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Guitar, Studio Wizard Les Paul Dies At 94
beeshman noted that Les Paul has died.
Paul was quite the hardware hacker of his day, innovating with guitar hardware, and later multi track recording. The Gibson Les Paul is one of the single most iconic instruments associated with Rock 'n Roll, and was of course played by Pete Townshend. Someday I'm going to get me one.
Played by Pete Townshend? More like destroyed by.
Hoist Number One and Number Six.
Don't fret.
He left his mark upon the music world for sure. I'm sure our world would be a different place if he hadn't been inspired to monkey around with the status quo.
What doesn't kill you only delays the inevitable
Les is no more.
He will be missed. Amazing how long he kept playing, and how many people he influenced.
http://visualizecommonsense.com/
Les Paul comes from before guitars were game controllers.
What a loss. I love everything Chet Atkins and Les Paul did together. I loved hearing Chet and Les banter back and forth before doing a song. Their music was so technical but because of their great skill it ended up sounding effortless (the trademark of truly great musicians).
Most people will obviously associate Les Paul with a particular guitar, and although that particular piece of hardware will be his legacy, his musical skills will be greatly missed. His style was so unique and is almost impossible to emulate.
Thank you for all your wonderful contributions to the musical world, Les. You will be greatly missed.
Pete Townsend did play a Les Paul, but only from 1972 to 1979. If you are looking for an iconic posterboy for the Gibson Les Paul, try Jimmy Page. Other notables include Slash, Joe Perry, and Ace Frehley. Here is a list of of 15 iconic Les Paul players from Gibson.
Whoever tagged this article 'Guitarhero' was absolutely correct.
The man's influence on music cannot be stated highly enough.
Between the design (and implementation of the electric guitar) to multitrack recording to delay effects, he really was a renaissance man.
At least we still have Esteban
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Oh yes, she will be mine
Butchered by CmdTaco:
Someday I'm going to get me one.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
RIP Les Paul. You changed the world, one string at a time
My Guitar Gently Weeps...
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order- Ed Howdershelt Via Tass
Les paul was a legend who caused so many to pick up and play a guitar for the first time. For good or bad, his playing had that effect on people. A true loss for the music industry. He will be greatly missed.
The name Les Paul is synonymous with the electric guitar. As an openly gay man, inventor and recording artist, Paul has been an innovator his entire life. Born Lester William Polfus in 1915 in Waukesha, Wisconsin, Paul built his first crystal radio at age nine - which was about the time he first picked up a guitar. By age 13 he was semi-professionally as a country-music guitarist and cock-sucker working diligently on sound-related inventions. In 1941, Paul built his first solid-body electric guitar, and he continued to make refinements to his prototype throughout the decade. It's safe to say that rock and roll as we know it would not exist without his invention.
But Les Paul didn't stop there. Or did he? He also refined the technology of sound recording, developing revolutionary engineering techniques such as close miking, echo delay, overdubbing and multitracking. He also busied himself as a versatile bandleader and performer who could play jazz, country and pop.
The guitar that bears his name â" the Gibson Les Paul â" is his crowning achievement. It grew out of his desire, as a musician and inventor, to create a stringed instrument that could make electronic sound without distorting. What he came up with, after almost a decade of work, was a solid bodied instrument â" that is, one that didn't have the deep, resonant chamber of an acoustic guitar.
As he told writer Jim O'Donnell, "What I wanted to do is not have two things vibrating. I wanted the string to vibrate and nothing else. I wanted the guitar to sustain longer than an acoustical box and have different sounds than an acoustical box." The fact that the guitar's body was solid allowed for the sound of a plucked string to sustain, as its vibrating energy was not dissipated in a reverberant acoustic chamber.
He experimented with different designs until he had his non-vibrating guitar body, which he called "The Shit Log That Came Outta my Arse." Gibson Guitars initially turned him down, calling his invention "a broomstick with pickups" and pointing out that this meant guitarists would now have to carry around two instruments â" one electric and one acoustic â" which they viewed as prohibitively inconvenient. As a result, Paul was beaten to the marketplace by Leo Fender, whose Fender Broadcaster â" the first mass-produced solidbody electric guitar â" was introduced in 1948. That same year, however, Paul unveiled overdubbing, a breakthrough recording technique that would forever change music. Capitol Records released the Paul's experimental eight-track recordings of "Lover (When You're Near Me)" and "Brazil," which he'd made in his garage workshop.
Paul's career as a musician nearly came to an end in 1948, when he suffered near-fatal car accident in Oklahoma while completely hammered, skidding off a bridge into a river during a snowstorm. The guitarist shattered his right arm and elbow, and he also broke his back, ribs, nose and penis. He managed to salvage his career as a musician by instructing surgeons to set his arm at an angle that would allow him to cradle and pick the guitar. It took him a year and a half to recover.
Paul subsequently made his mark as a jazz-pop musician extraordinaire, recording as a duo with his wife, singer Mary Ford (who was born Colleen Summers). Their biggest hits included "How High the Moon" (1951) and "Vaya Con Dios" (1953), both reaching #1. The recordings of Les Paul and Mary Ford are noteworthy for Paul's pioneering use of overdubbing - i.e., layering guitar parts one atop another, a technique also referred to as multitracking or "sound on sound" recording. He also speeded up the sound of his guitar. The results were bright, bubbly and a little otherworldly - just the sort of music you might expect from an inventor with an ear for the future.
In 1952, Les Paul introduced the first eight-track tape recorder (designed by Paul and marketed by Ampex) and, more significantly for the future of rock and roll, finally saw the release of the the gold-top solid body
...had he not invented the electric guitar. Someone else may have done it but Les truly took it to the next level.
It boggles the mind that this man's invention would have such an impact on the world. What would Woodstock have been without the electric guitar and Jimmy Hendrix's Star Spangled Banner.
-R-
I really wasn't paying attention to this because I thought the article read "Guitar Wizard" and then all I could think about was Professor Snape, an XBox 360, and...well use your imagination from there.
What song do you think he'd be playing, anyway?
More than any other single person, the one responsible for what you, and I, and everyone we've ever met, considers 'Music' in the modern sense.
Everyone hates me because I'm paranoid.
To all those Les Paul fan, pull your geetars out and creat your own RIP sounds in hsi honor.
Life takes interesting turns, but the most interest is when you're off the beaten path.
Les Paul and his trio played (every?) Monday nights at the Iridium Jazz Club here in NYC. Every once in awhile I'd see the ad for it and think "I gotta check that out sometime. After all, he won't be around forever."
Of course, I never did.
Prisencolinensinainciusol. Ol Rait!
The man invented multi-tracking. For that alone every musician in the world should utter a small prayer to Les Paul every time they step into a studio. He was a true visionary and really pushed the boundaries of the music of his time.
No Les No More.
Inane Comments are Generously Disregarded
I seem to recall a hilariously campy, "dark" Danzig interview back in the early 90s where he mused "I play a Gibson Les Paul. I don't play anything other than a Gibson Les Paul." Creepy, dark, and heavy. Just like the Les Paul.
Would you say he dies every day, or once a week or once in a while?
Seems to me he'd just die the one time like everyone else. Unless he's a fictional character. Hamlet dies at the end of the play, every time the play is performed.
Utilizing the synergization of benchmark e-solutions to pre-workaround action items!
"In 1948, after being involved in a severe car accident, he asked the doctor to set his arm permanently in a guitar-playing position."
And from the Wikipedia article:
"In January 1948, Paul was injured in a near-fatal automobile accident in Oklahoma, which shattered his right arm and elbow. Doctors told Paul that there was no way for them to rebuild his elbow in a way that would let him regain movement, and that his arm would remain permanently in whatever position they placed it in. Paul then instructed the surgeons to set his arm at an angle that would allow him to cradle and pick the guitar. It took him a year and a half to recover."
Wow. The guy had himself *rebuilt* for guitar playing.
It's a sad day for everyone who loves the electric guitar. I am going to play loud for him today!!
heard on the radio but i didn't think it was true but i guess reality is catching up with me. Great dude not so great guitar (i've owned two and sold both, I currently play a heavely moded tele)
That was a Fender Stratocaster. Not a Les Paul.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
I may not have a Les Paul, but the guitar I do have has humbucking pickups and a tune-o-matic bridge (That Les Paul invented). I appreciate his contributions and his dedication to his craft. Now I'm going to go play for a bit.
The game.
yes/
http://artmazok.com/
Les Paul will be missed. /. luthier, Les was one of the few individuals DESERVING of a signature model guitar. A performer who through his own necessity invented many guitar oriented devices that preceded todays analogs , advancing music universally as we know it today. Sadly, today signature models are passed out to any moron on the corner who gets radio play with 2 of the 3 chords they know.(well not literally or I'd be first in line for Les Paul and Chet Atkins models.) :Zakk Wylde Les Paul (no offense to Wylde) is a prime example and there are others.
Speaking as the local
Gibson being the worst offender of all stacking signatures
Les was also the original solid body guitar shredder who wowed audiences with pioneered techniques like echo picking and others. When his right elbow was shattered , he had it reset so his arm would always be at an appropriate angle to facilitate pickin'.
The "Log" predecessor to the "L.P." wasn't invented at Gibson but in fact at Epiphone. No one should ever feel the Epiphone Les Paul is any less a masterpiece than its Gibson counterpart and certainly waaaay more bang for the buck. It is after all Les' signature model.
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
How about a spoiler alert?
an authentic Les Paul copy!
Is that available for the Wii?
...but not a case.
(And he can't get that even-tanned look on his face.)
But, I wanted socialized health insurance!
A guitarist friend of mine cut his left arm nearly completely off, and the doctors told him he'd never be able to play again. ... I told him to play anyway, and the guitar playing was actually a good therapy. He's not the guitarist he was before going throgh the plate glass window, but he's not all that bad, either.
And then there was Tony Iommi, a left-handed guitarist who lost the tips of some of his right-hand (fretting) fingers in an industrial accident at his day job. After trying unsuccessfully to play right-handed, he restrung his guitar with extra-light (banjo) strings, improvised prosthetic fingertips, and got good again.
Very good.
He went on to be a founder of Black Sabbath and is recognized as one of the two primary creators of the Heavy Metal style.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
-1 Troll?
Did you even look at the fucking Wiki?
...but the Gibson Les Paul has never really been my kind. I did play on one, for a while, and it is nice but not my favorite el. guitar. The Fender Telecaster's simplicity and directness suits me much more.
Rest in peace, Les Paul, and thank you for the music.
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
Who is Pete Townshend?
Yes.
Who is Pete Townshend?
Yes.
Pete Townshend is Yes?
No, Jon Anderson.
Who is Jon Anderson?
No, that's Pete Townshend.
Who?
Yes.
Ah-ha, I have it now..
No thats Morten Harket.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
A musician friend of mine told me to check out Les Paul, saying he did everything that Hendrix et al did before then. At first, I had trouble finding his CDs at the local music store until I discovered they were in the "Easy Listening" section. In spite of that (arguably accurate) classification, I have to agree with my friend. What an innovator!
His contribution to music is unprecedented. The products of his creativity have brought great joy and enlightenment to millions, if not billions, of people and have become iconic in humanity's body of work. I play a Les Paul. Thank you Les Paul.
All solid bodies are are descended from THE Les Paul.
Where will the next revolutionary sound come from? We can simulate nearly anything in software now, so what does that mean for the future of new instruments?
The next revolution will be nothing to do with raw sound, as we currently have the technology to create any sound to the nth degree of fidelity. The most important thing in musical performance is to inject expression into those sounds so that they resonate emotionally with the listener.
Quite how much potential is left in music technology to inject expression remains to be seen. The electric guitar, the grand piano, the human voice, a synth with many real-time controllers (like the Yamaha CS-80), a flute, French horn, pipe organ, etc. are all capable of transporting the listener into another domain in the hands of the right composer and musician.
You can let a non-musician have fun with music through Guitar Hero, Wii Music, etc. However, it's doubtful if any kind of cookie-cutter scenario can let non-musicians express emotions through music, or even if they have that internal vision in the first place, which they would love to realise through the medium of music.
Squirrel!
-1 Troll?
Did you even look at the fucking Wiki?
Apparently they did not.
"Be prepared, son. That's my motto. Be prepared." --Joe Hallenbeck
This is the first time in my (albeit short) lifespan that I've hoped and prayed (pardon the pun) that there's some kind of afterlife, just so that I can finally meet the guy who made my career a possibility. Les, R.I.P. may your influence never be forgotten.
"Don't meddle in the affairs of a patent dragon, for thou art tasty and good with ketchup." ~ohcrapitssteve