The Beatles caught Dudek's ear at an early age. In 1962, at the age of ten, Les asked his parents for a guitar for Christmas. They bought him an acoustic guitar from Sears & Roebuck. His musical influences, along with The Beatles, were Cream, Jimi Hendrix, and The Ventures. He had built quite a reputation around the Florida area as a proficient guitar player, having started playing in local bands as a teenager. Those bands were "The United Sounds", "Blue Truth" and "Power". That reputation would place him in the studio with the Allman Brothers Band for the recording of the "Brothers & Sisters" album. He played guitar harmonies with Dickey Betts on the well-known song "Ramblin' Man" and acoustic guitar on "Jessica". In Alan Paul's book, "One Way Out: The Inside History of the Allman Brothers Band", Dudek claimed to have written the part in "Jessica" from when it modulated into G then eventually back to A.