Les Paul

A few months ago, Les Paul died.  He was 94.  His passing was noted by much of the musical community – he was a remarkable man, well ahead of his time.  Here are just a few of his accomplishments.

 Gibson Les Paul guitar.  In the 1940s, Paul had been working on solid body guitars.  With the exception of Rickenbacker’s “Frying Pan” electrics, most, if not all, electric guitars made in the 1930s were hollow body guitars which simply had pickups installed.  Paul reasoned that since electric guitars were amplified through the pickups and amplifier, they no longer needed to be hollow body – they could be solid body.  He developed his own crude but very workable model, which he called “The LOG”.  Paul went to Gibson with this, and they laughed at him, calling him “that guy with the broomstick.” 

            Fastforward to 1948, and Leo Fender released what is now known as the Telecaster, the first widely sold solid body guitar.  Gibson saw this, and reconsidered its earlier rejection of Paul’s not-so-stupid-after-all guitar.  His design had a single cutaway, two single coil pickups, and a gold finish.  This was issued in 1952 and became widely known as the Les Paul, even having his signature on the headstock (except for Les Paul Customs).  

            In 1957, Gibson released the double-coil pickup, also known as the PAF (Patent Applied For) humbucker, and the Les Paul got this pickup.  In 1958, sunburst became available as a finish.  Oddly, the guitar sold poorly at the time, and was discontinued in 1960 in favor of the SG.   In the late 60s, with Eric Clapton and other guitarists discovering the Les Paul’s thick, rich sound and superb sustain (Nigel Tufnel: “Listen to that sustain!”) the ’58-60 sunburst models became in heavy demand – and continue to be produced today.

            Jimmy Page (Led Zeppelin), Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, Slash (Guns N’Roses, Velvet Revolver), Peter Frampton, Alex Lifeson (Rush), Steve Gaines & Gary Rossington (Lynyrd Skynyrd), Ace Frehley (KISS), Joe Perry (Aerosmith), Adam Jones (Tool), Duane Allman, and Robert Fripp (King Crimson) are just a few of the many guitarists favoring this model.  I’ve never owned one, but my brother has a Les Paul Custom, black with 3 pickups, similar to what Robert Fripp plays.  When the money fairy strikes, I’ll get myself a Les Paul Studio, black with chrome hardware.

 Music.  "I've copied more licks from Les Paul than I'd like to admit."  Jeff Beck. His music itself is very jazzy, mostly short instrumentals, with some singing by Mary Ford.  I’ve only heard it recently – I guess I’m spoiled by the guitarists of the 60s and 70s who built upon their own influences for decades and brought it up to modern times, so much earlier guitar work kind of goes in one ear and out the other.  I find his music to be soft jazz with competent but hardly special guitar playing. 

 Studio Innovations.  His most important studio innovation was multi-track recording, first using acetate discs and later reel-to-reel recorders brought to the US from Germany by Bing Crosby.  In 1951 he had recorded 24 track music – consider that even the Beatles were recording in only 4 tracks in 1967.  The principles behind multi-track recording, as developed in the 50s and which continue to this day, were invented and established by Les Paul, thus he has an impact on the entire music industry far beyond his own substantive music.    He also invented tape delay echo, phasing effects, and other innovations which we take for granted today.