Bob's Vintage Guitars

Les Paul has died at 94

Inventor changed course of music with electric guitar, multitrack recording

NEW YORK - Les Paul, who invented the solid-body electric guitar later wielded by a legion of rock ’n’ roll greats, died Thursday of complications from pneumonia. He was 94.

According to Gibson Guitar, Paul died at White Plains Hospital. His family and friends were by his side.
As an inventor, Paul also helped bring about the rise of rock ’n’ roll with multitrack recording, which enables artists to record different instruments at different times, sing harmony with themselves, and then carefully balance the tracks in the finished recording.

The use of electric guitar gained popularity in the mid-to-late 1940s, and then exploded with the advent of rock in the mid-’50s.
“Suddenly, it was recognized that power was a very important part of music,” Paul once said. “To have the dynamics, to have the way of expressing yourself beyond the normal limits of an unamplified instrument, was incredible. Today a guy wouldn’t think of singing a song on a stage without a microphone and a sound system.”

“Without Les Paul, we would not have rock and roll as we know it,” said Terry Stewart, president of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum. “His inventions created the infrastructure for the music and his playing style will ripple through generations. He was truly an architect of rock and roll.”

A tinkerer and musician since childhood, he experimented with guitar amplification for years before coming up in 1941 with what he called “The Log,” a four-by-four piece of wood strung with steel strings.
“I went into a nightclub and played it. Of course, everybody had me labeled as a nut.” He later put the wooden wings onto the body to give it a traditional guitar shape.

In 1952, Gibson Guitars began production on the Les Paul guitar.
‘The original guitar hero’

Pete Townshend of the Who, Steve Howe of Yes, jazz great Al DiMeola and Led Zeppelin’s Jimmy Page all made the Gibson Les Paul their trademark six-string. Over the years, the Les Paul series has become one of the most widely used guitars in the music industry. In 2005, Christie’s auction house sold a 1955 Gibson Les Paul for $45,600.

Guitarist Joe Satriani called Paul “the original guitar hero,” saying: “Les Paul set a standard for musicianship and innovation that remains unsurpassed.”

Musicians react to the death of Les Paul

Keith Richards
Les Paul, along with Leo Fender, the most important developer of the electric guitar. He actually taught himself to play guitar in order to demonstrate his electronic theories. WOW!! All of us owe an unimaginable debt to his work and his talent. Mary Ford didn’t hurt either.

Joe Satriani
Les Paul set a standard for musicianship and innovation that remains unsurpassed. He was the original guitar hero, and the kindest of souls. Last October I joined him onstage at The Iridium club in NYC, and he was still shredding. He was and still is an inspiration to us all.

Joan Jett
He was a genius inventor, musical innovator, and a wonderful person. Without the advances he pioneered, the recording sciences and the electric guitar would have been left years behind. I will miss him so much.

Keith Urban
I have a mix of emotions today. On one hand, I am deeply saddened at Les Paul’s passing, and on the other a feeling of incredible gratitude and awe for his unquantifiable contribution to the world of music. His name adorns so many of the creations that I communicate through every night out here on the road ... He is also very present every time I set foot in the studio and am able to lay multiple tracks as I record, when I use echo, etc. The list of his inventions, in addition to his famous signature model Gibson, are extraordinary. I also feel that even in his nineties, the fact he was still playing every Monday night in New York is perhaps the most beautiful and inspiring achievement of all.

Brian Wilson
Les Paul and Mary Ford were among my most favorite musicians in the 50s. He was the first guy to do multi-guitar multitrack recording and that turned me on to guitars and stacking vocals for our records.

Jose Feliciano
I am deeply saddened by the passing of Les Paul. His influence on my life, as on the lives of countless others, will be felt throughout eternity. It was an honor to know him and to work with him. I extend my deepest condolences to his family and will mourn along with musicians throughout the world.

Slash
Les Paul was a shining example of how full one’s life can be, he was so vibrant and full of positive energy. I’m honored and humbled to have known and played with him over the years, he was an exceptionally brilliant man.

Dave Navarro
Les is single handedly responsible for the direction and evolution of the modern rock movement. Period. If you are a fan of modern music, you owe Les Paul an enormous THANK YOU!

Terry Stewart
President and CEO of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum
Without Les Paul, we would not have rock and roll as we know it. His inventions created the infrastructure for the music and his playing style will ripple through generations. He was truly an architect of rock and roll.

Joe Chambers
Founder of the Musicians Hall of Fame based in Nashville, Tenn.
It’s kinda heavy, but it just felt good in your hands. The electronics that Gibson developed that went into it later just gave it a sound and a feel that is unparalleled.

In the late 1960s, Paul retired from music to concentrate on his inventions. His interest in country music was rekindled in the mid-’70s and he teamed up with Chet Atkins for two albums. The duo were awarded a Grammy for best country instrumental performance of 1976 for their “Chester and Lester” album.

With Mary Ford, his wife from 1949 to 1962, he earned 36 gold records for hits including “Vaya Con Dios” and “How High the Moon,” which both hit No. 1. Many of their songs used overdubbing techniques that Paul had helped develop.

“I could take my Mary and make her three, six, nine, 12, as many voices as I wished,” he recalled. “This is quite an asset.” The overdubbing technique was highly influential on later recording artists such as the Carpenters.

Released in 2005, “Les Paul & Friends: American Made, World Played” was his first album of new material since those 1970s recordings. Among those playing with him: Peter Frampton, Jeff Beck, Eric Clapton and Richie Sambora.

“They’re not only my friends, but they’re great players,” Paul told The Associated Press. “I never stop being amazed by all the different ways of playing the guitar and making it deliver a message.”

Two cuts from the album won Grammys, “Caravan” for best pop instrumental performance and “69 Freedom Special” for best rock instrumental performance. (He had also been awarded a technical Grammy in 2001.)

Paul was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 2005.

A look at the life and career of guitar icon Les Paul
Archival video: 2004: NBC News profiles the life and career of guitar icon Les Paul.

Started audio amplification early
Paul was born Lester William Polfuss, in Waukseha, Wis., on June 9, 1915. He began his career as a musician, billing himself as Red Hot Red or Rhubarb Red. He toured with the popular Chicago band Rube Tronson and His Texas Cowboys and led the house band on WJJD radio in Chicago.

In the mid-1930s he joined Fred Waring’s Pennsylvanians and soon moved to New York to form the Les Paul Trio, with Jim Atkins and bassist Ernie Newton.

Meanwhile, he had made his first attempt at audio amplification at age 13. Unhappy with the amount of volume produced by his acoustic guitar, Paul tried placing a telephone receiver under the strings. Although this worked to some extent, only two strings were amplified and the volume level was still too low.

By placing a phonograph needle in the guitar, all six strings were amplified, which proved to be much louder. Paul was playing a working prototype of the electric guitar in 1929.

His work on taping techniques began in the years after World War II, when Bing Crosby gave him a tape recorder. Drawing on his earlier experimentation with his homemade record-cutting machines, Paul added an additional playback head to the recorder. The result was a delayed effect that became known as tape echo.

Tape echo gave the recording a more “live” feel and enabled the user to simulate different playing environments.
Paul’s next “crazy idea” was to stack together eight mono tape machines and send their outputs to one piece of tape, stacking the recording heads on top of each other. The resulting machine served as the forerunner to today’s multitrack recorders.

In 1954, Paul commissioned Ampex to build the first eight-track tape recorder, later known as “Sel-Sync,” in which a recording head could simultaneously record a new track and play back previous ones.

He had met Ford, then known as Colleen Summers, in the 1940s while working as a studio musician in Los Angeles. For seven years in the 1950s, Paul and Ford broadcast a TV show from their home in Mahwah, N.J. Ford died in 1977, 15 years after they divorced.
In recent years, even after his illness in early 2006, Paul played Monday nights at New York night spots. Such stars as Led Zeppelin’s Jimmy Page, Dire Straits’ Mark Knopfler, Bruce Springsteen and Eddie Van Halen came to pay tribute and sit in with him.
“It’s where we were the happiest, in a ‘joint,”’ he said in a 2000 interview with the AP. “It was not being on top. The fun was getting there, not staying there — that’s hard work.”