meandthestereo

About a week ago, a legendary music figure passed away. I’m slightly embarrassed to admit this, but it was many years before I realized that Les Paul was a real person and not just a conceived name for a particular model of electric guitar. I remember the first time I laid eyes on a Gibson Les Paul guitar; it was the classic sunburst coloring with the inlaid mother-of-pearl on the frets. Oh yeah, and it was being shredded by none other than Jimmy Page. One of my favorite pictures of this Page-guitar tandem is when Page breaks out the violin bow and works his Les Paul sunburst like a mad scientist! I came to realize that Les Paul, the man, was also a heck of a musician and an even more impressive innovator of style, recording and instruments. Many people may never realize the impact this guy had on music and the force he was in influencing future guitar players.

Lester William Polsfuss was born in June of 1915. You may know him better as Les Paul. He apparently had an uneventful childhood in Wisconsin until around age 8. He then discovered music by way of the harmonica. He moved on to the banjo and eventually settled in to play the guitar. By the age of seventeen, Les Paul was a professional musician who had played guitar and harmonica on many recordings and radio shows under several different pseudonyms. As successful as he was, he was unsatisfied with the limited sounds that he could create on a ‘traditional’, acoustic hollow body guitar and set out to produce the first solid body, electric guitar. It was dubbed ‘The Log’ because that’s basically what it was; a regular old 4-by-4 piece of lumber with a bridge, neck and self-invented pickup attached. I don’t want to muddy the waters (no pun intended), but Leo Fender was working on a solid body guitar around the same time (so was a fellow named Adolph Rickenbacker). I mention this fact because the folks at Gibson were not interested in Les Paul’s ideas regarding solid body electric guitars until Fender put out an instrument that was well-received…Gibson didn’t want to take the chance. Eventually though, the Gibson folks relented and in the early fifties, Gibson and Les Paul struck a deal and designed the first Gibson Les Paul guitar. And the rest is history, as they say!

Jimmy Page with Les Paul Guitar

Besides the solid body, electric guitar, Les Paul had a huge impact on the recording of music. Les Paul invented many of the recording techniques that engineers and musicians take for granted in today’s industry. For example, he pioneered the use of overdubbing and multi-tracking. He would cut acetate records with an original recording, and then play those recordings and play guitar along with them, thus creating the sound of two guitars playing. He did this over and over again until he achieved the sound he was seeking. He also invented many of the delay features such as tape delay and phasing. It always amazes me to read about innovators like Les Paul or guys like Eddie Kramer (the sound engineer for Jimi Hendrix) who can just imagine some sound they want to recreate and then figure out a way to make it materialize.

I have often wondered why many of the well known guitarists in music decided to play the Fender Stratocaster instead of the Gibson Les Paul. I’m talking about guys like Stevie Ray Vaughan, Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix and Jeff Beck. I guess these guys know the sound they’re looking for and couldn’t get that sound from the Gibson. Don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of good guitar players playing Gibson guitars; Slash, Ted Nugent and Alex Lifeson, just to name a few. Regardless of which guitar a person chooses to play, there is no denying that Les Paul will pop up in the conversation of great guitars and great guitar players. In the words of The Edge: “His legacy as a musician and inventor will live on and his influence on rock and roll will never be forgotten.”

Thanks, Vodes, for helping us remember a great guitar player, fun musician, and exciting innovator. Thanks for the tunes, Les Paul! Sources for the first photo and the second photo.