Les Paul dies

[extramundane]

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/14/arts/music/14paul.html?_r=1&hp

94 years old. RIP, sir.

[Sean Malone]

:(

As a person who eeked out a living playing the guitar (some of them Les Paul models), a big salute to the man who started it all.

[oddlycalm]

Hard to overstate how much innovation Les Paul brought to modern instruments, recording technology and musical style. His style is so distinctive that you can hear one of his tunes and know every time that it's him within a couple bars. Nearly 60yrs after it's introduction the Les Paul guitar remains one of the two most popular, the other being Leo Fender's Stratocaster and all multi-tracked recording is an outgrowth of his early work. It's not often that a talented musician is also an inventor and engineer.

RIP Les.

oc

[trish]

In a 1948 automobile accident, he broke his arm in three places. A bone graft required the insertion of a steel plate which would prevent Mr. Paul from bending his elbow. He instructed his doctors to set it at a 90-degree angle, which would allow him to continue as a guitarist. “Just point it toward my belly button so I can play,” he said.


http://www.boston.com/ae/music/articles/2009/08/13/guitar_legend_inventor_les_paul_dies_at_age_94_bos ton_globe/?page=1

RIP

[Napoleon]

Hard to overstate . . . .

Word.

Last fall they had a tribute to him here in Cleveland I wanted to attend to see him playand for some reason did not. I wish I had now.

http://blog.cleveland.com/entertainment/2008/11/guitar_stars_pay_tribute_to_le.html

PS, if your ever in Memphis the Gibson factory is an interesting visit to make.

[RusH]

He played a prototype electric guitar in 1929. :eek:

I can`t imagine modern music without his inventions. :(

[TravelGal]

Word.

Last fall they had a tribute to him here in Cleveland I wanted to attend to see him playand for some reason did not. I wish I had now.

http://blog.cleveland.com/entertainment/2008/11/guitar_stars_pay_tribute_to_le.html

PS, if your ever in Memphis the Gibson factory is an interesting visit to make.

Friend of mine went to that and said it was amazing. He was still Les and played like he did in his heyday.

Not to make you feel worse or anything... :(

[oddlycalm]

PS, if your ever in Memphis the Gibson factory is an interesting visit to make.
Good advice, particular as we are very lucky to still have Gibson around at all. Les Paul was a huge part of the Gibson story, and vice versa. The 1959 Les Paul Standard is not only a work of timeless art but it's sound is responsible for a whole lot of well loved music played since. The question isn't whole played a Les Paul standard but who didn't. The Les Paul Junior and later double cutaway standard with single coil P-90's ruled for rock 'n roll, punk and alternative.

It would have been a huge loss if Gibson hadn't survived, but it nearly didn't. If three guys with some appreciation of the product hadn't stepped up and bought the carcass of Gibson in 1986 it would have been over. They rescued it from the scrap heap of Wall Street merger and acquisition avarice after multiple conglomerates had run it into the ground. Having toured the Kalamazoo plant as a kid and having owned the guitars it was heartbreaking to watch as the company and the quality were allowed to go so far downhill by corporate owners that only cared about money. :thumdown:

oc

[Napoleon]

Not to make you feel worse or anything... :(

of course not!

He also played weekly at some place in NYC. I have been thinking of taking a vacation there for a few years and had thought about stopping at the place to see him play.

[Napoleon]

I guess in addition to being in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame he is in the Inventor's Hall of Fame (which is in Akron, Ohio).



He played a prototype electric guitar in 1929.

I guess his first one is on display in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as part of a whole exhibit they have on him. They had the guy who is chief curator on the radio (I live in Cleveland) and he said that years ago when they called him about donating some stuff to put on display he said "no, I am giving everything to the Smithsonian". A few years later he was having some heart operation at the Cleveland Clinic and called and asked for a tour, so they gave him a personal tour and at the end he told them he was going to give them his stuff and when they asked about the Smithsonian he said "Nah, they will just hang up one of my guitars in a corner next to Judy Garland's red shoes, that stuff belongs here".

[chop456]

PS, if your ever in Memphis the Gibson factory is an interesting visit to make.

The Nashville company store contains the workshop where they make the high-end banjos and mandolins. That's pretty cool, too.

[Andrew Longman]

PS, if your ever in Memphis the Gibson factory is an interesting visit to make.

If you are ever in Nazareth, PA the Martin factory is a cool tour as well (down the street from the Andrettis)

[Michaelhatesfans]

As the accolades and the superlatives pile up, Keith Richards gets to the point,

“We must all own up that without Les Paul, generations of flash little punks like us would be in jail or cleaning toilets. All of us owe an unimaginable debt to his work and his talent.”


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/music/music-news/6025973/Music-world-pay-tribute-to-Les-Paul-father-of-the-electric-guitar.html

[Sean Malone]

As the accolades and the superlatives pile up, Keith Richards gets to the point,

“We must all own up that without Les Paul, generations of flash little punks like us would be in jail or cleaning toilets. All of us owe an unimaginable debt to his work and his talent.”


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/music/music-news/6025973/Music-world-pay-tribute-to-Les-Paul-father-of-the-electric-guitar.html

Very cool quote. Richards has at least one of those infamous '59 Les Pauls in his collection. He's always favored the Fender line but every now and again you catch him with various Gibsons with a Les Paul model thrown in.

[oddlycalm]

As the accolades and the superlatives pile up, Keith Richards gets to the point

I guess that's why Keith gets the big bucks. Books have been written on Les Paul, several of which I've read for my very own personal self, but Keith could have saved them a lot of paper and ink and me a lot of time. :thumbup:

oc