
great talent and began to do
gigs and shows with her as part
of the act. This partnership
slowly started to be perfected
and developed into a fantastic
duo. Since the passing of Les
Paul, “Tom & Sandy” were the
opening act in the Les Paul room
at the Iridium Club in NYC on
Monday nights for The Les Paul
Tribute. They perform their own
songs as well as those of Les
Paul and Mary Ford. Together
they have received rave reviews
of their performances at the
Chet Atkins Convention (CAAS) in
Nashville. Tom and Sandy combine
beautiful instrumentation of
guitar, vocals, flute and drums,
which they perform regularly at
various clubs, private parties,
and benefits around the country.
 Over
the many years of working with
Les Paul, Tom has acquired an
amazing first hand account of
musical history, the invention
and development of the electric
guitar as we know it, along with
many remarkable and important
pieces of memorabilia,
artifacts, and several very
valuable
historically significant guitars.
Tom is currently working with
several “notables” to bring this
collection to the world. These
pieces represent possibly some
of the most important musical
finds of the last century, as
well as symbolize Americana
and our collective musical
culture (more on this later).
In addition, Tom is currently in
the process of writing his
memoirs - The ultimate biography
about Les Paul… the man, the
myth, the creative genius, the
guitars, the inventions, the up
and downs… all of it! While
several have attempted to tell
the story, they were simply
interlopers into Les Paul’s
personal world or were written
from the standpoint of the
Gibson guitar collector. No one
was there for as long, as
consistently, and with such a
“hands on” approach in Les’ life
other than Tom Doyle. Let’s put
it this way… often Les Paul has
been compared to Alexander
Graham Bell for his ingenious
approach to inventing and
ingenuity, etc. To continue that
comparison, Tom Doyle was the
“Watson” to Les’ Alexander
Graham Bell, his right hand man
for over four decades! While
others could merely speculate or
relay rumor and myth, or perhaps
parley “spin” on account of the
Master, Tom was there, in the
room, for almost half a
century…first hand. The legacy
of Les Paul will finally be
told… the unvarnished truth with
no spin… and Tom will be telling
the real story as it actually
happened, The final word. |
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LES PAUL'S LUTHIER/GUITAR TECH/ENGINEER
FOR 45 YEARS
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While Les Paul was certainly more
than a genius in his quest for his
ultimate sound, tone, and
understanding of music and the instruments
that it took to get there, for over
four decades he relied constantly
on Tom Doyle to make his guitars
whole again after he chopped them
to pieces in has mad pursuit of
that sound in his head. Most people
automatically assume that because
there is a famous guitar with his
name on it, that Les was a guitar
builder, tech, bench man, etc.,
and knew how to build, repair and
refurbish guitars. That just simply
was not the case... he relied on
Tom for that. Tom and Les worked
on countless projects over the 40+
years together and Tom is nothing
less than a walking/talking encyclopedia
about all things Les Paul, Gibson,
build specs, musical history, and
knows more about guitars of all
kinds than anyone you will ever
encounter alive today.
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