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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.
I will absolutely second this. My dad is a huge Chet Atkins fan, and a fan of Les Paul as well. As a result, I grew up listening to them both. I got to see Chet play live several times, but never got to see Les. I heard all the old 10 inch (yes, I do mean 10 inch) Les and Mary records, and it was the first time I considered the significance of multi track recording.
As a kid, my favorite story about Les Paul was the one briefly alluded to here. Apparently, Les broke his arm badly (shattered would be a better description). So, he had the doctor set his arm in a bent position so that he could still play the guitar since it would never really be mobile again. That is a true guitar player.
Thank you, Les, for everything. We will rock on in your honor.
Townsend also played/smashed a lot of Fender Stratocasters.
If there's any rock artist closely associated with the Les Paul, it's Jimmy Page. He played the occasional Telecaster on some album tracks, but almost never played live with anything other than an LP.
Which is kind of a silly thing to bring up when talking about the inventions of Les Paul anyway. His total contribution to that design consists of a tailpiece (which they ended up not using), and his signature. Everything else about the guitar was designed by other people.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
Not always .
This has always been one of my favorite pics of Pete.."This Guitar Has Seconds To Live"
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........