While health care reform and town hall riots are all the rage this week, we thought we’d take a time-out to remember Les Paul who passed away. Les Paul, the 98-year-old personification of the “guitar hero,” changed music forever with his Les Paul’s guitars and new spin on the guitarist.
Les Paul was the one man who took the guitar to the next level. Most of us don’t remember when the guitar wasn’t the main focal point of a band. Today, there is no band without a guitar. There’s no music without a guitar solo or backup. But it wasn’t always like that.
He said his efforts were toward one goal: to change the way people saw the guitar.
“I wanted people to hear me,” Les Paul told the publication Guitar Player in 2002. “That’s where the whole idea of a solid-body guitar came from. In the ’30s, the archtop electric was such an apologetic instrument. On the bandstand, it was so difficult battling with a drummer, the horns, and all the instruments that had so much power.
“With a solid-body, guitarists could get louder and express themselves,” Paul said. “Instead of being wimps, we’d become one of the most powerful people in the band. We could turn that mother up and do what we couldn’t do before.” (The Washington Post)
If it wasn’t for Les Paul, Slash, Eric Clapton and Joe Perry of Aerosmith might just as well be playing the banjo instead of their Les Pauls.
It’s almost impossible to think of a time when music wasn’t about how talented the guitarist was, it was about the horns and the voice. Maybe it should be more about the voice these days, but everyone loves the lead guitar, and the lead guitarist has Les Paul to thank for that.
As the original “guitar hero,” Les Paul worked tirelessly to bring the guitar to the front of the band. His first invention was laughed at, and it took many years of redesign to come to the guitar that we know today. He changed the way music was recorded as well, inventing many different ways to play different musical instruments and combine different tracks into one.
His version of “Lover” boasted him playing eight electric guitar parts, which he electronically wove into a single record. It was a sensation. (The Washington Post)
Les Paul played guitar live well into the 90’s when he had arthritis in most of his hand. Crowds would still gather every Friday night at Fat Tuesday’s in New York just to hear him play.
Paul died of pneumonia.
