Les Paul, Inventor of Electric Guitar, Passes Away

[robertm]

Lester William Polfuss, the inventer of the solid body electric guitar, died today.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/culture-obituaries/music-obituaries/6024055/Les-Paul.html"

http://img3.musiciansfriend.com/dbase/pics/products/regular/6/9/8/393698.jpg

 

[hypatia]

He was a delightful person, I was able to see him a few times and own several of his guitars. Sad to see he has died, but he lived a great life. RIP

 

[turbo]

I have owned quite a number of the guitars he designed for Gibson. I loved most of them, apart from a 1970 or so "Fretless Wonder". Too hard to do accurate blues bends with frets so low to the keyboard. Even worse, I traded a '59 Strat for it. The Strat had been stripped and refinished, but it was still 10x the guitar that the LP was. Live and learn.

 

[RiseAgainst]

It's a sad day for Rock and Roll.

 

[maverick_starstrider]

Now how much are Les Paul's going to cost?!?

 

[Ivan Seeking]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4UEhDfOftdY

 

[robertm]

By 1941, still only 26, Paul had fashioned a workable solid body guitar he dubbed The Log, since it was essentially a four-by-four block of solid pine with a tailpiece, two pickups and a Gibson neck mounted on it. Later, for appearances, he fixed two side wings from an Epiphone guitar so it would actually resemble a guitar.When he approached Gibson Guitars about the commercial potential of The Log, Shaughnessy reports, they told him it was “nothing but a broomstick with a pickup on it.”

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/episodes/les-paul/chasing-sound/100/"

http://www.dkimages.com/discover/previews/780/601603.JPG

 

[turbo]

It should be noted that Les Paul was an innovator, not really an inventor. Electric guitars, in the form of lap steels (Hawaiian guitars) and amplifiers had already been around for about a decade. He, like other guitarists (Eldon Shamblin with Bob Wills, and Charlie Christian with Benny Goodman, for instance) needed amplification to bring the guitar out of the rhythm section and into its own as a lead instrument. Guitar was too quiet in a band setting to compete with horns, so sax, trombone, clarinet, and trumpet were the typical "lead" instruments.

 

[hypatia]

Multi- track recording was also his baby, he really did change the music world.

 

[evilpostingmong]

If it wasn't for him, there'd be no metal. Among various other things. rip

 

[brewnog]

Mmm got my Les Paul out for the first time in a few years, forgot how nice a guitar that is. Mmmm.